Caucasians are apparently in high-demand to perform Christian-style wedding ceremonies in Japan. The key word here is “perform” since being an actual priest isn’t really necessary for the job.
Christian-nuptial fad calls on fake pastors
In a country where Christians account for just 0.8 percent of the population, the huge prevalence of Christian-style weddings can only be explained as vogue. This has led to especially high demand for Caucasians to perform the rites, leading many noncleric foreigners to work as “part-time pastors” or “weekend pastors.”
“It is of course not a religious experience that people seek in a Christian-style wedding, but to make a fashion statement,” said a spokeswoman for a Tokyo-based wedding service company that dispatches nonclergy foreigners to hotels and wedding halls to perform nuptials.
Last fall in Tokyo, I met an actor from New York who was in Japan for three months performing sappy love songs at western-style weddings. Here in Nagano, there’s a little white steeple church down by the river that’s used exclusively as a wedding chapel. Some might call this religiously offensive. I’d be more of the mind to call it just-desserts for a relentlessly proselytizing religion. They tried to sell Jesus and salvation, but all the locals bought was the fabulous wedding ceremony.
Religiously offensive? Can’t see it. But then I’m originally from Las Vegas, the land of wedding chapels. Can Elvis impersonators be far behind?