-: Jeanyne thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed.
If you could just say your full name and also spell it.
-: Okay, Jeanyne Bezoier Slettom.
J-E-A-N-Y-N-E,
B-E-Z-O-I-E-R,
Slettom, S-L-E-T-T-O-M.
And I mostly go by Jeanyne B Slettom.
-: Great.
And I'm glad you spelled it, thank you.
(laughing)
-: Yeah, all of those.
-: And I know this is, are you layer clergy?
Explain your answer to that question.
(laughs)
-: I am clergy now, but at the time of the first
Re-imagining conference I was a seminary student.
And so it was a really, felt like it was an important part
of what I was in seminary for.
And ultimately I become ordained.
-: So where were you in seminary?
-: United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities.
-: Wonderful.
-: And what denomination are you associated with?
-: UCC.
-: UCC, wonderful, thank you!
Do you want to talk about college, any other schooling
that you have?
-: Sure.
I had gotten away from, after I graduated from high school,
I started college, but dropped out fairly quickly
and then took a long time getting back to it.
So I didn't graduate from Macalester College until 1985.
And at the same time I had started taking classes at United
so then I graduated with an M-div.
My undergraduate focus was humanities and then
I went and did the M-div at United and it felt like
a lovely progression humanities, divinity.
And then I went to Claremont Graduate University
and got my PhD there.
-: Wonderful, very interesting.
So you were in seminary at the time of Re-imagining.
Could you say a little bit about what work or ministry
you did after Re-imagining.
-: Sure.
When I finished my degree, I went to California to do,
my M-div, I went to California to do the PhD.
And while I was there I found a church in Brea,
which is in north Orange County that was also a process
church, I was studying processiology by that time.
And so I came back to Minnesota to be ordained
by my home church, then went back to California
and served as initially a part time,
and then a co-pastor of Brea Church.
And then a Brea congregational UCC.
At the same time I was an adjunct teacher
at Clermont School of Theology.
And then I came, and running a program called
Process and Faith, which is the theological
or church related
program of the Center for Process Studies.
Those kinds of things.
So that was also very much church and liturgical related
because we are an organization that was trying
to appeal to churches and give them ways of incorporating
process theology into church life, faith practices.
So very much in terms of preaching
and biblical interpretation and liturgical study and use
and pastoral care.
I mean it was pretty broadly braced
across the ministry arts.
And I was also studying my PhD.
My Dr. Mutter was Marjorie Sue Hockey,
who did, process theologian, feminist theologian.
And wonderful, did a number of really fine things
on the nature of God and how it worked in a feminist setting
and then brought that into
her process understanding as well.
So pretty key stuff.
-: Yes.
-: And then when I came back to Minnesota more recently
I was the temporary associate pastor
at Macalester Plymouth United Church.
And I am now just
publisher and editor of Process Century Press.
-: Yes.
Wonderful, thank you!
-: That's a lot.
-: That is a lot!
Very fascinating.
Do you remember how and when you first became aware
of feminist theology?
-: In the late '80s
before I went to seminary.
Because I,
I remember that issue of Ms. Magazine that was
tucked inside the pages of whichever it was,
Atlantic or Harper's or New York Magazine.
I don't remember which, but it was the first Ms. Magazine,
but it was in insert in one of those.
-: Oh really?
-: I think that was 1968.
-: Ah.
-: So feminism was a huge part of
where I was going with my studies.
And as I said, I went back to school later on.
Which took a long time because then I was also working
and so I was just doing it part time for a number of years.
But I was working with feminist themes
in a number of fields.
The classes that I took and what I brought it to,
I was taking classes in music and in
a lot in history.
Those were the areas where I was wanting to know more.
So then you get into the '80s and there's
more and more and more.
-: Let me just address, those were classes at Macalester?
-: Macalester College, yeah.
-: Okay got it, yeah.
-: But at the same time you're, I was reading
these early feminist writers.
Some of them came from a faith background
and they were struggling with how to go forward,
whether or not they even could.
And so there were those who left,
who just said, I can't do this.
Now I myself was away from the church at that time.
I was,
-: Really?
-: I was
confirmed at 14 or something like that and didn't
go back to church until I was 35 years old.
So part of that had to do with I started schooling
again in '84 I think it was and
my whole interest in feminist studies.
I have a whole bunch of books from that era, those people.
And really interested in the people who were
struggling with that question, is it even possible to be,
to be a Christian, but also who is the person who was doing
Jewish studies whose name I,
-: Judith Plaskow?
-: yeah, Judith Plaskow.
And Shulameth somebody?
I've forgotten.
But Judith Plaskow and, so that the question was out there
and since I was
circling around that issue myself.
I was really interested to see how they would
work with the nature of God since my understanding
of Christianity of the way I had grew up
in a Lutheran setting was just totally male dominated.
-: So what got you back to church?
-: That's a longer story.
-: Okay
(laughs)
-: But if you want it I can give it to you.
-: Well, sure, yes.
-: I'll try to truncate it
-: Yeah.
-: because part of it was
I was very much immersed in Julian psychology.
And I was using Julian categories for an awful lot
of the way I was approaching the world.
But I also reached, even though he was the more
spiritual of that Parian, of the Freudian,
I still felt as though I was hitting a,
I described it as I was living in Julian house.
And I could get so high and I had a feeling
that there was a false ceiling and that there
was something yet, another floor above that.
But Julian psychology would only take me to that one place.
And it, but I, you know like this is the top.
But I kept on feeling this is a false ceiling
there is something else there.
And so that's, then other things converged
and I started going to Macalester Theolonious Church,
which I lived across the street from
that church for 33 years.
-: Oh, really?
-: Yeah.
(laughter)
-: Yeah.
So I had friends there and one day I just walked
across the street and, or through
the Janet Wallace Fine Arts Building
parking lot and went to church.
And that was then a continuation of that struggle
to understand what is the nature of God?
What did I really think about this person Jesus
and how did that fit with the things that I was thinking
in terms of feminist theology, feminism at large
and where I was at in my own faith journey.
-: So that was breaking through the false ceiling
when you did that?
-: Yup.
And then I went to seminary.
So it took me
to that other place.
-: What a fascinating journey!
-: Yes!
-: It has been.
-: Wow, really interesting!
-: Yeah.
-: But feminism is woven all through that.
-: Do you want to say just a little bit about that?
-: I was in that generation that had been completely
socialized by a patriarchy.
I was born in 1950.
-: And where were you born, I forgot to ask you?
-: In Minnesota.
-: In Minnesota, yes.
-: So I was born in 1950.
-: Right.
-: All of my '50s, you know, all of my young childhood
and also then just coming up to
through my teenage years very much
part of
immersed in a patriarchal socialization understanding.
So when you start to struggle against that
it felt as though the process that I was going through
was happening in the larger field around me.
With feminist scholars and people who were,
who were starting to do that work of
examining patriarchal
things and symbols and imagery.
And starting to work in a feminist vein.
So at the same time that that was happening culturally
it was happening to me personally.
So I looked around and I thought, here are all of these
people who are doing it.
And reading them
helped me continue on in my own
shaking off those shackles.
The line I keep remembering is
and I don't even remember who said it first,
but the
problem,
When you're immersed in a patriarchal mindset
you are participating in your own oppression.
So it was breaking free from that.
And then Sarah Evans books, The Personal Is Political,
and you know there was just so many ground breaking books
that were being published at the exact time
that I was happening also.
It was powerful and wonderful.
I'm so grateful to those people.
And I still have all their books.
-: Oh, I love it, that's great, wow.
That is really great.
Let's move to Re-imagining that is important background
it really is,
-: Oh, okay.
-: setting up for that.
So first of all what led you to go to the '93 gathering?
-: So I was a seminary student, oh actually you know what?
I wasn't in seminary yet!
-: Oh really?
-: My husband was!
-: Oh funny, really?
-: Okay, my husband John
was in seminary and he was there with Mary Kay Souder.
-: Oh really, okay.
-: And Mary Kay stopped John at one point in the afternoon.
'Cause she knew me, she knew that seminary
was something that I wanted to do.
And maybe I might have been taking one or two classes,
by that time I don't know.
I took some classes not for credit that I was convinced
I would come back later, pay for them and get the grade.
That was all worked out with the Wilson Yates
and he was fine with that.
But Mary Kay stopped John and said this is happening,
you have to tell Jeanyne, she has to go.
So it was Mary Kay.
-: Wow.
-: And I thought well, okay.
And I didn't even know her that well at that point.
-: Really?
-: Not really, no, uh-uh.
I was so impressed that she would say, this is something
she needs to do, that I did it!
(laughs)
-: I just signed up.
So it was on that basis it was a comment that she made
to my husband, he came back and repeated it to me
and I thought, well okay I guess I better check this out.
So I did.
-: I love it.
I'll have to make sure that Mary Kay knows this.
I don't know if she remembers that or not, she might.
-: I think she might, but I don't know.
-: Yeah, yeah.
So you went to the conference.
Please tell me what that experience was like for you.
-: It was
amazing and wonderful.
There are so many things that come to mind for me.
One of the things we'll say at the talking table.
So you're assigned to a table.
And I get there and there are these interesting
women sitting around, one of them has a baby
that's she's pushing back and forth in a stroller.
And so going around introducing ourselves to each other,
it turns out that all of them were lesbians.
-: Really?
(laughing)
-: Except me.
(laughing)
And at one point, you know, at some point the next day
I realized that, they confessed that they'd
been a little worried for me.
They were concerned that I might be overwhelmed
but of course I wasn't.
But it was powerful because of the people,
because of their stories.
So it also then, in terms of breaking through stereotypes,
broke through any stereotypes I might have had
about lesbianism because they were all such different women.
And the way they came to it was so different
and the way they understood each other was so different
and how they understood themselves.
And how they understood themselves in relation to
sexuality and gender was just huge.
So that was fun.
-: Different from each other, is that what you're saying?
-: Yes, yes.
-: So the diversity around the table,
it might have sounded like it was all the same
they were all lesbians,
but the diversity around the table was extraordinary.
And so I appreciated that.
And then some of the things that I remember,
I remember the plexiglass,
-: Podium?
-: Podium,
and the quarter turns that kept happening
they were so important
because it was so non-hierarchical.
(laughs)
-: Yes, yes.
(laughs)
-: Logistically this had been thought through.
We sat at round tables and we sat in the round
and it was, and the speakers were in the round.
And I think it's the only time I've ever seen that
in that kind of setting.
So it was powerful.
And I remember the speakers very well.
I remember that's the first time I heard Quoc Pulan.
And as a result of that
I've paid attention to her ever since.
-: Really?
-: I think I had heard of Rita Nakashima Brock
but her story was so important that that
obviously the process connection too.
But I've kept up with her all of this time.
And an interesting thing based on the story that she
told about her background and how she found herself
and talked about how important her name is to her.
As the occasion has arisen as an editor
I have been able to correct writers who think
that they could just off handedly refer to her
as Rita Brock, as if that makes them more familiar with her.
And I'll always put Nakashima in there because
she said how important it was to her.
So things like that.
And I remember the sessions I went to.
There was one in particular, it's the funniest
thing to remember, but
(laughing)
Dolores Whims is wonderful.
I think it was Barbara Lundly, but I am not sure.
I've have some ongoing confusion about
who it actually was,
who did something on biblical interpretation.
And she was doing the story where Jesus does something,
and he turns around and writes something in the sand.
And she said, if we only knew,
what he had written.
(laughter)
-: Yes.
-: That has just stuck with me!
Because there is so much that we don't know
and so we project it, I mean it was just wonderful.
And I walked away from there with that whole sense of
what was Re-imagining about?
It was re-imagining Christianity as if women mattered.
And that was the most powerful take away I had.
re-imagining Christianity as if women mattered.
And if women matter, how does it matter
in terms of biblical interpretation?
How does it matter in terms of how we talk about
the nature of God?
How does it matter in terms of who we tell our stories
about who we are theologically and how we connect?
It was amazing.
At the time I thought there were only a handful of men,
but I understand later that there were more than I thought.
I don't remember the exact number, 70, 80
something around there.
-: Okay, yeah.
-: So I thought, I was surprised that there were,
I thought there were fewer than that,
but I was really glad they were there.
Well because one of them was a colleague
for Macalester Plymouth Church on Christianson.
-: Oh!
-: He was there.
-: And he is a man who
his social justice has been his calling.
He's ordained he's just stuck,
he has hued to that path.
So the fact that he was there,
he was there as a pro-feminist.
Not as one of the ones that was there to tear it down.
Of course I remember the sacrament at the end.
-: The milk and honey?
-: The milk and honey.
And it was powerful and I am
so glad I did that.
And it was,
it's almost like it's real,
like reworking the set as it was happening.
Like those images where
there's a theatrical set so you have all the,
-: And then maybe somebody comes in
and they change it all around.
But if you saw that in stop motion and fast forward,
you know, so that you could go through it quickly,
was like something coming apart and coming together again
at the same time just to experience that.
Because it was experiential, it wasn't just.
-: That's an interesting image, say some more about
what was coming apart, what was coming together.
Say some more about that, that's interesting.
-: Well, first of all the notion of blood sacrifice.
There's nothing in milk and honey that requires blood.
And milk is life giving and blood is life letting,
so to speak, you know?
So it was undoing that and it was
really bringing the Sophia element
of that story
of commemoration into the whole picture.
So it really was like watching in my own head,
watching things, and structures in my own head
come apart and collapse while,
and then new things being put up.
It felt fabulous, so I like that.
And I liked,
I can still remember the,
♪ Bless Sophia ♪
and there are many times since then I have
actually sung that to myself.
That's a wonderful.
-: And why do you sing it yourself?
What does it mean?
-: Well for one thing it centers me.
And then it's a way of putting myself
in a listening mode or an attentive mode,
in effect being process theology and hear
a process spirituality is opening yourself to the lure,
or the impulse, or the urging.
Not urging that's too strong.
But you now, the lure of God.
So it's the same kind of thing it's you
are opening yourself up and giving space
for hearing whatever comes or taking
and however it comes.
It's just a,
an invocation of sorts.
But it's the same thing about process
and the Sophia image that I think is so important.
Is it's not asking something from out there
to come into you.
It's not an exterior resource.
It's saying this is in me, wisdom is in all of us.
So it's recognizing the wisdom of Sophia
that flows through all of us.
And then you're saying, I want to open myself up to
what's in me and what may come to me
from the wisdom that's around me.
And that's very process-y as well.
Joy like that.
-: That's wonderful.
-: I always loved that.
I'm trying to think of other things.
Those are the main things.
Years later when I understood what John Cobb had done
with process philosophy that he had taken
process philosophy and put it into Christian categories.
I think what Re-imagining did was it took feminism
and put it into Christian categories.
And of course your understanding
of those categories changes completely.
Process does that, the nature of God.
Who is Jesus, what is this period, what is sin, what is?
You know all of those things
just are are reformulated.
As reformulations you can re-appropriate them
instead of losing them.
So I think Re-imagining came along at
probably a critical time when I was on the cusp
of deciding whether I would be on the side of saying,
feminism has entered me so deeply that I can't
make piece with Christianity, it makes no sense to me.
I can't deal with this patriarchal God.
Freud was right.
(laughing)
-: Yes.
-: All that stuff and then it gets put, then feminism,
Christianity gets put in feminist categories
and you start to understand things differently
about the nature of God, for example.
Not controlling, not a Father figure,
not forceful, not all authoritative,
not any of the omnis, not all powerful.
The only omni you keep is omnipresence
which I'm again I'm spilling over
into process theology, obviously.
I think the Re-imagining conference sort of
set the stage for where I went after that,
both in terms of my own feminist studies
and theological studies.
Theology pretty much absorbed then the straight feminist
stuff I wasn't reading as much of that.
But
from the sociological perspective,
more of the feminist and womanist and
(speaks a foreign language)
in a theological framework for reading in that sense.
It's pretty much set the stage
for all of my subsequent study.
-: That's amazing.
Did it have anything to do with you then
going to seminary after that?
How did that come about?
'Cause you said this was before.
-: I'm trying to remember that.
I think,
I think I already, I already knew I wanted to go.
-: Yeah, 'cause you had been taking some classes already.
-: Yeah, I think so, yes.
I had wanted to go.
-: Yes.
-: But I just hadn't managed it yet.
For one thing I was finishing degree at
Macalester.
-: Macalester.
-: So I think that was it.
-: Yeah.
You have a great memory, you've remembered
a lot of important things.
Let's talk about the backlash for a minute.
Were you directly affected
by the backlash?
-: No.
-: Okay.
-: No.
I was not, although I was aware of it
and disturbed by it.
And
not surprised in one sense, but surprised that
that it would go to such an extent
that people would lose their jobs.
Who was the woman who, the Presbyterian woman
who was fired?
-: Mary Ann Lundy.
-: Yes.
Who then subsequently went to Geneva?
-: Exactly.
(chuckles)
-: That was, Marjorie Sue Hockey has a phrase
that she Googled, God.
(laughing)
That transformative power.
So she has this awful experience,
very disruptive experience.
But
then transformed into something like this job in Geneva.
And that was a victory.
And I felt it very keenly, I don't know her.
And yet I was aware from afar of what was happening
as in broad strokes.
And so when she got the job in Geneva
it did feel like
a victory.
-: Yes.
How do you account for it looking back on it?
Why did that happen?
-: I think a lot of it had to do with the
communion sacrament at the end.
That there were people who were just so offended
that we wouldn't do blood.
And we would do milk.
You can't get milk out of Jesus.
You know, so where's Jesus
if you don't have blood?
Milk comes from the female of the species,
so how do you?
Which was a way of saying,
confronting the whole Sophia nature of Jesus as well.
Or I would say of,
it gets complicated because back then I wasn't making
such strong distinctions with understanding with
whether you use Jesus, whether you use Christ,
whether you use, how you?
I wasn't doing it at that time.
-: Sure.
-: I think that that was just offensive to people
and I think they felt
that
it was taking Jesus out of the Trinity,
which subsequently I've done anyway.
-: Yes, yeah, yeah.
-: And not to lessen the importance of Jesus,
but I don't think we need a divine
Jesus.
-: Yes, yeah.
-: So that veers off into other areas.
But Re-imagining in some ways has sort of like
opened up the doors that then just kept going
wider and wider and wider.
So it was a wonderful experience.
-: So that is great Jeanyne.
You mentioned that you went to a couple
of gatherings after that and we won't
worry about the dates or anything.
But just memories you have of those later conferences
that stand out.
-: I just remember being in the room
in the large
like dining hall of a hotel or something like that
and listening to people.
I remember, oh that's I think,
I am unsure maybe blending memories.
-: Sure.
-: But Carter Hayward was at one of them.
And she described
what it was like to be one of that original batch
of Episcopalian women that were ordained.
And she told this story and I'm pretty sure
that this is where I heard it.
She told a story of serving communion
and of somebody,
she's holding out the cup, somebody grasping for it.
And
dragging their nails across the back of her hand
so powerfully that it drew blood.
-: Wow.
-: That
has stayed with me.
-: Yes.
And this was an attack on her?
-: Yeah she was serving communion and someone took
that opportunity to scrape their fingernails against
the back of her hand so hard they drew blood, a man.
So it was expressing that
anger and rage.
And actually I want to back up for a minute
about the backlash.
-: Yeah.
-: I think it was male hysteria.
'Cause I've encountered male hysteria since then.
And they don't like to be considered hysterical,
but
I think that it was, that's what it was.
So in this case though it was rage.
That was a powerful story.
And then the other one that I was at
was at a different place.
I think that one might have been in St. Paul
and then the next one was in Minneapolis.
And the one thing that I've remembered
from that one was we were talking about Psalms
as a plannery, so lots of,
and talking about all the questions also,
not just Psalms.
Just talking about all, how many questions the bible asks
and does the person whoever it was asked us to just
call out some of the questions that we're
familiar with from biblical literature.
So
things came out,
one how long?
Definitely came out.
But there were so many stories, or so many questions.
It's like yeah!
Like the bible is full of questions
and people keep looking to it for answers.
And the questions so much are so important
to shaping where you go.
I remembered that was just interesting to hear.
These voices popping up from everywhere,
calling out the questions,
because it felt like
they weren't saying the questions
from the bible, reciting them.
They were
living them.
-: And I don't mean encroach on living the questions.
(laughing)
But you know what?
But it was kind of like that when people said
that the questions
and they sounded really personal.
It's like, this is my question,
or an oh, I happened to find it in the bible.
I can say that one.
And so that has stuck with me.
And then that was also the one where we heard that
Ezekrah Bean had been assassinated.
And it just,
just took the wind right out of every body.
Somebody came in they announced it and,
so we just held
silence for that
recognizing
what had happened
and what impact,
where it had,
it just put all of the problems out there again.
This is what we're up against, this is the world.
We're in our little enclave and it's wonderful,
but this is, we have to hold space for this.
And the silence lasted a long time.
It was a really powerful moment.
So you can Google when he died and find out
which one that was.
-: Yes, that's right!
That's right.
-: So those are my memories mostly from then.
And I also remembering wishing, oh the other thing,
I wished that I could
hear the speakers again.
So what you're doing is really important.
I just kept on saying, so much was going by me
I was trying to take notes.
And I have no idea where those notes are anymore.
But just to plow that field again.
-: Yeah.
-: I just really wanted to.
-: It's really important
-: Yeah it was like this stuff,
-: to get those voices back.
-: yeah, this stuff is so important
and I don't want to miss it.
-: Yeah, we definitely don't want to lose it.
And it's on cassette tape, so we need to,
we're digitizing them which you know.
-: Which I'm very glad of.
-: Yeah, it's really important.
Those are really powerful memories.
In the end, I think you already started
to move in this direction, but how would
you define Re-imagining?
What was Re-imagining?
-: Yeah I think I did say it's something.
It gathered up feminism as it had been unfolding
since the late '60s.
That second wave feminism.
From Bella Abzug on.
(laughing)
And Jermaine Greer and all these wonderful people.
And I think Ms. Magazine was that?
I'm just pretty sure that the first
magazine cover that I saw on the women's movement
was in like 1969.
That needs to be checked.
-: Sure.
-: But there it was.
So all of this, so I gathered up all of this stuff,
all of this feminist thought and ferment
that had been going on in so many different fields.
And then say, okay it's happening everywhere else
why don't we take it to the field that is
supposed to be immovable.
The field with all of the absolutes.
Which is part of why I think so many people
were trying to figure out if they could remain
in their faith traditions because of the absolutist
language that's always used.
The ahistorical and absolutist thought.
So it's like taking all of that
and putting it into then the lap of these
wonderful women
who organized it.
And then the speakers who,
who filled it out so well.
And said, it is possible to include Christianity in this
movement in this cultural, intellectual,
social movement that's happening all around us.
And theology is not, and church, is not somehow
off to the side it's part of this too.
And we can bring the whole thing into it
and we can make sense of everything
or make sense of both of them.
Faith, church and
feminism.
So it felt
it was really important.
It's like when people started doing
the really intensive text study of ancient text,
the Greek and
pieces, yeah they were looking into all that.
Then they realized that ancient literature
was something that you could take apart and look at it
in these different kinds of ways
and the philologist and all of that.
But the place you couldn't go was the bible
because that was by itself, that was sacred.
You couldn't apply those same methods to that book.
And then people like David Strauss did.
It was kind of like that.
All of this ferment was happening and feminism
was making in roads into all of these areas,
academic and social and it was doing all of that.
But there was this sense in which,
and there were people chipping away at theology,
but there was still this broader cultural sense
that theology of that church was
in some kind of bubble by itself.
And this conference for me just sort of blew it wide open
and said, no you can look at this institution
and it's doctrines.
The same way you look at everything else.
Just like you can look at the bible with the same tools
that are used for other hermeneutical
or philological research.
-: Yes, yeah, yeah and so that's one of the things
that was most significant for you it seems.
-: Mm-hmm.
-: Absolutely, yeah.
Well, I'm intrigued because you went on to do work
trying to bring feminists, I mean excuse me,
process theology into churches, right and into the worship
life and of course Re-imagining was trying to do that
with feminist theology.
There's an interesting parallel there.
As you look around, how much do you think that has happened?
Is inclusive language in feminist theology part
of Christian churches today or not?
-: Depends upon the church, depends upon the denomination.
I think that the UCC has gone pretty far in the direction
of that, but of course it's not uniformly that
way because of it's pollady.
Each individual church makes those kinds of decisions.
So you can find, I think you can find progressive
I mean progressive and feminists and LGBTQI,
you know, those it's almost like that's the Litmus test.
If they've passed that one you know that they've got
a progressive of
-: The LGBTQ is the Litmus test or what's the Litmus test?
-: Inclusive language and those two things.
It's like if the church is there, it's probably there.
So you can find progressive Christian churches
in the UCC, Presbyterian, Methodist,
certainly in the UUA and
American Baptist.
What am I leaving out, Episcopalians.
I think Catholics is interesting to see too, but
I don't know as much about that as I do about Protestantism.
Disciples.
So you can find it in all of the denominations
which means it's pretty dependent upon
the leaders that those churches have had
and what they've shared with their congregations
and then in part also the make-up of the congregations.
But I think of someone like Mary Kay, who was an interim
minister for so many years and people told her,
well process theology, you can't do process
in an interim setting, you just can't do it.
And she said nuts to that and she brought process
theology into every interim church that she served.
-: Did she?
This is Mary Kay Souder.
-: Mm-hmm, this is Mary Kay Souder.
So there are these little churches all over
Minnesota that have, that have congregations
that have a sustained
interest in process theology because she did it.
-: Interesting.
-: Yeah, and I think of things like
the hymnals.
Huge the UCC got into trouble for going too far.
It was held that they messed with the Christmas carols
and people lost their minds over that.
But I, as a person who picks hymns very carefully
and has picked them for Sundays for the last,
well not anymore, but for a long time.
I relied heavily on the UCC because
I could trust the language.
There are a lot of hymns that are really alike
and you look at the way they're done in different
hymnals and the language isn't
as firmly
feminist, but also getting rid of the thees and the thys
and the thines, because that kind of language
says this is something separate and apart, again.
As opposed to integrated into who and what we are.
I actually knew
of a minister
that in all of his sermons used thee and thou.
-: Wow.
-: Yeah, talk about saying this is
a set apart discourse,
you can't, you know it's just awful.
So anyway, you were asking a question
and I went off on another tangent.
-: Well it was an interesting tangent.
-: Yes.
-: Talking about what was,
-: Well bring me back.
-: well that was what aspects are most significant to you.
I'm curious could you say a little bit more
about how your involvement in Re-imagining
changed your perspective on feminist theology,
and on the church, and or the church?
-: Mostly and or the church.
-: Say some more about that.
-: Because it made church possible.
I know this story, I can't help it, about John Cobb,
when he,
when he went to University of Chicago
and he was a very pious young man.
And he thought he could take everything on.
So he went there and he said, you know,
give it your best shot, and he wanted all
of the arguments against religion and against
theism, and he wanted it all.
You know it's just like, I can stand up
to that, and within six months he had lost his faith.
-: Really.
-: Yeah, and then he took a class from Charles Heartshorn,
who taught Whitehead, and process.
And John said literally that
it made his faith possible again.
-: Wow.
-: And I think that that's the case for me
with feminist theology, and the platform on which
all of that stood was the Re-imagining conference.
So, it made church possible.
-: Wow.
-: And I wasn't sure if I wanted to serve a church
I thought I might just want to go into teaching.
Of course we all know how difficult that is.
-: Yes.
-: At the time it wasn't as, I told you
it took me a long time to do these things.
So,
but I served the church with pleasure
because of the congregations I served as well.
It was fertile ground.
The church in Brea, in California,
was served by a guy who had studied
with David Griffin at Claremont School of Theology,
so he'd been preaching process theology for years,
without ever naming it.
And I came along, we just started to name it.
And the members wanted to know more about it.
They took classes in it.
And they proudly self identify as a process church.
-: Is that right?
-: And they're very concerned about the language.
But for me process and feminism are so intertwined
I couldn't pull one out from the other.
And so the liturgy, any liturgy that I write,
and I write liturgies, 'cause I don't,
in the UCC you're not,
you don't have to follow a particular order.
Like, The Book Of Common Prayer or something.
So you can use resources out there,
or you can write your own.
Well I always wrote my own.
And they always would have a process sensitivity,
and a feminist sensitivity.
'Cause there's no way to do it otherwise.
So, they were all in there.
And having Marjorie Sue Hockey as a teacher
was really important in that regard too,
because they're so blended with her.
-: Exactly.
-: Really, blended, the work that she did
on the nature of God, was really important.
From a feminist prospective.
And she did some of that early work,
in the '70's.
Is that right?
I'm trying to remember, or was it the '80's?
But way back when.
And there was a conference
in Claremont on process and feminism,
and process, The Center for Process Studies,
publishes a journal called The Process Studies,
and all of these back issues are available.
Except for one issue.
It sold out and that's the issue on process and feminism.
-: Is that right?
I didn't know about that, that's wild.
-: They have a photocopy of that, but you can't find
the actual thing anymore.
And then there was
a conference and it led to a book.
A wonderful book.
That was edited by Sheila Devaney.
And Marjorie had a piece in there, Sheila Devaney,
and somebody else, but also,
oh dear me,
age, names.
Valerie Saving.
-: Oh right.
Okay yes.
-: And Valerie Saving was in that.
-: Oh really?
-: And of course she wrote that extraordinarily
important article.
-: On women and sin.
Yep, seminal.
-: Yes, one hesitates to use that word,
but it totally was.
And she was one of the conference people too.
-: Wow.
-: And so her work is in there.
It was really important stuff.
There's not a lot of difference, i have not tweaked out
differences between process and feminism
on the nature of God for example.
I'm sure that people can find nuances,
and there might be some really good arguments
to be mounted, but I haven't thought about them.
Because I haven't felt the need to.
Or I haven't felt I needed to justify to one side
or the other why they make sense together.
That's a better way of saying it.
That they make sense together.
And so those two things have informed
my entire clerical career.
-: Wow.
Could you say then, what do you think
is the greatest legacy of Re-imagining?
-: It was the impetus.
It was what pulled, when I was talking to you
about all of the stuff that was swirling around,
and it gathered it all together and said,
okay, now we're gonna do it from the perspective
of the church, and you can't tell us that
we can't do this.
So going back to saying taking feminism
and putting it into Christian categories,
that was huge, but it was also just,
it was the statement at the moment.
It was part of the zite guys to just gather up
all of that stuff and say we can bring this
into theology and the institution of the church as well.
So they did.
And that was the way forward.
That's for me the platform I've stood on.
For,
the rest of my career.
-: And you think despite the backlash,
I mean how would you figure the backlash into that?
-: Oh, the backlash,
in one sense it only made it better,
do you know what I mean?
-: Say some more, I think I do but I want
to hear you say it, why?
(laughing)
-: It was, if men could be so hysterical
about what was going on, then we had to be
doing something right.
-: Yeah, and it did lead to the formation of the community.
-: Yes.
-: Never would've formed without it.
-: Yeah, and the community, oh man they tried to keep
it going, and I had the newsletter for awhile,
but it was just too hard.
-: It was.
-: And that's unfortunate, but yeah.
-: Yeah, yeah,
it lasted for 10 years, but yeah.
With little money and all volunteers pretty much.
It was hard for you.
-: Those things are almost thankless.
I was the director of process and faith
for a number of years, and there was no money.
It's just, you just lose heart.
It's very hard to keep it going.
-: It is.
Well I have two more questions for you,
a big one, and then a very particular one.
The big one is, what does Re-imagining mean today?
And I don't just mean, the Re-imagining conference,
or community, I mean what needs to be,
or is being re-imagined in the church today?
Where do we need to go forward?
-: I think this is happening.
But, it's re-imagining religious pluralism.
And non violent
resistance.
'Cause those are some of the pressing areas
that we're dealing with today.
And then the other thing is there were some,
that whole trajectory of eco-feminism.
Terribly important, and in the context
of climate change to be intentionable.
Intentional, about
like so many people are doing this work,
but just keep the feminism foot in there too.
About the re-imagining of doctrinal and biblical issues
that bring us to an understanding
of what our role is in terms of climate change.
But also I think that more of that work has been done
in the last
well since Lynn White's article, that really
shook everybody up, and then,
so you can draw a line from there to
the Popes And Cyclical, it took a long way.
And in between there, there is John Cobb,
who wrote his Is It Too Late, in 1970.
-: Wow.
-: Which, as he said, at that point it wasn't.
But now he fears it is.
But at any rate, so climate change.
But I think the other, where I, I think,
people are doing it, it bubbles up.
But they're more intentionality about re-imagining
Christian community, and religious pluralism.
And interfaith conversation.
-: Absolutely.
-: And even such things as multiple belonging.
I mean that's an area that doesn't get a lot of attention.
But that one's bubbling up too.
As people feel very comfortable, say between
Judaism, and Buddhism, seen that one a lot.
And people feel the dual belonging.
I know African American scholars who are
Christian in Aruba, and others who,
what's the other one, can't think of it right now.
But that understanding of what,
what does dual belonging mean?
And again, it really
chips away at absolutes.
And I know I keep going back to John Cobb here,
but,
I'll tell you an interesting story,
I think Re-imagining was part of this too,
but the whole general change in feminism that was happening.
He and a number of male
academic theologians
of his age,
look back on their work,
and are profoundly embarrassed by the male pronouns.
And John has said if he can go back and redo
every book the one thing he would change
is he would make an inclusive language.
-: Wow.
-: And he talks about that as the C-change,
that took place and Rita Nakashima Brock
was part of that for him, and Rebecca Parker.
They were important figures for moving,
and obviously Katherine Keller.
But moving in that direction.
But
I lost my track again, dual belonging.
Absolutes, John Cobb,
it is one image that we have
of understanding religious pluralism.
It is the mountain idea, right?
With different paths, to the same peak.
Which assumes one ultimate again.
One absolute.
-: Right, right.
-: And he has suggested the potential
of two or three mountaintops.
And multiple ways up to those
two or three mountaintops.
So it sort of pushes through the notion of
an absolute truth, a singular, hierarchal truth.
That can gather all of those truths under it.
And impose itself from the top down.
That kind of religious pluralism or understanding
of religious pluralism that is a non hierarchical,
feminist approach, and it really
busts the notion of absolutes.
So that's an area that might be interesting to pursue.
-: Yeah, oh that's great.
And that brings me to my final question
which is, we're working on a Re-imagining website
and part of it is, the plan is to make it historical
to digitize those conferences you were talking about.
Make them available,
and also, but looking toward the future and gathering
resources, so any suggestions you have about,
things to link to, things to include,
and also audience who would benefit from it.
We're just soliciting ideas.
-: I think about stuff like this, because
I try to, I think about how do I get people
to my website for process.
You have to have a Twitter account, I'm sorry.
-: Is that right?
Okay, well see there you go.
-: Yeah, I'm not really much into it,
but I think that the social media approach
is important, that's where you're gonna capture,
-: Well thank you, 'cause that's important right there,
yes.
-: where you're gonna capture younger people.
-: Right.
-: The thing that I struggled with,
which is I'm sure what you have heard from others,
or that you have experienced yourself,
is that for someone like me, who was coming of age
at that same time as that wave of feminism,
and we know what we had to do in ourselves
in order to take down the patriarchal structures
in ourselves, and then all around us,
looking at all of the stuff that was,
what we went through to get to where we are today
on the one hand, it's great that young women
now think that that's over.
On the one hand, because it means that
we have given, they have inherited something from us
that was important to do.
But it's frightening to think of how little they
seem to understand, what's still at stake.
I heard one person say
that young women seem to think that the battles
are won, until they've been in the workforce
for about 10 years and start to realize
how little they make compared to men.
But that's one thing.
But to reach people,
I saw something today but I haven't read it yet
it's in Religion Dispatches about why women
are leaving the church,
-: Oh interesting.
-: you should go back and read it.
-: Yes.
-: But if women are leaving the church,
then Re-imagining has a job to do.
(laughs)
-: And how would you describe that job?
Is it to meet them outside the church?
Is it to bring them into the church,
or something else?
-: Good way of putting it.
I think that it's
it's not necessarily to bring them into the church,
but to bring the church to where they are.
Everybody's struggling with this one, you know.
The seminary's are struggling to survive.
The church is struggling, everybody's.
-: The growth of the nuns.
-: Oh boy, yeah the growing nuns, and all of that,
everybody's struggling with it.
But if you can connect
Re-imagining to
a real need,
I'm saying this so poorly.
-: No I think you're on to something, yes.
-: But there's a lot, there is a lot of need.
Some of it's a wash in the ocean,
and they don't really know where it's gonna go
or, it's not attaching to anything but it's there.
And then there are people who are slowly
moving away from the church, and then they come back
for their kids, and then leave again
once their kids are grown.
So you got that.
And I haven't seen a whole lot about that.
Mostly you see, they drift away in their youth,
and then they have kids and then they come back.
But I haven't seen a whole lot about leaving
again once the job of raising their kids is over.
-: That's interesting, yes.
-: And maybe that's what this article
in Religion Dispatch is about, I don't know.
I meant to read it before I came here but I forgot.
There's so much going on.
See I feel
this huge
awareness of, and appreciation
for the Re-imagining community and what it did
and how it worked through the,
maybe if I say it gathered the zite guys
to put it in church language,
maybe it's something like, doing something
like that again, is looking around at
where are we now, what's swirling around us?
And pulling all of those pieces together,
and then saying what would this look like if we
re-imagined it as if women mattered?
As if we were doing this from a theological,
or a church perspective, we're looking at
everything that's going around us and saying,
as if women mattered, I still think there's
so much work to be done.
-: Yes, and I think that's a really important phrase.
I'm gonna have to use that, I think that's
really important.
-: Which one?
-: As if women mattered.
Oh that was very powerful, I mean talk about
what does Re-imagining, and people say what is it?
Like re-imagining the church as if
women mattered, and then you go back and you do the history
and you do biblical study,
and you just start doing everything differently.
-: That's right, yeah.
Jeanyne this has been a great conversation,
is there anything that you want to add
that we haven't talked about?
-: I just really appreciate what you're doing,
and I'm so glad Mary Kay or whoever, that pulled people
together again,
-: I know.
-: because the website is terribly important.
And I think as you establish it,
it will be a academic resource so that people
who are doing their work in these fields,
they'll have to go to your site
because they'll need it, for archival purposes.
But hopefully there will be that piece
which you were trying to tease out of me,
and which I did so poorly at, of how
to carry it forward into the future,
I don't know.
-: Yeah, well we're still struggling too.
-: Apparently,
I think Twitter's perfect.
(laughing)
-: Yes well that is an important piece.
-: And getting followers, honestly.
You tweet stuff, and then you get followers,
and then they yep, yeah.
-: Thank you so much this has been great.
-: Thank you.