A full 62 percent of pastors with at least a master’s degree will marry cohabitating couples while only 52 percent of those with a bachelor’s degree or less will perform weddings for couples living together before marriage

American Protestant pastors have widely varying standards for when they will and will not perform wedding ceremonies, according to a new survey by LifeWay Research.

The survey of 1,000 randomly selected Protestant pastors found that a majority (58 percent) will perform weddings for couples they know are living together. Nearly a third (31 percent) will not, and 10 percent are not sure.

The survey’s results, published in the summer edition of LifeWay’s Facts and Trends magazine, also found that only five percent of pastors will not perform a marriage ceremony if the bride or groom has been divorced. The majority (61 percent) will perform a ceremony for a divorced person “depending on the reason for the divorce” while 31 percent will perform a ceremony for a divorced person “regardless of the reason for the divorce.”

“Marriage is a much-debated topic today and we wanted to see how Protestant pastors handled marriage requests,” said Scott McConnell, director of LifeWay Research. “Like the churches they serve, their standards for whom they will perform marriages vary greatly.”

When it comes to cohabitating couples, pastors who consider themselves mainline are more likely to perform weddings then those who consider themselves evangelical.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The source for this document was originally published on Baptist Press—however, the link (URL) to the original article is unavailable and has been removed.]