Uniting

This could be an excuse to talk more about the election.

Instead I will just reflect on the Uniting Church of Australia. I have always been gently impressed with this concept, because it was formed of Methodists, Presbyterians and Congregationalists in 1977 when they realised that there were only about 15 of them in each church, and if they got together they would be closer in size to the Australian Anglicans (54 people) and the Australian Catholics (69 people).

I imagine these figures are wrong, but Australians have never struck me as particularly religious. Though they have frequently just struck me.

I don't know much about ecumenicism, but I suspect that getting Methodists and Congregationalists to merge is fairly tricky*, otherwise they wouldn't have been separate churches in the first place.

But my favourite fact is that the members of the church who oppose the ordination of gay and lesbians formed a group called Evangelical Members of the Uniting church. Otherwise known as EMU.

It's fairly sad to be homophobic. It's even sadder to desperately shoe-horn the name of your reactionary movement into an Australian animal.

They should have called themselves the Knob-ends And Nincompoops Gagging At Respect for Other Ones, or something.

Or just cunts.

* hmm. This merger business could catch on.

entry for May 8