One of the most conservative sections of a major Australian church, the Sydney/South Sydney diocese of the Anglican Church has raised controversy (once again) by denying it's new wedding vows are sexist. Other dioceses of the Australian branch of the Church of England (headed by the Queen of England!) have managed very ably with women priests & even Bishops or Arch Bishops for years, but this branch stays back in the olden days.


Anglican Church denies new wedding vows are sexist
The Anglican Church says new wedding vows which involve a woman pledging to 'submit' to her husband are not sexist.

Introduced as an alternative to the traditional vows that use the word 'obey', the new promises were written by the liturgical panel of the church's Sydney diocese.

The Bishop of south Sydney, Robert Forsyth, is on that panel and says the choice of the word 'submit' is based on the New Testament which talks about the church submitting to Christ.

"I can see why, if you just came upon this, not having read the New Testament about Christ loving the church, the church responding to him, it would look rather odd, just like the word 'obey' would look rather odd," he said.

"But to understand this you must locate it in its context of the New Testament's deep understanding about man and woman and Christ and his church.

Bishop Forsyth says some couples getting married in the church like having separate vows for men and women.

He says a different version was released last year, but the wording was not popular with parishioners.

"We're happy with this version, where the husband promised to serve his wife, to love his wife, and to protect her and she promises to love and serve and to submit," he said.

"The goal is we want men to give leadership in loving and protecting their wives and women respond to that."

sandra (not responding very well to this new? idea)