Australia: Anglicans reverse earlier call on non-Christian marriages

Anglicans reverse earlier call on non-Christian marriages
Barney Zwartz
September 22, 2010

A MOVE to make it easier for non-Christians to get married in an Anglican church failed yesterday when the clergy at the General Synod reversed their vote from Monday and rejected it.

The synod (national church parliament) voted down a proposal that the church abandon its requirement that at least one partner be already baptised.

Liberals and evangelicals agreed at the synod at Melbourne Grammar that a church wedding provided an opportunity of contact with people who now knew little of church. Opponents, mostly from the church's Catholic wing, argued Christian marriage is a sacrament of the church intended for its members. the rest