Sydney's Anglican Church has been criticised after changing the marriage ceremony to include a vow by the wife to "submit" to her husband – a pledge likened by critics to "reading Fifty Shades of Grey".
We began the day with no paper and no Internet but the Interent did start working and this is the first thing I read in the Telegraph. I think this story will go viral and this church completely ridiculed in the process. Couldn't think of a better result.And makes me feel even happier about the great windfall local Victoria Anglican St. Matthias Church recently received. The story there is a parishioner recognized they had two chairs from the Qing Dynasty worth about 1/4 of a million dollars and they are going to auction. I'm not a religious person myself but my parents-in-law were members of that church and were treated very kindly. At that time the church was a going concern but now is impoverished and has only 30 members mainly because it remains liberal thinking and the hard line conservatives have left. There is some justice in the world after all.
From the media:
"Now, a church, which has struggled to survive since a damaging schism over same-sex marriage in 2009, is poised for a potential windfall when the chairs are auctioned next month in New York, where Sotheby’s expects the matching set to fetch as much as a quarter of a million dollars at a Sept. 11 sale of Chinese ceramics and works of art.
“It’s a remarkable discovery — such a fantastic turn of events,” Arril told Postmedia News. “It’s very significant for us as a struggling congregation, very meaningful. It will allow us to carry on the work we do.”
St. Matthias’s armchair miracle has unfolded in the wake extreme financial hardship that followed the 2009 exodus of its longtime clerical team and about 95 per cent of its former congregation. Upset over the Anglican Church of Canada’s formal embrace of same-sex marriage blessings, it followed a number of other B.C. parishes in joining a conservative offshoot called the Anglican Network in Canada."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9517680/Sydneys-Anglican-Church-introduces-submit-wedding-vows-after-Fifty-Shades-of-Grey.html
