Faith Digest: Secularists want weddings too

Secularists seek nonreligious wedding celebrants. With the rise of the “nones”—the 20 percent of Americans without a religious affiliation—more couples are looking for wedding celebrants who don’t mind skipping God’s blessing of the ceremony altogether. More national atheist and humanist agencies such as the Humanist Society and the Center for Inquiry are developing ordaining programs to establish nontheist ministers in most states to perform weddings and funerals. The Humanist Society lists 138 ordained celebrants, and the Center for Inquiry—which began its certification program in 2009—has 23 celebrants.

Canadians growing cold toward organized religion. A new study shows while more than two-thirds of Canadians—22 million people— claim affiliation with a Christian denomination, their countrymen are turning their backs on organized religion in ever-greater numbers. One in four Canadians—7.8 million people—reported they had no religious affiliation. That was up sharply from 16.5 percent in the 2001 census, and 12 percent in 1991. The Canadian study showed slightly more than 7 percent of the country was Muslim, Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist, an increase from 5 percent a decade earlier.  Both Christians and Jews declined as a share of the population.

Scottish Presbyterians OK gay ministers. The Church of Scotland’s General Assembly voted to allow actively gay men and lesbians to become ordained ministers. After more than six hours of debate, more than 700 commissioners attending the Presbyterian church’s 2013 General Assembly in Edinburgh voted in favor of gay ministers, but in a mind toward compromise agreed to allow parishes that disagree to opt out of the new rules. The decision now will need to be endorsed by the church’s 48 regional presbyteries and, if it survives the regional ratification, will become official at next year’s General Assembly.