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Well Margaret thank you very much for this interview.
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Could you please say your full name?
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It's Margaret Jean Thomas.
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Good. Excellent. How do you spell Jean?
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J-E-A-N.
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Okay, thank you.
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And are you lay or clergy?
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I am Presbyterian clergy.
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Ordained in 1971.
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Okay, great.
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And Margaret, when and where were you born?
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I was born in Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan
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in 1943, December.
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Okay, thank you.
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Where did you go to graduate or divinity school?
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Several places.
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(both laughing)
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Interesting, good.
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Yeah I went to graduate school
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at Michigan State University.
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Pursued Master of Arts at that time.
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(laughs) Stewed on that.
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Did not get that degree.
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Presbyterian Church in the south actually
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called me to be a staff person before I finished it.
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So I went to join the Board of Christian Education
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with the Southern Presbyterian Church in summer of '65.
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That was the last year of the civil war centennial.
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Oh Right!
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Which affected a lot of what we're gonna talk about today.
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Because they were in the midst of fighting all the
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segregation and feminist issues.
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I was 21 at the time, so a Yankee in the South
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was an interesting dynamic.
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I went to Union Seminary in Virginia. In Richmond, Virginia.
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It's now Union Presbyterian Seminary.
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It's changed its name three times since I graduated.
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Oh really?
(both laughing)
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I graduated in '71 from there.
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And then I got a Doctor of Ministry in
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the San Francisco Theological Seminary in '91.
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Oh, okay. Great.
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And so what work or ministry
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were you doing at the time of re-imagining? That was '93.
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I was executive director of the
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Minnesota Council of Churches.
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Good. Could you say a little bit more
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about what that job means?
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What you were doing then?
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Well the state council of churches was
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the conciliar ecumenical agency in Minnesota.
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It related to the communions,
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not to particular congregations.
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So we were the ones that were in relationship
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with the senates, the dioceses, the conferences.
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And sought to do what was cooperative
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at that level in the state of Minnesota.
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We were actually at the time, I think,
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four major city councils as well in the state.
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Two of whom were in the metro area;
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The Saint Paul area Council of Churches has a new name now.
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And the Greater Minneapolis Council of Churches,
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which I think has a new name now.
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(both laughing)
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Everything keeps changing names.
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Everything changes.
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Well you have different relationships.
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And there's one in Rochester, one in Duluth,
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a nominal one up in northwestern Minnesota somewhere.
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Those were basically consortiums of congregations
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in those regions.
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And did the mission work cooperatively among congregations.
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So what a particular congregation couldn't do,
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the various councils did.
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And what the denominations couldn't do alone, we did.
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Okay.
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Our funding at the Minnesota Council was almost
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exclusively from the communions,
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with the exception of refugee resettlement
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where we got best major funding.
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The city councils of Saint Paul and Minneapolis,
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a primary was congregations.
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So greater Minneapolis increasingly
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went to government grants for a lot of their things.
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And obviously the whole conciliar structure of ecumenism
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confuses every parishioner in the world.
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And a lot of clergy who don't quite know how this works.
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So Minnesota was kind of in the lead, and still is
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in cooperative work among the entities.
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So the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition, for instance,
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came out of the denominational affiliations.
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Primarily really just
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Catholic conference and Jewish community.
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Minnesota Fuchair came out of the
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greater Minneapolis Council of Churches.
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Paint-a-thon came out of the
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greater Minneapolis Council of Churches.
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Saint Paul Council focused very heavily on Indian ministry.
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As did Greater Minneapolis later.
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We did too, but ours was statewide.
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So the number of programs were pretty much anything that
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would work better if we were doing it together.
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The three councils, the three that have presence
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in the metropolitan area formed an entity.
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It was deliberately focused on program and events.
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And that was the Tri-council.
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Twin Cities Metropolitan Church Commission at the time,
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later became Tri-Council.
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Twin Cities Metropolitan Church Commission.
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And Sally Hill is the staff person for that.
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So she actually was an employee of the three councils
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and whenever we thought there was something worth doing,
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as an event, she was kind of the staff person for it.
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And she's a very, very creative person,
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very connected in the community.
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Her whole life she'd been connected in the community.
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Primarily through McCallister and her connections there.
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And she did just great stuff.
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We would have Christian Educator events,
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she did a celebration of scripture that got 900
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people showing up at St. Marks Cathedral.
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Wow!
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Yeah precisely. And so when the World Council of Churches
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decided in the late '80s to focus on women in the church
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for a decade of the '90s, and asked all the communions
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around the world to do the same.
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Well and the United States,
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The National Council of Churches.
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Which I was on the board
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and eventually became its treasurer.
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Might even have been at that time.
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Anyway, we said we were more than happy in this country,
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to encourage our communions,
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as well as the National Council of Churches,
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to plan events, educational materials,
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anything we could do.
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I think there were a few videos created
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on this decade of women.
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And of course, we then said,
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well we got this
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Tri-Council coordinating (laughs) committee.
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And Sally Hill(?) who loves to do these things,
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so let's do something locally.
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So Sally was turned loose
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to form a planning committee to plan the event.
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One of her close friends and fellow parishioners
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at Saint Luke Presbyterian, was Mary Ann Lundy.
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So Sally being the kind of person she was,
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she went to the people she knew and said,
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hey we need some funding for this.
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And of course Mary Ann Lundy
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was more than willing to help fund.
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Because the Presbyterians said yes,
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We're gonna celebrate this decade of women.
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So she became not only a member of the planning committee,
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but also a funder of it.
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I don't remember all the other places that money came from
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and that kind of thing,
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but we did set up, as we did for every event,
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a planning committee.
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And that's many of the people you've interviewed
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and many of them became speakers.
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(laughs)
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Now the dynamic of it was
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that because it was a three council entity,
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the person who supervised Sally, rotated every year.
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Oh!
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So she wasn't supervised by the three executives,
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but she was our staff person.
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In that particular year, in '93, for Re-imagining,
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Tom Duke, of the Saint Paul Area Council of Churches,
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was her supervisor.
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So anything that related to
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the work of the planning committee
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or when any issue arose,
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He would be the front person.
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And of course we had meetings,
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regular monthly meetings of The Council.
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And Twin Cities went into commission.
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The commission and a few issues arose during the planning,
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but not very many.
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What kind of issues arose, that you recall?
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Well the big one was,
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I'm gonna speak only what
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rose for me.
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Yes. That's fair.
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And what I spoke about it and tried to intervene on,
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unsuccessfully, I might add.
Oh.
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Was one, I tried to put it in the broader context of
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what was going on in the communions.
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And raised the awareness that
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they were going to be attacked.
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That the far right are coming
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to institute a religion democracy
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in the lay committee and others.
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There's a parallel group in the Methodist church here now.
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And a kind of small presence
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in the Lutheran church at the time.
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It wasn't very powerful at that time.
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Never did become powerful in the Lutheran church.
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But inside the Presbyterian system,
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it went back all the way to 1965,
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these people who were attacking.
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So they were very used to,
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and they were well-funded from the Pew Foundation,
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who had funded the lay committee to start with.
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And were sad at the fact that
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they had to keep giving them money every year.
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Because it was part of the bequest
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they had received from their founder,
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Really?
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Yeah, so there was a lot of money
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and a lot of history of knowing how to attack.
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It was post reunion
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Post reunion of the
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Presbyterian
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church, which was '83.
Okay.
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And one of the political dynamics of that reunion
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was both churches had experienced schism prior to this.
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The Southern Presbyterian Church,
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which was contiguous with the old confederacy.
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It was still the boundary of the old confederacy.
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They had lost 5% of churches' in their membership
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in one schism.
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We had lost, in the United Presbyterian Church,
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which was the one I was connected with,
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which was nationwide,
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maybe 25, 30 thousand people.
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It was nothing.
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But it did form another schism and another dynamic.
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Well the lay committee had its origins
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in the so called northern,
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(laughs) had to put the parentheses around it.
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because I was a member of the Presbyterian Church,
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and we didn't consider ourselves Northern.
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(both laughing)
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Oh interesting.
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But that's how the Southerners
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described it was the Northerns.
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It was still the civil war.
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It was still the North and South,
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Well excuse me, we were a national denomination
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and a regional denomination.
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But the United Presbyterian Church,
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the so called Northern,
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had the lay committee and the money.
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The Southern Presbyterian Church in the culture wars
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had the vitriol
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and the go for the gut kind of methodology.
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And unfortunately in '83, they found each other.
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So we got a lay committee who was effective and criticizing
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and did good investigative reporting in some instances.
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But it got, then merged, with people who were,
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the only end goal we want
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is the destruction of the national structures.
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And if you wanna put it into today's context.
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Okay, who wants big government.
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and who doesn't want big government.
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Who wants a national presence and who doesn't?
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And the kind of language we're hearing
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and the kind of products in this debates these time.
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This is kind of mild compared
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to what we were experiencing inside the church.
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So 10 years after reunion
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we have all this stuff going on.
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Those people in what was then Louisville heard,
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they're evil, unchristian,
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we gotta get rid of them mentalities.
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00:14:45.994 --> 00:14:50.322
The primary focus was always biblical authority,
270
00:14:50.322 --> 00:14:52.075
you don't believe the Bible,
271
00:14:52.075 --> 00:14:55.338
you don't think the only way to salvation is Jesus,
272
00:14:55.338 --> 00:14:57.088
you support abortion,
273
00:15:00.144 --> 00:15:03.881
and it's these terrible women who are leading all this.
274
00:15:03.881 --> 00:15:07.967
(laughs) That kind of mentality.
275
00:15:07.967 --> 00:15:12.050
And I had come from New York to Minnesota in '85.
276
00:15:14.039 --> 00:15:18.701
I knew all that history, I knew all the actors.
277
00:15:18.701 --> 00:15:19.652
And I saw what
278
00:15:19.652 --> 00:15:21.879
the Re-imagining planning committee was doing,
279
00:15:21.879 --> 00:15:24.626
and I said, they're gonna come after you.
280
00:15:24.626 --> 00:15:27.376
You need to be prepared to answer
281
00:15:29.423 --> 00:15:32.001
what's going to be an all out assault.
282
00:15:32.001 --> 00:15:34.150
And they did not believe me.
283
00:15:34.150 --> 00:15:35.554
First of all, could you identify
284
00:15:35.554 --> 00:15:37.614
what you saw in the planning
285
00:15:37.614 --> 00:15:39.377
that you knew they were gonna go after.
286
00:15:39.377 --> 00:15:42.898
(laughs) Well one, they were gonna be ecumenical.
287
00:15:42.898 --> 00:15:44.731
And our conservatives,
288
00:15:46.685 --> 00:15:48.979
I think the conservatives in most churches
289
00:15:48.979 --> 00:15:51.589
don't understand ecumenical.
290
00:15:51.589 --> 00:15:52.422
They don't understand
291
00:15:52.422 --> 00:15:55.721
that when you have an ecumenical gathering
292
00:15:55.721 --> 00:15:59.664
there are certain things you can't do,
293
00:15:59.664 --> 00:16:02.349
or you have to be cautious of.
294
00:16:02.349 --> 00:16:04.694
So we couldn't have communion.
295
00:16:04.694 --> 00:16:09.119
If you can't have the Lord's Supper or the Eucharist,
296
00:16:09.119 --> 00:16:11.952
what kind of rituals can you have?
297
00:16:13.157 --> 00:16:14.811
And when I started talking about the milk,
298
00:16:14.811 --> 00:16:18.661
what became the milk and honey, made eminent sense
299
00:16:18.661 --> 00:16:20.324
to me from a biblical perspective
300
00:16:20.324 --> 00:16:23.042
and from an ecumenical perspective,
301
00:16:23.042 --> 00:16:25.625
is way of symbolizing our unity
302
00:16:26.670 --> 00:16:29.170
without offending or violating
303
00:16:30.619 --> 00:16:34.190
the religious principles of our participants.
304
00:16:34.190 --> 00:16:35.023
Made eminent sense to me,
305
00:16:35.023 --> 00:16:38.690
but I said that's gonna be a big flashpoint.
306
00:16:44.342 --> 00:16:46.366
Being with the National Council of Churches,
307
00:16:46.366 --> 00:16:48.699
all the orthodox communions,
308
00:16:51.424 --> 00:16:53.856
heads of communions were close friends.
309
00:16:53.856 --> 00:16:56.311
And I understood Sophia.
310
00:16:56.311 --> 00:16:57.553
I understood that.
311
00:16:57.553 --> 00:17:01.257
I understood and I knew the theology of Sophia,
312
00:17:01.257 --> 00:17:05.424
that wisdom was present at creation and was identified.
313
00:17:06.870 --> 00:17:10.400
And if Jesus was the word of God,
314
00:17:10.400 --> 00:17:13.862
with the logos being present from the beginning,
315
00:17:13.862 --> 00:17:16.085
that that had to be wisdom
316
00:17:16.085 --> 00:17:18.973
cause that's the only biblical thing it could be.
317
00:17:18.973 --> 00:17:21.390
And that the word was Sophia.
318
00:17:22.398 --> 00:17:23.991
And by the way if that wasn't true,
319
00:17:23.991 --> 00:17:25.257
there would be no Trinity.
320
00:17:25.257 --> 00:17:26.977
Because Jesus couldn't be the son of God
321
00:17:26.977 --> 00:17:27.810
and coequal in the Godhead,
322
00:17:27.810 --> 00:17:30.643
if Sophia wasn't a name for Jesus,
323
00:17:35.192 --> 00:17:36.519
I knew that because it was
324
00:17:36.519 --> 00:17:40.286
such an important part of the orthodox traditions.
325
00:17:40.286 --> 00:17:44.168
And it was present in the Catholic traditions, but not huge.
326
00:17:44.168 --> 00:17:47.899
Mary was huger (laughs) obviously.
327
00:17:47.899 --> 00:17:51.567
But the feminine side has always been more prevalent
328
00:17:51.567 --> 00:17:54.150
in the orthodox of the Godhead.
329
00:17:55.584 --> 00:17:59.751
And I said, you know you're gonna have to explain this.
330
00:18:01.125 --> 00:18:04.653
You can't just say Sophia's wisdom in God,
331
00:18:04.653 --> 00:18:08.288
and then have a milk and honey ritual that can be confused.
332
00:18:08.288 --> 00:18:11.344
Well they weren't into theology,
333
00:18:11.344 --> 00:18:15.261
and they weren't into ecumenical sensitivities.
334
00:18:16.721 --> 00:18:20.888
So they just did it, (laughs) they just did it.
335
00:18:22.454 --> 00:18:25.232
And it made eminent sense in the planning committee,
336
00:18:25.232 --> 00:18:26.894
it made eminent sense ecumenically,
337
00:18:26.894 --> 00:18:30.477
and didn't offend very many people present.
338
00:18:31.791 --> 00:18:35.356
(laughs) just a few.
339
00:18:35.356 --> 00:18:39.523
But it became key points for proving these were heretics.
340
00:18:40.885 --> 00:18:45.052
Heretical women heretics trying to destroy the Gospel,
341
00:18:45.943 --> 00:18:49.276
destroy Jesus, substituting another God.
342
00:18:52.672 --> 00:18:54.387
Just tossing out the history of the church.
343
00:18:54.387 --> 00:18:57.525
In fact, we were reclaiming the history of the church.
344
00:18:57.525 --> 00:19:00.237
But I think, and you can check this out, if you go back
345
00:19:00.237 --> 00:19:04.030
to the material that was produced for the conference,
346
00:19:04.030 --> 00:19:07.368
I don't think you're gonna find any explanation.
347
00:19:07.368 --> 00:19:08.263
The only thing there was,
348
00:19:08.263 --> 00:19:10.904
had a newsletter that was produced at the conference.
349
00:19:10.904 --> 00:19:12.608
It did talk about Sophia,
350
00:19:12.608 --> 00:19:14.861
but yeah, so there was a little bit.
351
00:19:14.861 --> 00:19:16.611
Yeah, but not much.
352
00:19:17.520 --> 00:19:20.933
And in the publicity had never said anything.
353
00:19:20.933 --> 00:19:23.811
It's being advertised nationally,
354
00:19:23.811 --> 00:19:28.121
and once you get these national invitations to this event,
355
00:19:28.121 --> 00:19:31.355
well there's all the fodder these folks who were trying
356
00:19:31.355 --> 00:19:34.887
to tear down the churches needed.
357
00:19:34.887 --> 00:19:38.554
So I knew they were treading on shaky ground
358
00:19:42.426 --> 00:19:44.985
in terms of the future.
359
00:19:44.985 --> 00:19:47.436
And what could be done with what they were doing.
360
00:19:47.436 --> 00:19:51.255
The other thing that I warned them about was security.
361
00:19:51.255 --> 00:19:53.382
Oh? Say some more about that.
362
00:19:53.382 --> 00:19:56.063
Because we had, matter of fact
363
00:19:56.063 --> 00:19:57.578
right over here about two blocks,
364
00:19:57.578 --> 00:20:01.225
a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America.
365
00:20:01.225 --> 00:20:03.822
No the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, excuse me.
366
00:20:03.822 --> 00:20:08.474
The orthodox Presbyterian church was a 1930's schism,
367
00:20:08.474 --> 00:20:10.293
by Carol McIntyre, out of the
368
00:20:10.293 --> 00:20:12.876
old United Presbyterian Church.
369
00:20:13.894 --> 00:20:18.197
And it was one of these fundamentals schisms
370
00:20:18.197 --> 00:20:21.074
and their only purpose as a denomination was
371
00:20:21.074 --> 00:20:24.316
to picket the national meetings
372
00:20:24.316 --> 00:20:25.700
of the mainline denominations,
373
00:20:25.700 --> 00:20:27.195
particularly Presbyterian or
374
00:20:27.195 --> 00:20:29.172
the national council or anything,
375
00:20:29.172 --> 00:20:32.029
because of their heresies.
376
00:20:32.029 --> 00:20:36.783
So you'd have a meeting of a general assembly or something
377
00:20:36.783 --> 00:20:38.164
and these folks would always
378
00:20:38.164 --> 00:20:41.803
be out there with their picket signs.
379
00:20:41.803 --> 00:20:45.970
You think the anti-abortion guy out of Missouri or whatever,
380
00:20:48.330 --> 00:20:50.247
Nebraska I guess is it.
381
00:20:51.443 --> 00:20:55.208
You think those things are, but these were in that ilk.
382
00:20:55.208 --> 00:20:56.207
Right.
383
00:20:56.207 --> 00:20:58.623
So I knew that if I got through it,
384
00:20:58.623 --> 00:21:00.956
There's a church right here.
385
00:21:01.931 --> 00:21:04.364
They're gonna show up.
386
00:21:04.364 --> 00:21:08.489
And the folks at the convention center better know that
387
00:21:08.489 --> 00:21:09.636
they're going to be there.
388
00:21:09.636 --> 00:21:12.266
This is not just a church meeting.
389
00:21:12.266 --> 00:21:16.194
It's a politically charged church meeting.
390
00:21:16.194 --> 00:21:18.944
And I said you gotta be prepared,
391
00:21:20.624 --> 00:21:24.029
you gotta be talking with the police of Minneapolis
392
00:21:24.029 --> 00:21:26.102
in terms of the potential here.
393
00:21:26.102 --> 00:21:29.540
And you better be hiring some security guards.
394
00:21:29.540 --> 00:21:30.373
And did they?
395
00:21:30.373 --> 00:21:31.943
What was the response to that?
396
00:21:31.943 --> 00:21:34.301
The response was, well nothing's gonna happen.
397
00:21:34.301 --> 00:21:35.608
But of course they were there.
398
00:21:35.608 --> 00:21:36.605
They were there.
399
00:21:36.605 --> 00:21:39.670
They were there, and they had a scrabble with the
400
00:21:39.670 --> 00:21:41.860
Minneapolis police department.
Really?
401
00:21:41.860 --> 00:21:45.325
To get them out on to the side of the convention center
402
00:21:45.325 --> 00:21:48.381
where they could not come in,
403
00:21:48.381 --> 00:21:50.985
but be outside in a public space.
404
00:21:50.985 --> 00:21:53.715
But I remember days when the participants
405
00:21:53.715 --> 00:21:55.241
were leaving the convention center
406
00:21:55.241 --> 00:21:57.658
and had to wade through them.
407
00:21:59.742 --> 00:22:02.183
And that's because of my national experience.
408
00:22:02.183 --> 00:22:04.605
I'd seen these things in operation and all.
409
00:22:04.605 --> 00:22:08.772
But you tell them and I wasn't their supervisor so.
410
00:22:10.992 --> 00:22:12.685
(laughs)
411
00:22:12.685 --> 00:22:13.518
And the general response was,
412
00:22:13.518 --> 00:22:17.685
these aren't going to be problems? Was that was it?
413
00:22:19.510 --> 00:22:21.997
This is the irony of the whole thing.
414
00:22:21.997 --> 00:22:26.164
The fact that you're even sitting here doing this interview.
415
00:22:27.147 --> 00:22:29.850
If those reactionary forces had not been present,
416
00:22:29.850 --> 00:22:32.675
it would've been an event.
417
00:22:32.675 --> 00:22:33.795
And it would've ended.
You're right.
418
00:22:33.795 --> 00:22:37.123
And it would've been wonderful.
419
00:22:37.123 --> 00:22:40.032
They made an issue of it,
420
00:22:40.032 --> 00:22:42.202
and they went after people,
421
00:22:42.202 --> 00:22:45.035
and they won in several instances.
422
00:22:47.320 --> 00:22:49.352
And the community goes on.
423
00:22:49.352 --> 00:22:50.320
And the agenda goes on.
424
00:22:50.320 --> 00:22:52.195
So I kind of laugh at them,
425
00:22:52.195 --> 00:22:54.819
but I was kind of hoping that would happen anyway.
426
00:22:54.819 --> 00:22:56.402
They never did win.
427
00:22:59.101 --> 00:23:00.960
The demise of mainline churches might be
428
00:23:00.960 --> 00:23:02.143
a result of some of this.
429
00:23:02.143 --> 00:23:04.614
But it's the same as the demise of the republican party.
430
00:23:04.614 --> 00:23:09.134
(laughs) It's the same, you keep spewing hatred
431
00:23:09.134 --> 00:23:09.967
and for some reason
432
00:23:09.967 --> 00:23:11.641
people don't want to part of you.
433
00:23:11.641 --> 00:23:14.308
(both laughing)
434
00:23:15.327 --> 00:23:18.906
So that's kind of what I brought in to it.
435
00:23:18.906 --> 00:23:19.739
And I don't believe I ever saw
436
00:23:19.739 --> 00:23:22.156
any of the planning materials
437
00:23:27.143 --> 00:23:30.429
Or anything specific that I could've responded to.
438
00:23:30.429 --> 00:23:34.069
But it was that broader climate that I was aware of.
439
00:23:34.069 --> 00:23:36.902
And the other dynamic at the time.
440
00:23:38.907 --> 00:23:40.275
Just one more and then we can--
441
00:23:40.275 --> 00:23:42.461
Well this is very helpful. Keep it up, yes.
442
00:23:42.461 --> 00:23:46.628
The other dynamic was I think the conference was,
443
00:23:48.514 --> 00:23:50.511
What day was the conference over? Was it a Sunday?
444
00:23:50.511 --> 00:23:52.574
It was the beginning of November.
445
00:23:52.574 --> 00:23:54.331
Was it a Saturday or something like that
446
00:23:54.331 --> 00:23:55.431
that where had ended?
447
00:23:55.431 --> 00:23:57.831
I think that's right. I think it was.
448
00:23:57.831 --> 00:24:02.122
And the following Tuesday was a presbytery meeting.
449
00:24:02.122 --> 00:24:04.728
Oh?
I was moderator.
450
00:24:04.728 --> 00:24:06.747
of the presbytery at the time.
451
00:24:06.747 --> 00:24:08.701
I'm sorry, clarify. Presbytery of the
452
00:24:08.701 --> 00:24:11.230
Twin Cities area.
Twin Cities. Okay got it.
453
00:24:11.230 --> 00:24:14.467
And our meeting was down in Rochester,
454
00:24:14.467 --> 00:24:18.972
which is, you don't wanna be going late in a meeting
455
00:24:18.972 --> 00:24:22.033
down in Rochester when most of your people are up here.
456
00:24:22.033 --> 00:24:25.033
But at the very end of that meeting,
457
00:24:29.149 --> 00:24:31.378
the commissioner from one of our conservative churches,
458
00:24:31.378 --> 00:24:34.978
got up and introduced a resolution
459
00:24:34.978 --> 00:24:37.978
to condemn the Re-imagining meeting.
460
00:24:38.991 --> 00:24:41.302
And the Presbyterian participation in it,
461
00:24:41.302 --> 00:24:45.469
and calling for the resignation of Mary Ann Lundy.
462
00:24:46.485 --> 00:24:49.402
The resolution, which did not pass,
463
00:24:50.759 --> 00:24:53.001
cause there were too many people sitting in the room
464
00:24:53.001 --> 00:24:56.864
who attend the conference knew better.
465
00:24:56.864 --> 00:25:01.031
(laughs) But it was a verbatim of the charges that
466
00:25:04.526 --> 00:25:08.693
were filed publicly by the lay committee and the others.
467
00:25:10.175 --> 00:25:14.176
So it was written before the conference occurred
468
00:25:14.176 --> 00:25:17.130
and it was presented the following Tuesday night.
469
00:25:17.130 --> 00:25:20.842
So they were on attack by Tuesday night.
470
00:25:20.842 --> 00:25:21.847
Wow!
471
00:25:21.847 --> 00:25:25.920
And it literally was the same language
472
00:25:25.920 --> 00:25:28.742
used in all the stuff that you've probably seen.
473
00:25:28.742 --> 00:25:31.042
Yes. That soon, wow.
474
00:25:31.042 --> 00:25:34.125
Yeah, so it was identified as a way
475
00:25:35.696 --> 00:25:38.824
of perpetuating the warfare.
476
00:25:38.824 --> 00:25:42.741
And initiated immediately after the conference.
477
00:25:44.100 --> 00:25:45.836
Now you anticipated this backlash.
478
00:25:45.836 --> 00:25:50.224
Were you surprised at the form that it took?
479
00:25:50.224 --> 00:25:52.579
Not really because I had seen it before.
480
00:25:52.579 --> 00:25:55.403
I wasn't prepared for it at the presbytery meeting.
481
00:25:55.403 --> 00:25:57.256
I didn't think it'd come that quick.
482
00:25:57.256 --> 00:26:00.532
I thought it would hit the national level first,
483
00:26:00.532 --> 00:26:02.386
but it hit the presbytery level.
484
00:26:02.386 --> 00:26:05.612
And it was a motion to condemn our participation
485
00:26:05.612 --> 00:26:07.362
and apologize for it.
486
00:26:08.409 --> 00:26:10.833
And then, then ask for resignations
487
00:26:10.833 --> 00:26:13.000
and firings of key people.
488
00:26:17.916 --> 00:26:20.262
Okay. I'm a Presbyterian leader, right?
489
00:26:20.262 --> 00:26:21.095
Yes.
490
00:26:21.095 --> 00:26:23.837
Okay. I've held the second highest position
491
00:26:23.837 --> 00:26:26.062
in the denomination.
492
00:26:26.062 --> 00:26:27.697
Which is called what? Remind me.
493
00:26:27.697 --> 00:26:29.490
I was the chief operating officer
494
00:26:29.490 --> 00:26:32.348
of the deputy executive director of the mission council,
495
00:26:32.348 --> 00:26:34.683
which oversaw the mission of the church
496
00:26:34.683 --> 00:26:36.933
on all six continents.
Wow
497
00:26:38.856 --> 00:26:42.273
And I'd come from New York to Minnesota
498
00:26:45.274 --> 00:26:47.847
several years before this, '85.
499
00:26:47.847 --> 00:26:50.617
But I continued to hold leadership positions
500
00:26:50.617 --> 00:26:52.725
at the national level.
501
00:26:52.725 --> 00:26:56.273
I was on our national judicial commission,
502
00:26:56.273 --> 00:27:00.440
I was on our committee that interpreted the constitution.
503
00:27:01.639 --> 00:27:04.403
I became the Presbyterian representative
504
00:27:04.403 --> 00:27:06.941
and then treasurer of the National Council of Churches.
505
00:27:06.941 --> 00:27:09.774
So I was very, very, very visible.
506
00:27:10.824 --> 00:27:13.704
And I'm sitting here watching this backlash develop
507
00:27:13.704 --> 00:27:15.043
in the communions.
508
00:27:15.043 --> 00:27:19.037
And the assaults on the lay committee's publications.
509
00:27:19.037 --> 00:27:21.863
And overtures around the church
510
00:27:21.863 --> 00:27:23.257
going to the general assembly.
511
00:27:23.257 --> 00:27:25.913
And I don't know if you've seen those.
512
00:27:25.913 --> 00:27:28.790
I have and the report too.
513
00:27:28.790 --> 00:27:30.820
I wanna ask you about that, but go ahead.
514
00:27:30.820 --> 00:27:32.653
So I'm sitting here,
515
00:27:34.160 --> 00:27:36.922
okay, three councils sponsored this event.
516
00:27:36.922 --> 00:27:41.089
One of them is a high profile Presbyterian clergy.
517
00:27:42.299 --> 00:27:45.468
I think the three councils in their totality
518
00:27:45.468 --> 00:27:47.158
got maybe nine letters.
519
00:27:47.158 --> 00:27:48.725
Really?
520
00:27:48.725 --> 00:27:51.924
Nobody in Minnesota was after us.
521
00:27:51.924 --> 00:27:55.625
Nobody in this national assault was after us.
522
00:27:55.625 --> 00:27:57.051
How do you account for that Margaret?
523
00:27:57.051 --> 00:27:57.947
That's amazing.
524
00:27:57.947 --> 00:27:59.690
Because they wanted to destroy the denomination.
525
00:27:59.690 --> 00:28:02.670
They didn't care about that.
526
00:28:02.670 --> 00:28:03.652
I see.
527
00:28:03.652 --> 00:28:07.819
Now I had one other dynamic which Mary Ann didn't have.
528
00:28:17.687 --> 00:28:20.354
I do not remember the name that,
529
00:28:22.449 --> 00:28:25.152
it was Presbyterian's Renewal at one time.
530
00:28:25.152 --> 00:28:29.545
And it might've been still that at that point.
531
00:28:29.545 --> 00:28:32.136
But during this period,
532
00:28:32.136 --> 00:28:35.406
an executive again was submerging the two denominations.
533
00:28:35.406 --> 00:28:39.573
A woman named Betty Moore, who was from South Carolina,
534
00:28:41.714 --> 00:28:46.325
was the executive of the group that was going with the
535
00:28:46.325 --> 00:28:48.992
lay committee on these assaults.
536
00:28:50.039 --> 00:28:52.613
And Betty Moore, and I also had worked
537
00:28:52.613 --> 00:28:54.511
for the Southern Presbyterian Church
538
00:28:54.511 --> 00:28:58.194
before going to the United Presbyterian Church.
539
00:28:58.194 --> 00:29:01.836
And Betty Moore had learned to trust me.
540
00:29:01.836 --> 00:29:04.357
I was head of the research departments
541
00:29:04.357 --> 00:29:05.484
in the Southern Church,
542
00:29:05.484 --> 00:29:07.388
and I was one of the few national staff people
543
00:29:07.388 --> 00:29:09.102
who told the truth.
544
00:29:09.102 --> 00:29:11.019
You do survey research,
545
00:29:12.314 --> 00:29:15.055
I'll give you one illustration to tell you.
546
00:29:15.055 --> 00:29:16.295
So from her perspective you were the--
547
00:29:16.295 --> 00:29:18.309
From her perspective I was reliable
548
00:29:18.309 --> 00:29:20.309
and I was a good person.
549
00:29:21.951 --> 00:29:25.071
And I have a suspicion that she protected me.
550
00:29:25.071 --> 00:29:26.708
Oh interesting.
551
00:29:26.708 --> 00:29:27.833
I don't know that to be a fact,
552
00:29:27.833 --> 00:29:30.330
but I do know during this entire period
553
00:29:30.330 --> 00:29:32.580
she had speed dialed a lot.
554
00:29:34.262 --> 00:29:35.407
And she'd get a speed dial call to me
555
00:29:35.407 --> 00:29:36.969
and we'd have a nice long conversation.
556
00:29:36.969 --> 00:29:38.751
(laughs) She didn't intend to call me,
557
00:29:38.751 --> 00:29:39.584
but we'd have a nice conversation.
558
00:29:39.584 --> 00:29:40.417
Oh really!
559
00:29:40.417 --> 00:29:43.805
Yeah and so I think some of that
560
00:29:43.805 --> 00:29:47.888
southern family stuff that might've protected me.
561
00:29:49.097 --> 00:29:50.164
And I wasn't at the national level
562
00:29:50.164 --> 00:29:52.372
so she could convince them no,
563
00:29:52.372 --> 00:29:55.454
we don't need to worry about them folks.
564
00:29:55.454 --> 00:29:58.253
But the same thing happened to the other two councils.
565
00:29:58.253 --> 00:30:02.147
There were a few people in Minnesota who were upset,
566
00:30:02.147 --> 00:30:05.578
but like I said, it was less than 10 or 12 letters total.
567
00:30:05.578 --> 00:30:07.584
Amazing. Wow.
568
00:30:07.584 --> 00:30:08.743
After what happened at the national level
569
00:30:08.743 --> 00:30:09.642
that's incredible.
570
00:30:09.642 --> 00:30:11.364
Yeah during that entire period.
571
00:30:11.364 --> 00:30:15.409
And at the beginning you think you might have a few comments
572
00:30:15.409 --> 00:30:18.817
and then when it boils over you think you're gonna have,
573
00:30:18.817 --> 00:30:22.262
okay and all this stop the funding for the councils.
574
00:30:22.262 --> 00:30:25.527
Why should our church be supporting these heretical people
575
00:30:25.527 --> 00:30:27.774
who did that horrible conference.
576
00:30:27.774 --> 00:30:30.177
None of it. None of it.
577
00:30:30.177 --> 00:30:32.226
And that was a pretty good clue
578
00:30:32.226 --> 00:30:34.508
that it was part of the bigger culture war.
579
00:30:34.508 --> 00:30:36.760
It didn't have anything to do with the conference.
580
00:30:36.760 --> 00:30:38.648
It was just fodder.
581
00:30:38.648 --> 00:30:42.169
(laughs) It was fodder for them.
582
00:30:42.169 --> 00:30:44.748
And the more you could distort it,
583
00:30:44.748 --> 00:30:47.769
the more you could misinterpret it
584
00:30:47.769 --> 00:30:51.030
and spread hate and vehemence against people
585
00:30:51.030 --> 00:30:53.654
you wanted to get rid of,
586
00:30:53.654 --> 00:30:56.250
Mary Ann Lundy wasn't the only one that was fired.
587
00:30:56.250 --> 00:30:57.955
Jim Brown was as well.
588
00:30:57.955 --> 00:30:59.308
Did she mention him?
589
00:30:59.308 --> 00:31:00.141
Briefly.
590
00:31:00.141 --> 00:31:02.629
Yeah, now I don't think they got along to well
591
00:31:02.629 --> 00:31:05.629
cause he didn't defend her, at all.
592
00:31:08.005 --> 00:31:08.838
But they got him too.
593
00:31:08.838 --> 00:31:10.447
Yeah did they get him
594
00:31:10.447 --> 00:31:12.242
like the following year or something?
595
00:31:12.242 --> 00:31:14.152
Yeah cause he had a term that was up
596
00:31:14.152 --> 00:31:15.842
and he was not re-elected.
597
00:31:15.842 --> 00:31:17.064
Which was unheard of.
598
00:31:17.064 --> 00:31:18.544
And that was because of Re-imagining?
599
00:31:18.544 --> 00:31:20.294
Oh absolutely yeah.
600
00:31:22.472 --> 00:31:26.347
Even though he fired Mary Ann Lundy?
601
00:31:26.347 --> 00:31:29.546
Yeah, you know, you do damage control
602
00:31:29.546 --> 00:31:31.182
and you think you can get rid of the people
603
00:31:31.182 --> 00:31:32.811
that are the lightning rod,
604
00:31:32.811 --> 00:31:34.426
when in fact you're the lightning rod too.
605
00:31:34.426 --> 00:31:36.968
(laughs)
606
00:31:36.968 --> 00:31:39.277
You were running this organization and you didn't
607
00:31:39.277 --> 00:31:40.694
keep her in line.
608
00:31:42.242 --> 00:31:44.315
And besides you wanted gays included.
609
00:31:44.315 --> 00:31:45.538
The other thing to say of course,
610
00:31:45.538 --> 00:31:47.019
is this was just the beginning
611
00:31:47.019 --> 00:31:50.272
of the gay rights movements in the churches.
612
00:31:50.272 --> 00:31:54.439
So if you don't get these feminists and radicals into line,
613
00:31:56.402 --> 00:31:58.405
next thing you know we're gonna have gays in the church.
614
00:31:58.405 --> 00:32:02.572
(laughs) we gotta get them out of there.
615
00:32:04.163 --> 00:32:06.330
So they worked to do that.
616
00:32:08.118 --> 00:32:11.666
I was wondering, were you at the '94 general assembly?
617
00:32:11.666 --> 00:32:12.499
Yes.
618
00:32:12.499 --> 00:32:14.786
Okay. I would love to hear your
619
00:32:14.786 --> 00:32:18.134
perception of what happened there.
620
00:32:18.134 --> 00:32:19.201
The report on Re-imagining,
621
00:32:19.201 --> 00:32:21.049
whatever you recall about that and what happened.
622
00:32:21.049 --> 00:32:24.195
You know I really don't have a lot of recollection of it.
623
00:32:24.195 --> 00:32:28.567
More of my recollection is Jim Brown's not being re-elected.
624
00:32:28.567 --> 00:32:29.403
Say about that.
625
00:32:29.403 --> 00:32:33.123
Cause he was nice and a good friend.
626
00:32:33.123 --> 00:32:34.268
But see I had been at the national level.
627
00:32:34.268 --> 00:32:37.091
These were all people that, he was my director,
628
00:32:37.091 --> 00:32:40.477
he was my elected chairperson for finance
629
00:32:40.477 --> 00:32:44.211
at the national level before he became in that position.
630
00:32:44.211 --> 00:32:47.274
So I knew him. He was a pastor.
631
00:32:47.274 --> 00:32:48.941
He had a kind heart.
632
00:32:50.379 --> 00:32:55.138
He understood the church, but he wasn't a fighter.
633
00:32:55.138 --> 00:32:57.198
He just didn't know how to deal
634
00:32:57.198 --> 00:32:59.298
with those political dynamics.
635
00:32:59.298 --> 00:33:02.048
It wasn't in his soul to do that.
636
00:33:05.708 --> 00:33:09.957
The election we knew that was gonna happen.
637
00:33:09.957 --> 00:33:11.476
I'm sorry the elect, what was gonna happen?
638
00:33:11.476 --> 00:33:12.309
The election for him?
639
00:33:12.309 --> 00:33:14.373
Yeah. We knew the election was gonna happen
640
00:33:14.373 --> 00:33:16.445
and we knew he was in trouble because there were people
641
00:33:16.445 --> 00:33:18.887
running against him.
642
00:33:18.887 --> 00:33:21.470
And it was such a stunning loss
643
00:33:23.838 --> 00:33:25.524
that when the vote was
644
00:33:25.524 --> 00:33:28.107
announced, I did go over to him
645
00:33:30.428 --> 00:33:32.976
and talk to him for a few minutes and then he disappeared.
646
00:33:32.976 --> 00:33:34.176
He just walked out.
647
00:33:34.176 --> 00:33:35.871
And who was elected instead?
648
00:33:35.871 --> 00:33:39.183
What did they belong to a certain group or?
649
00:33:39.183 --> 00:33:42.600
No, it was, I won't pull back his name.
650
00:33:45.793 --> 00:33:48.297
Pretty mainstream person.
651
00:33:48.297 --> 00:33:52.184
But see the assembly didn't buy the Re-imagining junk.
652
00:33:52.184 --> 00:33:53.316
Say some more about that.
653
00:33:53.316 --> 00:33:56.745
Well I don't remember them approving anything in reaction.
654
00:33:56.745 --> 00:33:58.959
They didn't censure it.
655
00:33:58.959 --> 00:34:01.586
Mary Ann had already been fired.
656
00:34:01.586 --> 00:34:05.753
I don't recall any, I recall heated debate on the floor.
657
00:34:07.522 --> 00:34:11.534
But most of the debate occurs in committees
658
00:34:11.534 --> 00:34:13.219
and I wasn't in those committees.
659
00:34:13.219 --> 00:34:16.469
I was actually assigned to another one.
660
00:34:18.121 --> 00:34:19.337
I was on the advisory committee of the constitution
661
00:34:19.337 --> 00:34:24.134
at the time and I had to resource a holiday committee,
662
00:34:24.134 --> 00:34:26.467
But even then, we there'd be
663
00:34:29.792 --> 00:34:32.459
a significant conservative vote.
664
00:34:34.573 --> 00:34:36.156
But that triggered,
665
00:34:38.060 --> 00:34:41.393
again the conservatives lose everything.
666
00:34:43.680 --> 00:34:44.930
They don't win,
667
00:34:46.419 --> 00:34:50.469
they just make life terrible in the church and drag
668
00:34:50.469 --> 00:34:54.636
people away and make folks think we're a nasty denomination.
669
00:34:55.734 --> 00:34:57.835
They don't win because they're a minority, is that right?
670
00:34:57.835 --> 00:35:00.160
They're a minority! They're on the fringes
671
00:35:00.160 --> 00:35:04.077
of both theology and evangelism and everything.
672
00:35:05.298 --> 00:35:07.469
And they give us this song and dance about how great
673
00:35:07.469 --> 00:35:09.363
they are and proclaiming the Gospel.
674
00:35:09.363 --> 00:35:11.646
Their churches don't grow any faster than anybody else's.
675
00:35:11.646 --> 00:35:14.708
(laughs) you know?
676
00:35:14.708 --> 00:35:16.422
You mentioned all the overtures
677
00:35:16.422 --> 00:35:17.668
that went into general assembly.
678
00:35:17.668 --> 00:35:20.418
Yeah. There were a lot of them.
679
00:35:22.172 --> 00:35:24.843
But I'd have to go back to the record to see how
680
00:35:24.843 --> 00:35:25.738
they were disposed of.
681
00:35:25.738 --> 00:35:28.543
I think there was some kind of general statement,
682
00:35:28.543 --> 00:35:29.376
but I don't think--
683
00:35:29.376 --> 00:35:32.324
John Buchanan was moderator and he chaired a committee
684
00:35:32.324 --> 00:35:34.060
and they came up with a general statement.
685
00:35:34.060 --> 00:35:37.483
But it's interesting that it's not really memorable.
686
00:35:37.483 --> 00:35:38.356
(laughs)
687
00:35:38.356 --> 00:35:39.568
It's not memorable and it didn't
688
00:35:39.568 --> 00:35:42.511
affect the national church.
689
00:35:42.511 --> 00:35:46.678
Certainly didn't get rid of the women's voice at the level.
690
00:35:48.084 --> 00:35:52.251
I mean part of the dynamic is that, I don't know if the
691
00:35:53.664 --> 00:35:56.178
advisory committee on women in the church still exists.
692
00:35:56.178 --> 00:35:57.219
I don't think it does.
693
00:35:57.219 --> 00:36:00.047
But I think there is an all women's presence still
694
00:36:00.047 --> 00:36:04.596
that would be equivalent to Mary Ann Lundy's old job.
695
00:36:04.596 --> 00:36:06.791
And there's Presbyterian women, and it's the most radical
696
00:36:06.791 --> 00:36:09.186
group in the world.
697
00:36:09.186 --> 00:36:11.917
And everybody thought that was dying.
698
00:36:11.917 --> 00:36:13.014
They really did.
699
00:36:13.014 --> 00:36:17.223
There's been this downwards membership spiral.
700
00:36:17.223 --> 00:36:21.390
And presbyterian women used to meet at the time of the '90s.
701
00:36:24.433 --> 00:36:27.744
They'd meet at Purdue and they'd have several thousand
702
00:36:27.744 --> 00:36:30.781
people there from around the country.
703
00:36:30.781 --> 00:36:34.448
And there try any else seminary three years.
704
00:36:35.302 --> 00:36:39.368
And I think maybe six years ago, they were down to
705
00:36:39.368 --> 00:36:41.566
maybe 600 showing up.
706
00:36:41.566 --> 00:36:44.580
And so they started moving it into hotels rather than
707
00:36:44.580 --> 00:36:45.997
college campuses.
708
00:36:48.579 --> 00:36:50.457
Well the last triennial was last summer and it was
709
00:36:50.457 --> 00:36:52.427
here in Minneapolis and they scheduled themselves
710
00:36:52.427 --> 00:36:55.690
into the Hyatt and 1400 people showed up.
711
00:36:55.690 --> 00:36:57.385
They couldn't get into the room.
712
00:36:57.385 --> 00:36:58.399
Really?
713
00:36:58.399 --> 00:37:00.365
Yeah. People just kept coming.
714
00:37:00.365 --> 00:37:01.754
And there were bets in Louisville,
715
00:37:01.754 --> 00:37:03.791
that they wouldn't have 600.
716
00:37:03.791 --> 00:37:06.102
And people just kept piling.
717
00:37:06.102 --> 00:37:08.425
I think the women are getting angry again.
718
00:37:08.425 --> 00:37:09.381
(laughs)
719
00:37:09.381 --> 00:37:11.495
And getting angry about?
720
00:37:11.495 --> 00:37:13.871
The course in America right now.
721
00:37:13.871 --> 00:37:18.038
I think there's pretty strong anti-women movement.
722
00:37:20.871 --> 00:37:23.697
Women obviously have no moral authority over their
723
00:37:23.697 --> 00:37:28.128
own bodies (laughs) for example.
724
00:37:28.128 --> 00:37:32.287
Voter suppression is usually expressed as a racial issue.
725
00:37:32.287 --> 00:37:34.704
It's as much a women's issue.
726
00:37:39.404 --> 00:37:42.515
I think you get the language
727
00:37:42.515 --> 00:37:45.944
that you get in some of the debates going on.
728
00:37:45.944 --> 00:37:48.660
I think Hillary has a great little response to that.
729
00:37:48.660 --> 00:37:50.743
(laughs)
730
00:37:53.535 --> 00:37:57.112
I think people, some of those folks who say they're not
731
00:37:57.112 --> 00:38:01.552
feminists, that have benefited from feminism
732
00:38:01.552 --> 00:38:03.847
are maybe beginning to catch on that
733
00:38:03.847 --> 00:38:06.039
as they move up the ladder in their careers,
734
00:38:06.039 --> 00:38:09.607
maybe that ceiling and that bias is still there.
735
00:38:09.607 --> 00:38:13.774
And that wage disparity doesn't go away (laughs).
736
00:38:15.826 --> 00:38:18.315
So do you feel like in the end,
737
00:38:18.315 --> 00:38:19.331
I don't wanna put words in your mouth,
738
00:38:19.331 --> 00:38:22.107
but in the end, what do you think
739
00:38:22.107 --> 00:38:24.523
did the backlash accomplished?
740
00:38:24.523 --> 00:38:26.864
It accomplished in forming the community.
741
00:38:26.864 --> 00:38:30.155
Well it did do that, but I think it helped place
742
00:38:30.155 --> 00:38:32.516
in the atmosphere inside the church.
743
00:38:32.516 --> 00:38:33.620
Say some more about that.
744
00:38:33.620 --> 00:38:37.525
Well it's you can't have constant attacks
745
00:38:37.525 --> 00:38:42.372
on the integrity of the people who run the church.
746
00:38:42.372 --> 00:38:43.478
And not have a negative effect.
747
00:38:43.478 --> 00:38:46.172
I mean if you just look
748
00:38:46.172 --> 00:38:49.561
at the religious statistics right now,
749
00:38:49.561 --> 00:38:51.811
I sympathize with the nuns.
750
00:38:53.032 --> 00:38:57.348
I mean, who wants to be a part of a church
751
00:38:57.348 --> 00:38:59.670
that's got a lot of pedophiles in it,
752
00:38:59.670 --> 00:39:01.462
or can't control its priests?
753
00:39:01.462 --> 00:39:04.426
Or where there's fiscal mismanagement.
754
00:39:04.426 --> 00:39:08.224
Or they're fighting over whether women have any moral
755
00:39:08.224 --> 00:39:11.789
sensibilities at all or gays or lesbians.
756
00:39:11.789 --> 00:39:13.808
They don't care about those things.
757
00:39:13.808 --> 00:39:17.475
If that's the image of the church, why join?
758
00:39:20.871 --> 00:39:24.298
I think the whole culture wars has been a terrible thing
759
00:39:24.298 --> 00:39:28.298
in terms of the presence of religion in America.
760
00:39:29.963 --> 00:39:34.704
And unfortunately there are congregations and denominations
761
00:39:34.704 --> 00:39:37.745
that just kind of plug along and they're not going away.
762
00:39:37.745 --> 00:39:39.897
(laughs) they're just not going anywhere.
763
00:39:39.897 --> 00:39:41.506
Been around for couple thousand years
764
00:39:41.506 --> 00:39:43.608
it's not gonna go away.
765
00:39:43.608 --> 00:39:45.795
It will be transformed.
766
00:39:45.795 --> 00:39:48.462
How would you evaluate the presence of the right wing
767
00:39:48.462 --> 00:39:51.169
and the Presbyterian church USA today?
768
00:39:51.169 --> 00:39:53.716
Well we've had several schisms
769
00:39:53.716 --> 00:39:56.383
and we keep getting rid of them.
770
00:40:00.639 --> 00:40:02.343
Our assemblies, general assemblies
771
00:40:02.343 --> 00:40:04.926
are pretty moderate, enjoyable.
772
00:40:07.942 --> 00:40:12.669
We get these resolutions on abortion every year.
773
00:40:12.669 --> 00:40:16.548
I think it gets dismissed with 95% against them.
774
00:40:16.548 --> 00:40:19.280
It's just not an issue.
775
00:40:19.280 --> 00:40:21.459
The issue of ordination of gays and lesbians
776
00:40:21.459 --> 00:40:24.709
with marriage equity it's not an issue.
777
00:40:26.173 --> 00:40:28.713
You can print all the resolutions you want,
778
00:40:28.713 --> 00:40:30.713
it's not going anywhere.
779
00:40:31.808 --> 00:40:34.716
So they're a little more copacetic.
780
00:40:34.716 --> 00:40:38.469
We're being able to know in our presbytery meeting
781
00:40:38.469 --> 00:40:40.510
we're actually doing educational events.
782
00:40:40.510 --> 00:40:42.072
We're having a lot of fellowship.
783
00:40:42.072 --> 00:40:44.343
We're doing mission like crazy.
784
00:40:44.343 --> 00:40:46.436
The whole mood has changed
785
00:40:46.436 --> 00:40:49.353
with these people out of our midst.
786
00:40:50.587 --> 00:40:53.511
And you hate to see the body of Christ separated that way.
787
00:40:53.511 --> 00:40:56.562
But, boy it sure makes it nicer
788
00:40:56.562 --> 00:40:58.083
for those of us who are left.
789
00:40:58.083 --> 00:41:00.166
(laughs)
790
00:41:01.291 --> 00:41:03.124
And churches that are,
791
00:41:04.320 --> 00:41:06.414
I think in the moderate to progressive
792
00:41:06.414 --> 00:41:10.660
and inclusive, who don't shut out the people
793
00:41:10.660 --> 00:41:13.743
with differing opinions are thriving.
794
00:41:16.604 --> 00:41:21.147
I think maybe as recently as seven or eight years ago,
795
00:41:21.147 --> 00:41:23.391
Presbytery of the Twin Cities area,
796
00:41:23.391 --> 00:41:26.558
maybe 72, 78 congregations at the time
797
00:41:30.641 --> 00:41:32.724
maybe had four that grew.
798
00:41:33.750 --> 00:41:36.864
The rest were either stable or declining.
799
00:41:36.864 --> 00:41:39.548
And now it's 2/3 of them are growing.
800
00:41:39.548 --> 00:41:42.798
Not significantly, but they're growing.
801
00:41:44.761 --> 00:41:46.998
Get rid of the people who hate
802
00:41:46.998 --> 00:41:50.831
and suddenly churches have some meaning again.
803
00:41:52.448 --> 00:41:55.865
So I think a great deal of harm was done.
804
00:41:58.333 --> 00:42:02.492
It parallels what we see in our political parties.
805
00:42:02.492 --> 00:42:03.484
Today?
806
00:42:03.484 --> 00:42:07.651
Today. Having worked in the south, I am absolutely
807
00:42:08.976 --> 00:42:12.362
convinced we have not dealt with the civil war yet.
808
00:42:12.362 --> 00:42:16.109
We have not dealt with slavery yet.
809
00:42:16.109 --> 00:42:20.276
And all of these battles are continuing those arguments.
810
00:42:22.196 --> 00:42:25.279
And the reality of controlling women,
811
00:42:27.310 --> 00:42:29.888
controlling minorities,
812
00:42:29.888 --> 00:42:32.134
it's just part of this mentality
813
00:42:32.134 --> 00:42:35.051
that they're not quite fully human.
814
00:42:36.195 --> 00:42:39.073
And that's the civil war.
815
00:42:39.073 --> 00:42:41.457
The founding of the nation for that matter.
816
00:42:41.457 --> 00:42:43.290
But slavery was there.
817
00:42:45.287 --> 00:42:49.454
But slavery, race is a new concept which I didn't know.
818
00:42:51.684 --> 00:42:53.823
I did not know that the concept of race
819
00:42:53.823 --> 00:42:56.897
did not appear until the 1800s.
820
00:42:56.897 --> 00:42:58.776
People were people.
821
00:42:58.776 --> 00:43:02.526
You had slaves, but it wasn't a racial thing.
822
00:43:04.574 --> 00:43:06.991
And we don't talk about that.
823
00:43:09.084 --> 00:43:11.604
I'm curious. So in the end,
824
00:43:11.604 --> 00:43:12.911
what do you think the significance
825
00:43:12.911 --> 00:43:15.244
of Re-imagining finally was?
826
00:43:16.358 --> 00:43:17.608
Well I think,
827
00:43:20.962 --> 00:43:22.813
I don't think it had much influence
828
00:43:22.813 --> 00:43:24.700
beyond the conference itself.
829
00:43:24.700 --> 00:43:28.337
I think the ongoing community might be local,
830
00:43:28.337 --> 00:43:32.254
but I think the battles that we were addressing
831
00:43:33.776 --> 00:43:36.609
are not an issue inside Minnesota.
832
00:43:39.126 --> 00:43:43.310
They may be an issue for people who aren't part of churches.
833
00:43:43.310 --> 00:43:45.405
Which battles are you thinking of?
834
00:43:45.405 --> 00:43:46.798
Well the inclusion of women.
835
00:43:46.798 --> 00:43:49.548
The broader theological language.
836
00:43:51.560 --> 00:43:54.687
The reinterpretation of scripture
837
00:43:54.687 --> 00:43:59.077
with some of the more feminists perspectives.
838
00:43:59.077 --> 00:44:00.660
That's routine now.
839
00:44:02.682 --> 00:44:05.966
You got an awful lot of (laughs) female clergy now.
840
00:44:05.966 --> 00:44:07.938
So you're thinking the Presbyterian church overall
841
00:44:07.938 --> 00:44:10.367
that that inclusive language and feminists theology
842
00:44:10.367 --> 00:44:12.772
are part of the congregations?
843
00:44:12.772 --> 00:44:16.348
Yeah. Every now and then you have to deal with it
844
00:44:16.348 --> 00:44:20.515
but it's usually with one of our conservative churches.
845
00:44:22.518 --> 00:44:25.851
But people just they're over that stuff.
846
00:44:28.503 --> 00:44:29.670
At least here.
847
00:44:30.876 --> 00:44:34.156
So as far as the Re-imagining community, I don't think so.
848
00:44:34.156 --> 00:44:38.156
It did empower a number of feminists theologians
849
00:44:39.360 --> 00:44:40.755
who were the speakers who continue
850
00:44:40.755 --> 00:44:44.005
to write and continue to be a presence.
851
00:44:45.645 --> 00:44:49.464
But I think they would've done that anyway.
852
00:44:49.464 --> 00:44:52.222
I don't think the Re-imagining community particularly
853
00:44:52.222 --> 00:44:54.279
did anything for them.
854
00:44:54.279 --> 00:44:58.980
I mean academically they would have to go that way.
855
00:44:58.980 --> 00:45:00.202
So just to make sure I understand.
856
00:45:00.202 --> 00:45:03.321
So you think there's more feminist theology
857
00:45:03.321 --> 00:45:04.763
inclusive language, but the Re-imagining community
858
00:45:04.763 --> 00:45:06.581
is not responsible for that.
859
00:45:06.581 --> 00:45:10.878
No. I don't think it nurtures it in any way because I
860
00:45:10.878 --> 00:45:12.878
don't think it's needed.
861
00:45:15.102 --> 00:45:16.336
Do you think it led to it at all?
862
00:45:16.336 --> 00:45:18.633
Or helped it happen? Or not?
863
00:45:18.633 --> 00:45:21.966
Well it certainly surfaced the issues.
864
00:45:22.910 --> 00:45:25.256
As soon as something that was, like I said,
865
00:45:25.256 --> 00:45:28.546
it wasn't an issue in Minnesota to start with.
866
00:45:28.546 --> 00:45:32.129
And for our denominational colleagues here.
867
00:45:38.773 --> 00:45:42.440
It just, it might've reinforced it a little.
868
00:45:44.499 --> 00:45:48.666
But the forces were in those communions to start with.
869
00:45:49.791 --> 00:45:51.919
Some of the ironies of it
870
00:45:51.919 --> 00:45:54.502
was we learned how to deal with
871
00:45:55.468 --> 00:45:58.801
some of the differences a little better.
872
00:45:59.996 --> 00:46:03.579
Take orthodox communions and homosexuality.
873
00:46:08.900 --> 00:46:12.998
When we, the Minnesota Council of Churches tried
874
00:46:12.998 --> 00:46:15.042
and the communions, most of the communions tried to
875
00:46:15.042 --> 00:46:19.209
get sexual orientation into our protective classes.
876
00:46:21.743 --> 00:46:24.660
The orthodox vetoed JRLC inclusion.
877
00:46:26.760 --> 00:46:30.927
And when pressed, it wasn't that they wanted to discriminate
878
00:46:33.291 --> 00:46:35.038
against gays and lesbians,
879
00:46:35.038 --> 00:46:37.825
it was that there was no such thing.
880
00:46:37.825 --> 00:46:40.235
Because God created male and female so there could
881
00:46:40.235 --> 00:46:43.129
not be a different sexual orientation.
882
00:46:43.129 --> 00:46:47.296
So the word sexual orientation was theologically impossible.
883
00:46:50.628 --> 00:46:52.933
So we challenged them.
884
00:46:52.933 --> 00:46:56.007
We said, you know the gays and lesbians are getting
885
00:46:56.007 --> 00:46:59.090
beat up, they're getting denied jobs.
886
00:47:00.484 --> 00:47:02.061
And they said, yeah we know that.
887
00:47:02.061 --> 00:47:02.894
I said, well come up with
888
00:47:02.894 --> 00:47:05.345
a different phrase that describes them.
889
00:47:05.345 --> 00:47:07.455
And then of course, they couldn't.
890
00:47:07.455 --> 00:47:09.872
But I think the Re-imagining,
891
00:47:14.257 --> 00:47:15.342
there's a different way
892
00:47:15.342 --> 00:47:16.182
of interpretation here.
893
00:47:16.182 --> 00:47:17.970
You gotta start thinking about it.
894
00:47:17.970 --> 00:47:20.080
And they could be challenged on that,
895
00:47:20.080 --> 00:47:20.913
where before I don't think they
896
00:47:20.913 --> 00:47:23.812
could've been challenged at all.
897
00:47:23.812 --> 00:47:25.645
So that was one thing.
898
00:47:35.145 --> 00:47:39.225
I think the inclusive language questions.
899
00:47:39.225 --> 00:47:43.062
One of the strangest conversations I ever had was
900
00:47:43.062 --> 00:47:46.229
with the episcopal bishop at the time.
901
00:47:47.311 --> 00:47:51.478
Who actually I was doing a workshop at the Basilica
902
00:47:53.578 --> 00:47:57.745
and a lot of people questioned me about my ordination
903
00:47:59.919 --> 00:48:01.942
and what's it like to be an ordained woman
904
00:48:01.942 --> 00:48:03.807
and all that kind of stuff.
905
00:48:03.807 --> 00:48:06.522
And I was debriefing with the episcopal bishop on it
906
00:48:06.522 --> 00:48:08.439
afterwards and he said,
907
00:48:10.298 --> 00:48:13.298
well you know they can't ordain you,
908
00:48:19.006 --> 00:48:21.431
you being ordained just doesn't make any sense to them
909
00:48:21.431 --> 00:48:24.224
because they can't ordain women.
910
00:48:24.224 --> 00:48:25.800
So of course they're curious about that.
911
00:48:25.800 --> 00:48:28.908
He says, but the real problem for me is inclusive language.
912
00:48:28.908 --> 00:48:29.971
And I said why?
913
00:48:29.971 --> 00:48:31.809
He said, cause I've got this prayer book that
914
00:48:31.809 --> 00:48:33.856
I have to follow and it's not inclusive.
915
00:48:33.856 --> 00:48:37.742
(laughs) I can ordain you,
916
00:48:37.742 --> 00:48:41.075
but I can't give you inclusive language.
917
00:48:43.667 --> 00:48:47.043
I think those conversations got facilitated a little bit
918
00:48:47.043 --> 00:48:49.772
by Re-imagining, but they were off on the side and
919
00:48:49.772 --> 00:48:53.939
they were in individual congregations or denominations.
920
00:48:56.367 --> 00:48:59.021
And of course the United Methodist still can't ordain gays
921
00:48:59.021 --> 00:49:03.188
so (laughs) despite the fact they do.
922
00:49:05.327 --> 00:49:07.577
Yes. So how would you say
923
00:49:08.414 --> 00:49:10.705
the church needs to be re-imagined today?
924
00:49:10.705 --> 00:49:12.937
By that, I don't mean just the re-imagining movement,
925
00:49:12.937 --> 00:49:16.967
but what needs to happen in the church today, do you think?
926
00:49:16.967 --> 00:49:19.153
Well I think we're going through a major transformation
927
00:49:19.153 --> 00:49:20.311
and then the best is gonna be over
928
00:49:20.311 --> 00:49:22.634
at House of Hope this weekend.
929
00:49:22.634 --> 00:49:26.801
Or starting Friday night, we'll talk a lot about that.
930
00:49:31.740 --> 00:49:34.106
I think one of the major things
931
00:49:34.106 --> 00:49:36.606
is the question of belonging.
932
00:49:37.830 --> 00:49:40.577
Everything we've been told is the current generations
933
00:49:40.577 --> 00:49:43.852
don't wanna belong, they wanna participate.
934
00:49:43.852 --> 00:49:45.102
But not belong.
935
00:49:46.215 --> 00:49:49.385
And that's true of all kinds of institutions.
936
00:49:49.385 --> 00:49:53.218
So if churches can't find a more inclusive way
937
00:49:55.270 --> 00:49:58.221
of involving people without the
938
00:49:58.221 --> 00:49:59.054
why don't you come to our membership
939
00:49:59.054 --> 00:50:03.137
class being the first question out of your mouth.
940
00:50:04.290 --> 00:50:07.207
We're not gonna go into the future.
941
00:50:08.210 --> 00:50:12.377
The image of the congregations is having set beliefs
942
00:50:17.588 --> 00:50:21.252
needs to be acknowledged as it's never been true.
943
00:50:21.252 --> 00:50:22.622
Say some more about that.
944
00:50:22.622 --> 00:50:27.185
Well we have basic Christian principles that
945
00:50:27.185 --> 00:50:28.624
get reinterpreted all the time.
946
00:50:28.624 --> 00:50:30.243
That's what Re-imagining was about.
947
00:50:30.243 --> 00:50:34.076
How do you re-look at this language for today?
948
00:50:36.018 --> 00:50:39.935
The whole area of cosmology is changing the way
949
00:50:42.412 --> 00:50:45.182
we look at the universe and the possibility of creation
950
00:50:45.182 --> 00:50:46.141
and all that.
951
00:50:46.141 --> 00:50:50.387
Well people come now out of schools, even high school
952
00:50:50.387 --> 00:50:53.885
let alone college, with a different understanding
953
00:50:53.885 --> 00:50:57.385
of how the universe works and how life is.
954
00:51:00.073 --> 00:51:02.979
And how people are related.
955
00:51:02.979 --> 00:51:05.576
So the churches better be a place where those things
956
00:51:05.576 --> 00:51:08.431
can be talked about and explored and connected
957
00:51:08.431 --> 00:51:10.635
with the tradition.
958
00:51:10.635 --> 00:51:12.968
So the translation role from
959
00:51:16.003 --> 00:51:19.170
the old to the new is pretty critical.
960
00:51:25.112 --> 00:51:28.445
Back when I was doing research for both,
961
00:51:30.923 --> 00:51:33.033
I headed a research function for both denominations before
962
00:51:33.033 --> 00:51:35.700
I moved into the other position.
963
00:51:39.602 --> 00:51:43.019
You'd have these certainties of response,
964
00:51:47.110 --> 00:51:48.977
and I used to joke about that
965
00:51:48.977 --> 00:51:50.483
there were only two differences
966
00:51:50.483 --> 00:51:52.246
between the northern and the southern church
967
00:51:52.246 --> 00:51:55.225
other than the civil war. (laughs)
968
00:51:55.225 --> 00:51:59.392
but one was the professional makeup of the two churches.
969
00:52:02.064 --> 00:52:05.731
The southern church was basically educators,
970
00:52:10.876 --> 00:52:12.209
business owners.
971
00:52:14.777 --> 00:52:18.944
The northern church was managers and entrepreneurs
972
00:52:20.386 --> 00:52:23.636
they were the big people with industry.
973
00:52:26.773 --> 00:52:28.107
Are you talking about the participants?
974
00:52:28.107 --> 00:52:29.179
The membership.
975
00:52:29.179 --> 00:52:30.799
The membership. Okay, yeah.
976
00:52:30.799 --> 00:52:32.774
The second that was, and this is more or less
977
00:52:32.774 --> 00:52:34.693
going where I was going,
978
00:52:34.693 --> 00:52:36.193
if I ask somebody,
979
00:52:38.118 --> 00:52:42.423
what do you think about the death penalty?
980
00:52:42.423 --> 00:52:45.677
A southern respondent would right down Leviticus flump,
981
00:52:45.677 --> 00:52:46.760
flump, flump.
982
00:52:49.493 --> 00:52:52.396
That's all they'd say, Leviticus, flump flump.
983
00:52:52.396 --> 00:52:54.343
I ask a United Presbyterian that question and
984
00:52:54.343 --> 00:52:55.706
they say, well in the Bible,
985
00:52:55.706 --> 00:52:58.722
there's this phrase of an eye for an eye
986
00:52:58.722 --> 00:53:01.322
and a tooth for a tooth, but then Jesus said we should
987
00:53:01.322 --> 00:53:04.968
forgive seven times 70 and (laughs) they give you
988
00:53:04.968 --> 00:53:08.385
a long discourse on the complexity of it.
989
00:53:10.291 --> 00:53:13.218
I figured that was the only reason for reunion.
990
00:53:13.218 --> 00:53:14.857
The southerns could tell us where it was
991
00:53:14.857 --> 00:53:16.367
and we could tell them what it meant.
992
00:53:16.367 --> 00:53:19.726
(both laughing)
993
00:53:19.726 --> 00:53:20.559
We need more of that,
994
00:53:20.559 --> 00:53:23.892
what it means, rather than what it says.
995
00:53:31.411 --> 00:53:34.054
You open for an illustration from Westminster, Minneapolis?
996
00:53:34.054 --> 00:53:35.323
Sure.
997
00:53:35.323 --> 00:53:39.139
Cause this is a thriving liberal church he's growing.
998
00:53:39.139 --> 00:53:40.780
Yes.
999
00:53:40.780 --> 00:53:44.363
And expanding. We launched groundbreaking
1000
00:53:46.298 --> 00:53:49.997
for a 34 million dollar extension of the church Sunday.
1001
00:53:49.997 --> 00:53:51.533
Wow.
1002
00:53:51.533 --> 00:53:55.116
And a lot of important people were there.
1003
00:53:56.231 --> 00:53:58.930
Like the governor, (laughs) and the vice president,
1004
00:53:58.930 --> 00:54:03.186
and the mayor, not the mayor but the head of the council,
1005
00:54:03.186 --> 00:54:06.686
and the councilperson and folks like that.
1006
00:54:12.152 --> 00:54:14.617
And the architect is James Daden.
1007
00:54:14.617 --> 00:54:17.703
James Daden is the great great grandson of the original
1008
00:54:17.703 --> 00:54:22.247
founder of the church, George whatever his middle name was.
1009
00:54:22.247 --> 00:54:26.264
Draper Daden, who originally founded the church
1010
00:54:26.264 --> 00:54:29.333
and was responsible for the church being on
1011
00:54:29.333 --> 00:54:32.298
Nicolette and 12th, moved it from Nicolette and 7th
1012
00:54:32.298 --> 00:54:34.103
to Nicolette and 12th.
1013
00:54:34.103 --> 00:54:37.153
He thought the 7th would be a better place for a store
1014
00:54:37.153 --> 00:54:38.497
than a church.
1015
00:54:38.497 --> 00:54:40.176
And 12th would be better for the church.
1016
00:54:40.176 --> 00:54:42.474
Anyway that's our history.
1017
00:54:42.474 --> 00:54:43.967
Our history is the Dadens,
1018
00:54:43.967 --> 00:54:46.199
and the Cargills, and those folks.
1019
00:54:46.199 --> 00:54:47.438
Oh wow.
1020
00:54:47.438 --> 00:54:51.605
And James Daden who's the architect is describing
1021
00:54:54.250 --> 00:54:57.414
this addition that's going on and he says,
1022
00:54:57.414 --> 00:55:02.266
you got this staid Romanesque church, with magnificent
1023
00:55:02.266 --> 00:55:06.433
stained-glass windows, and a proud tradition and outstanding
1024
00:55:07.669 --> 00:55:11.586
worship, and my challenge was to put next door,
1025
00:55:12.585 --> 00:55:17.446
something for the next 150 years that would be open
1026
00:55:17.446 --> 00:55:21.087
and glass, and you could see in, and it welcomes
1027
00:55:21.087 --> 00:55:24.876
the community, and it has space that can be modified
1028
00:55:24.876 --> 00:55:29.864
for concerts or receptions or funerals or jazz bands
1029
00:55:29.864 --> 00:55:32.326
or whatever were going on.
1030
00:55:32.326 --> 00:55:35.365
And space where we can welcome mission groups from
1031
00:55:35.365 --> 00:55:37.559
other churches to spend the night.
1032
00:55:37.559 --> 00:55:41.726
And where we're partnering with communities and endeavors.
1033
00:55:43.708 --> 00:55:46.087
And we're probably will have
1034
00:55:46.087 --> 00:55:48.589
two community entities in there.
1035
00:55:48.589 --> 00:55:52.339
And it will be welcome and open and said this
1036
00:55:53.921 --> 00:55:58.088
and you don't want to lose that Romanesque tradition.
1037
00:56:01.934 --> 00:56:06.389
But you want to be able to do these other things.
1038
00:56:06.389 --> 00:56:10.100
And you can't do it in the Romanesque church.
1039
00:56:10.100 --> 00:56:13.267
So the expansion is one of the future.
1040
00:56:16.980 --> 00:56:20.183
And that's Re-imagining church.
1041
00:56:20.183 --> 00:56:24.350
That's saying the very successful way we've been is
1042
00:56:25.230 --> 00:56:28.344
not what we should be for the next 150 years.
1043
00:56:28.344 --> 00:56:30.574
We've gotta be different.
1044
00:56:30.574 --> 00:56:34.231
But we can't throw away that old history.
1045
00:56:34.231 --> 00:56:38.398
And Mark Daden, who is a member, he was one of those
1046
00:56:39.637 --> 00:56:43.804
speakers, and he, there was the sermon which kind of
1047
00:56:46.087 --> 00:56:48.790
gave them vision and then there's this video that
1048
00:56:48.790 --> 00:56:51.904
showed the thing and all that.
1049
00:56:51.904 --> 00:56:56.071
And he got up to speak and he says that I am so glad
1050
00:56:59.432 --> 00:57:01.682
to see that shift in there.
1051
00:57:06.217 --> 00:57:10.384
And the maintenance of the old, cause he says 24 years ago
1052
00:57:11.280 --> 00:57:13.410
I was in a rough spot in my life.
1053
00:57:13.410 --> 00:57:15.745
And he was. And I think that was when he was divorcing
1054
00:57:15.745 --> 00:57:19.997
and his career was collapsing, the whole thing.
1055
00:57:19.997 --> 00:57:21.997
And he confessed that he
1056
00:57:22.855 --> 00:57:24.991
every Monday morning, early morning,
1057
00:57:24.991 --> 00:57:28.115
he came into the sanctuary at Westminster and the
1058
00:57:28.115 --> 00:57:31.551
sunlight was coming in from the south windows, stained-glass
1059
00:57:31.551 --> 00:57:34.831
windows, and just simply bathing him in that sunlight.
1060
00:57:34.831 --> 00:57:38.998
And he did that for weeks to get through that rough spot
1061
00:57:39.935 --> 00:57:44.102
and he said, that's what we need to give as a grounding
1062
00:57:44.988 --> 00:57:47.488
and then move into the future.
1063
00:57:48.616 --> 00:57:52.209
I think churches, Westminster isn't the
1064
00:57:52.209 --> 00:57:54.086
only one building downtown.
1065
00:57:54.086 --> 00:57:58.005
I think there's 10 or 12 entities downtown in the
1066
00:57:58.005 --> 00:58:00.873
downtown coalition of Minneapolis.
1067
00:58:00.873 --> 00:58:03.456
Saint Paul doesn't have one.
1068
00:58:03.456 --> 00:58:05.087
But Minneapolis does.
1069
00:58:05.087 --> 00:58:08.004
I think eight of them are in renovation
1070
00:58:08.004 --> 00:58:11.923
or construction processes because people
1071
00:58:11.923 --> 00:58:15.648
are coming back cause the churches are open
1072
00:58:15.648 --> 00:58:19.231
and they're allowing those places of safety
1073
00:58:20.255 --> 00:58:22.088
you can ask questions.
1074
00:58:23.512 --> 00:58:27.012
So Re-imagining was part of that movement.
1075
00:58:28.157 --> 00:58:30.858
I don't think it started it.
1076
00:58:30.858 --> 00:58:33.727
I don't think it sustains it.
1077
00:58:33.727 --> 00:58:36.573
But it certainly was a part of it.
1078
00:58:36.573 --> 00:58:38.975
And it was a very significant one because it got
1079
00:58:38.975 --> 00:58:43.092
raised to the national and international levels
1080
00:58:43.092 --> 00:58:46.906
in a way that said to all these folks who kind
1081
00:58:46.906 --> 00:58:49.595
of took it for granted that we're going in this direction.
1082
00:58:49.595 --> 00:58:53.123
Well wait a minute, we gotta fight for this.
1083
00:58:53.123 --> 00:58:54.540
It's not a given.
1084
00:58:55.770 --> 00:58:59.492
Well that's a pretty good heritage.
1085
00:58:59.492 --> 00:59:01.290
Wow. That's great.
1086
00:59:01.290 --> 00:59:03.376
I love that illustration.
1087
00:59:03.376 --> 00:59:05.140
Actually you summed it up really well,
1088
00:59:05.140 --> 00:59:07.031
but I'll ask if there's anything else you wanna add.
1089
00:59:07.031 --> 00:59:07.864
(laughs)
1090
00:59:07.864 --> 00:59:09.614
cause that was great.
1091
00:59:16.826 --> 00:59:17.659
Yeah I do.
1092
00:59:17.659 --> 00:59:20.693
One thing I do wanna see in the future is the effective
1093
00:59:20.693 --> 00:59:21.693
Re-imagining,
1094
00:59:21.693 --> 00:59:24.232
I think Re-imagining and the whole feminist movement
1095
00:59:24.232 --> 00:59:25.399
in the church,
1096
00:59:29.038 --> 00:59:32.871
really did open the way for women in ministry.
1097
00:59:35.008 --> 00:59:38.070
There was a pretty big glass ceiling.
1098
00:59:38.070 --> 00:59:42.237
A lot of associate pastors, not very many pastors in '93.
1099
00:59:46.351 --> 00:59:49.684
Some of both the Methodists that I know,
1100
00:59:50.644 --> 00:59:53.099
some of the Lutherans, not as many.
1101
00:59:53.099 --> 00:59:57.844
A lot of the Presbyterian mega-churches are headed
1102
00:59:57.844 --> 00:59:58.927
by women now.
1103
01:00:03.625 --> 01:00:05.958
It did open doors for folks.
1104
01:00:07.924 --> 01:00:10.622
And a lot of folks paid their dues.
1105
01:00:10.622 --> 01:00:14.788
I'm sitting here watching Westminster and I've only
1106
01:00:14.788 --> 01:00:16.621
been with it 17 years.
1107
01:00:20.270 --> 01:00:24.437
And we're going through pastoral changes right now.
1108
01:00:25.487 --> 01:00:27.904
Elderly pastors are retiring.
1109
01:00:32.443 --> 01:00:34.213
And I'm watching it in the Presbytery as we
1110
01:00:34.213 --> 01:00:36.659
ordain new people and take new people under care
1111
01:00:36.659 --> 01:00:37.909
for ordination.
1112
01:00:39.803 --> 01:00:43.970
I am so impressed with the people who seek ministry now.
1113
01:00:47.756 --> 01:00:51.673
And I think having dealt with the culture wars,
1114
01:00:52.580 --> 01:00:55.930
these people know all about those culture wars.
1115
01:00:55.930 --> 01:00:58.651
They grew up with them.
1116
01:00:58.651 --> 01:01:02.818
And they're over, these people wanna be part of the mainline
1117
01:01:04.135 --> 01:01:06.385
churches that have survived
1118
01:01:07.710 --> 01:01:11.030
and thrived the progressive agenda.
1119
01:01:11.030 --> 01:01:13.863
And I'm looking at our associates.
1120
01:01:17.602 --> 01:01:20.818
One of my friends said, when I look at seminary graduates
1121
01:01:20.818 --> 01:01:23.818
or cohorts of seminarians, or these,
1122
01:01:24.704 --> 01:01:25.870
I look at it from the perspective,
1123
01:01:25.870 --> 01:01:29.593
would I want them to be my parent's pastor?
1124
01:01:29.593 --> 01:01:33.760
Would I want that person to be a pastor to my parents.
1125
01:01:34.742 --> 01:01:38.834
I don't see very many that would not fit that right now.
1126
01:01:38.834 --> 01:01:41.384
They are incredible people.
1127
01:01:41.384 --> 01:01:44.301
And they're not frozen in the past.
1128
01:01:46.258 --> 01:01:49.530
They're looking to the future.
1129
01:01:49.530 --> 01:01:51.251
You know, we got an associate pastor
1130
01:01:51.251 --> 01:01:53.952
for our youth and families,
1131
01:01:53.952 --> 01:01:58.124
he can't wait til the new meeting hall is opened up
1132
01:01:58.124 --> 01:02:00.886
cause he's got so many ideas of how he's gonna use it.
1133
01:02:00.886 --> 01:02:05.053
(laughs) and you just sit there and say, Yes!
1134
01:02:07.200 --> 01:02:11.200
And I think we had to work our way through that.
1135
01:02:12.486 --> 01:02:15.636
And for once, maybe the church is ahead of the politics.
1136
01:02:15.636 --> 01:02:19.803
Usually we're years behind politics, our business.
1137
01:02:22.823 --> 01:02:24.289
You know business tries something it fails,
1138
01:02:24.289 --> 01:02:25.397
and then we adopt it.
1139
01:02:25.397 --> 01:02:26.696
(both laughing)
1140
01:02:26.696 --> 01:02:28.618
that's the norm.
1141
01:02:28.618 --> 01:02:31.146
I think maybe this time we're ahead of it.
1142
01:02:31.146 --> 01:02:34.318
The mainline churches who are surviving.
1143
01:02:34.318 --> 01:02:36.651
Diminished, but still there.
1144
01:02:39.049 --> 01:02:42.290
We're all looking to the future now.
1145
01:02:42.290 --> 01:02:45.246
We're not having to fight those battles anymore.
1146
01:02:45.246 --> 01:02:47.015
Now we will fight them in Mississippi
1147
01:02:47.015 --> 01:02:49.077
and (laughs) South Carolina.
1148
01:02:49.077 --> 01:02:53.385
But they're political battles now and they're gonna lose.
1149
01:02:53.385 --> 01:02:57.181
I mean when you had the latest Supreme Court decision
1150
01:02:57.181 --> 01:03:00.174
with the split it got was eight-nothing?
1151
01:03:00.174 --> 01:03:03.459
(laughs) I mean certainly
1152
01:03:03.459 --> 01:03:07.299
there are values in this country now.
1153
01:03:07.299 --> 01:03:09.966
And you can't go to the extreme.
1154
01:03:11.093 --> 01:03:13.760
So I'm very optimistic actually.
1155
01:03:14.924 --> 01:03:17.425
I think that's a very encouraging way to end.
1156
01:03:17.425 --> 01:03:18.300
That's great.
1157
01:03:18.300 --> 01:03:19.510
Thank you so much.
1158
01:03:19.510 --> 01:03:20.343
Yeah.