The Evangelical Members within the Uniting Church in Australia (EMU) is a conservative lobby group within the Uniting Church (UCA). They were previously known as Evangelical Ministers of the UCA.
EMU espouses Evangelical views and is an example of the Confessing Movement. They are strongest in South Australia where Methodism was the strongest strand coming into the UCA. EMU has gained prominence as a result of their opposition to gay ordination in the lead up to the 1997 Assembly.
While gay ordination was the catalyst in forming this group, EMU had a broader charter than homosexuality. It was recognised that at the heart of many issues confronting EMU, the fundamental issue was one of Biblical authority. That is, what authority did the Bible have in the church? Was it an outdated book that was out of step with current cultural expectations, or was it, in fact, the Word of God to the church and the world?
The purpose of EMU was clearly stated from the beginning:
1. Encourage an evangelical contribution to the Uniting Church and
2. Provide support for evangelical ministers, members, congregations and groups within the Uniting Church.
Famous quotes containing the words evangelical, members, uniting, church and/or australia:
“Chastity is a monkish and evangelical superstition, a greater foe to natural temperance even than unintellectual sensuality.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“I have more in common with a Mexican man than with a white woman.... This opinion ... chagrins women who sincerely believe our female physiology unequivocally binds all women throughout the world, despite the compounded social prejudices that daily affect us all in different ways. Although women everywhere experience life differently from men everywhere, white women are members of a race that has proclaimed itself globally superior for hundreds of years.”
—Ana Castillo (b. 1953)
“We were hospitably entertained in Concord, New Hampshire, which we persisted in calling New Concord, as we had been wont, to distinguish it from our native town, from which we had been told that it was named and in part originally settled. This would have been the proper place to conclude our voyage, uniting Concord with Concord by these meandering rivers, but our boat was moored some miles below its port.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Combativeness was, I suppose, the dominant trait in my grandmother’s nature. An aggressive churchgoer, she was quite without Christian feeling; the mercy of the Lord Jesus had never entered her heart. Her piety was an act of war against Protestant ascendancy. ...The teachings of the Church did not interest her, except as they were a rebuke to others ...”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“It is very considerably smaller than Australia and British Somaliland put together. As things stand at present there is nothing much the Texans can do about this, and ... they are inclined to shy away from the subject in ordinary conversation, muttering defensively about the size of oranges.”
—Alex Atkinson, British humor writer. repr. In Present Laughter, ed. Alan Coren (1982)