About Me

William Emilsen is the founding editor of Uniting Church Studies, a journal committed to the scholarly study of the Uniting Church in Australia. He is a Principal Researcher in the Charles Sturt University Pacific and Contextual (PACT) Research Centre and coordinates PACT’s focus group on ‘Religion and Society’. William is also the Doctor of Ministry coordinator at Charles Sturt University.  He is secretary of the Journal of Religious History Association and chairperson of the Uniting Church’s Historical Reference Committee. He has had a long-term interest in the life and thought of Mahatma Gandhi and in the history of the Uniting Church.

Teaching Areas

• Church History and World Religions
• Uniting Church Studies
• The Early Church
• The Reformations
• Christianity and Religious Pluralism
• Church History Methodology
• Research Methods

Current Research Activities

• History of the Uniting Church in Australia
• Islam in Australia
• Women in the Early Church
• Beachcombers in the Pacific
• Mahatma Gandhi
• Christian Spirituality

Publications

• (edited with Andrew Irvine) Remodelling God: A Thematic Introduction to Metaphorical Theology, Melbourne, Joint Board of Christian Education and Desbooks, 1983.
• Winter Harvest, Sydney, Australian and New Zealand Studies in Theology and Religion, 1987.
• Violence and Atonement: The Missionary Experiences of Mohandas Gandhi, Samuel Stokes and Verrier Elwin in India before 1935, Frankfort am Main, Peter Lang, 1994.
• The India of My Dreams: Samuel Stokes's Challenge to Christian Mission, Delhi, ISPCK, 1995.
• (edited with Susan Emilsen) Cannibal Jack. The New Zealand Journal of William Diaper 1846–1847, Orewa, N.Z., Colcom Press, 1996.
• (with Susan Emilsen) O'Connor: Exploring the History of a Uniting Church Congregation, Sydney, UTC Publications, 1997.
• (edited, with  Susan Emilsen), Marking Twenty Years. The Uniting Church in Australia 1977–1997, Sydney, UTC Publications, 1997.
• The Goldfields Journal of William Diaper, Perth, Hesperian Press, 1999.
• (edited with Susan Emilsen) Mapping the Landscape: Essays In Australian and New Zealand Christianity, New York< Peter Lang, 2000.
• Prayers of the Early Church, North Parramatta, UTC, 2000.
• Gandhi's Bible, Delhi, ISPCK, 2001.
• (edited with John T. Squires) Prayer and Thanksgiving: Essays in Honour of Rev. Dr Graham Hughes, Sydney, UTC Publications, 2003.
• (edited with Susan Emilsen) The Uniting Church in Australia: The First 25 Years, Armadale, Vic., circa, 2003.

• ‘Remodelling faith: Models of God and the maturing of faith’, in Remodelling God: A Thematic Introduction to Metaphorical Theology, Melbourne, Joint Board of Christian Education and Desbooks, 1983, ch. 9.
• ‘The Great Gulf Fixed’: Samuel Stokes and the Brotherhood of the Imitation of Jesus’. in Religious Traditions in South Asia. Interaction and Change, (ed.) Geoffrey A. Oddie, Richmond, Surrey, Curzon, 1998, pp. 91–106.
• ‘The Origins of the Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress’, in Mapping the Landscape: Essays in Australian and New Zealand Christianity (Festschrift for Professor Ian Breward), New York, Peter Lang 2000, pp. 62–86.
• ‘Gandhi and “Lead, Kindly Light”’, in This Immense Panorama. Studies in Honour of Eric J. Sharpe, (eds) Carole M. Cusack and Peter Oldmeadow, (Sydney Studies in Religion 2), The University of Sydney, School of Studies in Religion, 1999, pp. 227–237.
• ‘An American in India: Samuel Stokes’s Conversion in Reverse’, in The World of Religions: Essays on Historical and Contemporary Issues, edited by Garry W. Trompf and Gildas Hamel, Delhi, ISPCK, 2002, pp. 226–247.
• ‘Introductory Interview with Graham Hughes’, in Prayer and Thanksgiving: Essays in Honour of Rev. Dr Graham Hughes, edited by William W. Emilsen and John T. Squires Sydney, UTC Publications, 2003.
• ‘The North’, in The Uniting Church in Australia: The First 25 Years, edited by William W. Emilsen and Susan Emilsen, Armadale, Vic., circa, 2003, ch. 3.
• ‘On Being Visible: Rollie Busch as a Public Theologian’, The Presidents of the Uniting Church, (forthcoming)

• 'The Idea of Beauty in the Old Testament', Binah, Vol. 1, No. 1, March 1977, pp. 1–18.
• 'Coleridge's Distinctive Contribution to Religious Thought, with particular reference to his influence on John Henry Newman', Binah, Vol. 2, No. 1, March 1980, pp. 39–53.
• 'Ministry to Tertiary Students', Ministry, No. 8, March 1982, pp. 31–35.
• 'Let all Mortal Flesh...' [a study of liturgical silence], Ministry, No. 19, December 1984, pp. 13–16.
• 'Vivekananda and the Theophists', Journal of Indian History, Vol. LXII, April 1984, pp. 199–216.
• 'Gandhi and Mayo's Mother India', South Asia, Vol. 10, No. 1, June 1987, pp. 69–82.
• 'The Experience of Resurrection', Ministry, No. 30, March 1988.
• 'The Frequency of the Lord's Supper in Calvin', The Gifts of God, Vol. 1, No. 2, September 1990, pp. 7–8.
• 'On Mayo, Athiyaman and Venkatchalapathy: A Rejoinder', South Asia, August 1990.
• 'The Great Gulf Fixed: Samuel Stokes and the Brotherhood of the Imitation', Indo–British Review, Vol. 19, No. 1, 1993, pp. 83–98.
• 'Wrestling the Serpent: Gandhi, Amritsar and the British Empire', Religion, Vol. 24, 1994, pp. 143–153.
• 'Lent in the Uniting Church', The Gifts of God, Vol. 4, No. 3, March 1994, pp. 2–6.
• 'The Legacy of Jack Winslow', International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 21, No. 1, January 1997, pp. 26–30.
• 'Witnessing to the Gospel in the Twenty-first Century', St Mark's Review, No. 165, Autumn 1996, pp. 28–30.
• '"Testing the Spirit": A Brief History of O'Connor Uniting Church Parish', Uniting Church Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2, August 1996, pp. 8–36.
• 'Global Developments in Church History', Theological Education for Ministry in the 21st Century, Responding to Change, Ministerial Education Commission: Consultation of Theological Education, 9–13 July 1995, pp. 9.1–4.
• 'Don't Divide on the Sexuality Report: Reflections on Romans 14:1–12', Ministry, Summer 1996.
• 'Gandhi and "Lead, kindly Light"', Pacifica, Vol. 10, No. 1, February 1997.
• 'The Face of Christ', Ministry, Vol. 8, No. 3, Autumn 1998, pp. 8–9.
• 'A Uniting Church Canon', Insights, Vol. 8, No. 7, August 1998, pp. 14–16.
• 'The Gift of Tears', Eremos, No. 65, November 1998, pp. 6–9.
• ‘Does Hospitality begin at Home?’ Journal for Case Teaching, No. 10, Fall 1999, pp. 93–96.
• ‘The Face of Christ: The Ministry of Deacons’, Expository Times, Vol. 110, No. 7, April 1999, pp. 216–217.
• ‘Gandhi, Scripture and the Bible’, Pacifica, Vol. 14, February 2001, pp. 71–86.
• Gandhi and The Greatest Thing in the World’’, Eremos, August 2001, No. 76, pp. 22–­24.
• ‘Gandhi and The Greatest Thing in the World’’, Expository Times, Vol. 113, No. 4, January 2002, pp. 118–119.
• ‘Introductory Interview with Graham Hughes’, in Prayer and Thanksgiving: Essays in Honour of Rrev. Dr Graham Hughes, North Parramatta, UTC Publication, 2003.
• ‘Uniting Church Studies: the First Ten Years’, Uniting Church Studies, Vol. 10, No. 2, August 2004, pp. 1-10.
• ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place: A Case Study in Reconciliation’, Uniting Church Studies Vol. 10, No. 2, August 2004.
  

• ‘The Passio of Perpetua in the Christian Life’, ACU National Prayer and Spirituality in the Early Church IV, 6-9 July 2005.