The Modesto Messiah

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Story by Richard Roller – Screenplay by Richard Roller & Greg Bell.

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Just to name of a few of the famous ordained Universal Life Church (ULC) ministers are the Rebel Reverend Tom Hanks, Jimmy Kimmel, Jeff Probst, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Barbara Streisand, Dwayne Johnson (aka ‘the Rock’), Courtney Love, Norman Lear and even the former head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover.

 

Kirby, an illiterate former hell-fire-and-brimstone Baptist minister, is challenged by the mainstream religions, local tax collectors and the IRS.  They all claimed that the Universal Life Church was not a legitimate religion.

 

The battle went all the way up to the California Supreme Court, ultimately ruling, “The government cannot determine what constitutes a valid religion for if it were to do so, it would violate the 1st Amendment, guaranteeing religious freedom.”