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I believe that death is nothing more than a lapse of membry from one life to the next. I believe that Jesus Christ was a human being just like me and you with a little advanced knowledge. He was the Son of Man, git me?"
Hensley's clergy need not get him at all. He requires no one to subscribe to his own eclectic creed because "every man has ideals of his own. We will ordain anybody without a question to their faith, religion, race, creed or anything." He does it, moreover, for no fee at all, although he gratefully accepts any "love offerings" that come along. So far he estimates that the venture has cost him some $10,000, but he is on his way to getting some of it back. Recently he started awarding doctor of divinity degrees for $20, each degree accompanied by a ten-lesson crash course on how to be a preacher. Sample instruction (on outdoor baptisms): "The minister should be prepared with a large, folded handkerchief to place over the nose and mouth of the candidate as he lowers him into the water."
The Silver Chalice. Hensley grinds out his degrees from a garage in Modesto with the help of a few teen-age assistants. One of them is David Perry, 18, who got one of Hensley's instant ordinations in the hopes that it could keep him out of the Army. Several California students had the same idea, but the few who have tried for a clerical exemption have been turned down by draft boards probably on the ground that they do not have regular congregations. Some candidates, though, do have genuine plans to set up a church of their own. Among those who journeyed out to Hensley's ramshackle home last week to pick up their degrees in person were a grey-haired mother and her two long-haired teen-age sons, members of a religious-rock group called the Silver Chalice. They plan to start a church in the California hamlet of Ben Lomond to preach the Second Coming of Jesus and the need to stay off drugs.
Like any other ministers, Hensley's or-dinees can get nonprofit and tax-exempt status if they go through the local procedures required: incorporation, a charter, an appearance before a local tax board. So far, California state officials have not challenged the validity of Hensley's ordinations, but late last week they filed misdemeanor charges against him for illegally dispensing his doctorates. Apart from that, the major problem seems to be one that few churches in history have ever had to face. When every man is a preacher, where does he find a congregation?