There are various permutations of Wedding Company but they are united in their preference to employ Western men to preside at Wedding Ceremonies. The actual event has ceremonial significance but is not the legal binding of marriage which is an unrelated, wholly civil matter. The main types of agency are as follows:
1. Those which have no motivation to propagate Christianity and see the ‘priest’ as an actor who may be of any or no religious affiliation and have little or no religious knowledge.
2. Those which employ a mixture of Christians and those with ‘a background in Christianity’ who are prepared to be part of the employer's ‘pre-evangelism’ agenda.
3. Those which exclusively recruit evangelical Christians. These agencies have evangelism as a motive and see the popularity of the wedding chapel experience as an opportunity to spread the Gospel of Christ. These outfits commonly offer follow-up pastoral care for couples and an invitation to the services of the local church.
In the cases of points one and two above, there is a tendency to shun the notion that the operatives are ‘fake’. This is evidenced by the practice of some of the larger businesses which provide short in-house Theological training courses for their staff. This enables the agency to declare to clients and potential clients that their celebrants are ‘priests in training’.
Japanese law requires Christian-style Wedding Celebrants to possess an appropriate visa. A Visa for Religious Activities or a Spouse of Japanese Visa renders the applicant eligible for such employment. In that a holder of a Visa for Religious Activities is likely to secure work with a type 3 company, the labour pool for the other types of business are primarily holders of a Spouse of Japanese Visa. No comment is made here in regard to unscrupulous businesses which flout the visa regulations. An applicant can potentially receive an extension of activities on a Humanities Visa which would also legally enable them to function as a Wedding Celebrant but the process requires an employer’s contract, ‘religious documentation’ legitimizing their involvement in such a capacity and possibly other additional documentation.
No working visa except a religious visa allows foreigners to receive regular payment for conducting wedding services. [Japanese Immigration Bureau]--------------
Are there any other types of agency not mentioned here?
Why did the law change to bring in the Religious Activities Visa for this kind of work?
How can a client know what type of agency they are dealing with?
4 comments:
I personally know of an ordained minister who has been conducting weddings in the Tokyo area for nearly ten years. He does this to raise money for his church: The Family International (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_god). He also does it because he rather likes the young girl singers at the weddings and is a self-confessed pedophile.
Other TFI missionaries conduct weddings (http://www.kt70.com/~jamesjpn/index.shtml) as do missionaries from other cults.
For the more regular Catholic and Protestant churches in the West, there is an established history of 'not in my back yard' attitude where priests are banished to foreign lands after suspicion, founded or otherwise, of sexual abuse.
Give me a fake priest anytime!
The Apostle Paul said 'I am the worst of sinners'; still, I personally wouldn't have hesitated to have him preside at my wedding.
Your point about cults is interesting. In that many Japanese cannot adequately explain the difference between Catholic and Protestant --- how could they possibly weave their way through the chaos of the cults?
You say 'Give me a fake priest anytime!' -- are they any less susceptible to sexual deviancy?...
You picked up my point about cults. Many people in the West, even though in a Christian culture, can be sucked in by cults. (I am from the West, had a normal and sound Christian upbringing, yet unknowingly got sucked in by a cult in my early 20s. The effort it took to escape was enormous. Believe me - cults are dangerous!) So Japanese with a thinner Christian exposure are at a greater risk from these people who are expertly trained to attract new members. A cult missionary (with sinister intentions) is much more dangerous than any fake priest (with no intentions).
Are fake priests any less susceptible to sexual deviancy? Probably. You point out in your blog that many wedding celebrants work on spouse visas, i.e. married. Child molesters have a preference for children rather than adult partners. Consequently they are usually not interested in marriage and are ideal candidates for the priesthood. The Church has swept this under the rug for too long and now seems to be taking steps to rectify things (for example: allowing men already married to become priests). But there's still a question mark over many priests out there - especially in foreign lands.
So yes, give me a fake priest any time. I would feel much more inclined to trust one.
Yes, I think 'trust' is the operative word here. In that most clients are unlikely to have even met the celebrant before the actual wedding celebration, their trust is wholly in the hands of the agency.
You will read comments made by people in the industry on this site which show how convoluted this unregulated business really is.
Who can we trust except the Lord?
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