The call from Presbyterian Church Moderator Ray Coster comes as all the country's biggest Protestant churches remain divided over how to respond to the legalisation of gay weddings, which comes into force on Monday.

A 75 per cent majority at the last Presbyterian General Assembly in October voted to uphold marriage as "the loving, faithful union of a man and a woman",

But the assembly did not pass another resolution that would have prohibited ministers from marrying same-sex couples. That motion failed by one vote to get the 60 per cent majority required to become church law.

Several ministers, including lesbian Presbyterian minister Margaret Mayman at Wellington's St Andrew's on the Terrace, are already taking bookings for gay weddings.

But the conservative Presbyterian Affirm movement is challenging a legal opinion by a church advisory committee that ministers can choose whether to perform a same-sex marriage.

Source

• The New Zealand Herald
• Image: Presbyterian.org.nz

He says they just expressed it in different ways.

He said while baby boomers and their children were the ones most likely not to belong to a church because they struggled with the institution of church and its formality, "They still have a sense of the unknown, the mystery, the wonder of life. They may still have a sense there may well be a God, or not know what it is but a power greater than us."

He says he understands the public's scepticism of religion and its leaders because of inappropriate conduct and behaviour across denominations.

"There is no excuse, every leader who preaches the Bible needs to adhere to the Bible."

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• Image: Sunlive.co.nz