-: Joyce, thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed.
Some background information would be helpful.
Could you please say and spell your name, please?
-: Joyce, middle initial, B, Sohl.
First name spelled J-O-Y-C-E.
Last name spelled S-O-H-L.
-: Thank you so much, and are you Lay or Clergy?
-: Lay.
-: And your denominational affiliation is?
-: United Methodist.
-: Thank you.
-: Joyce, when and where were you born?
-: I was born in Aurora, Illinois,
December 15, 1935.
-: Okay, thank you.
And where did you go to school?
-: Alright, first, how far back do you want to go?
(laughing)
-: Well, maybe, go ahead.
-: College was from Westmar College through
Le Mars, Iowa, BA degree.
Then the University of Nebraska with an MA degree
in Mathematics and Education.
And then Fordham University, New York City with an MBA.
-: Whoa, that's very interesting.
And Joyce, what work or ministry were you doing
at the time of Re-Imagining?
-: I was the Deputy General Secretary
of the Women's Division of the United Methodist Church.
That's what's now known as
the CEO of
United Methodist Women.
-: Oh, okay.
Thank you, and what work or ministry
did you do after Re-Imagining, Joyce?
-: I was Deputy General Secretary til 2001
when I retired.
I wrote two books in the next five years
and then I became a full-time volunteer
at Scarritt Bennett Center in Nashville, Tennessee,
which is where I'm still at.
-: Yes, oh, that's wonderful.
What were your two books about, Joyce?
-: Well, one was on
women (mumbles) writers
and the other one was for one of the mission
studies for United Methodist Women on God's Mission,
God's song, the role of music
in the missionary movement.
-: Oh, that's fascinating, that's wonderful.
So Joyce, how or when did you first become
aware of feminist theology?
-: Oh, probably from my mother.
(laughing)
She was a Christian educator as well as a pastor's wife
and I do remember her saying
something to the effect that be careful
when you're speaking with this child about God.
Don't use God the Father.
And that would have been in the 50's.
-: Really, do you know how she developed that awareness?
-: Through the work she had done and the education she had.
-: Wow, that's impressive.
Later in life, did you experience
feminist theology more formally?
-: Probably in my years on the board
of the Women's Division.
I started in the volunteer capacity for nine years
before I became staff,
so I would say about late 60's.
-: Wonderful, so you were on board early on?
-: Yes, very early on.
-: That's wonderful, well, if we could move to the--
That's great background, thank you.
Very interesting.
What was your relationship to the Re-Imagining community?
-: Actually, I had none.
-: You experienced backlash from it, however,
because of your role as Deputy General Secretary,
the Women's Division, so I wonder if you could talk
about how that happened.
-: I was in India, in Nepal
at the time of the event.
I, of course, knew of the planning
of the event by others of the Women's Division,
was not actively involved as the Division
in the planning of the event.
The backlash started, I would say
in December following the Division,
and of course, that's right in the midst
of Christmas and so forth.
We received,
we being the Division, received thousands of post cards,
mail, that was before the active days of email,
thank heavens (laughs).
It was my responsibility to work with staff
and officers of the Division to redo
the necessary revise so
we spent probably a good four to five months
dealing with the heavy mail.
It didn't stop after five months
but that was when the heavy mail was there.
-: Wow.
-: We did a fact sheet
giving the facts of what--
We were charged with all kinds of things,
but one of them was why did we send people
to this heathen event and things of that nature.
We did have 36 Women's
Division directors, nine staff,
and 11 conference officers at the event itself,
and in the eyes of some,
this was not a proper place for them to be.
So we developed a fact sheet.
We developed a statement
of our administrative committee
who have the authority to act
for the Division in between Division meetings.
We did various studies, you know,
trying to help the constituency understand
wisdom, understanding of
the meaning of wisdom literature in the Bible.
We did, you know,
have to have telephone conversations
and et cetera, around the topic.
-: Oh, wow, there's a lot there, Joyce.
First of all, how would you describe
the nature of the mail that you received?
You said these were post cards?
-: Well, we received, you know, stamped post cards.
Somebody duplicated the post cards
and people would sign their names, and they'd send them in.
We did not bother to answer those.
We mean, that was just ludicrous.
I don't remember what the post cards said.
You'd have to do research in the office files
to find that out.
We received letters and in my report
that you have a copy of, I have dedicated and quoted some
of the things from the letters we received.
-: You did, and you kinda put them in four categories,
which was helpful.
-: That's right.
We saw this as a continuation of our support of
The Ecumenical Decade, Churches, and Solidarity with Women.
We did not see this as anything that
was beyond our Ecumenical reasons.
-: I'm curious, how is the fact sheet,
I do have a copy of that, it's very good.
How was that distributed?
-: How was what distributed?
-: The fact sheet. -: The fact sheet?
-: Yes.
-: It would have been mailed out to all conference officers
and they would have duplicated as they needed to.
-: And did you get any responses to the fact sheet
or the statements?
-: Oh, yeah, we got some, I don't believe this, so forth.
-: Oh.
You mentioned studies you did on Sophia.
Just so I'm clear, who were the studies for?
Was it a United Methodist Women's study?
Is that what it was?
-: Yeah, we had some studies that we did
for our own staff.
We had some studies that were
prepared for workshops.
For instance, we had done a study
on Sophia way back in 1991, so, you know.
-: Oh.
(laughing)
-: It was part of our theological program.
We worked with various agencies within
the United Methodist Church to aid in the understanding
of so, you know, it was our normal response,
I'm trying to see whether there was interesting,
any interesting things of--
I think that's about it.
-: Yes, that's fine.
Just to clarify, the 1991 study, was that a study for staff?
Was that a larger United Methodist study?
-: It was a workshop on theology
that we did for the membership.
-: I'm sorry, the membership of the?
-: United Methodist's Women, primarily conference leadership.
-: Okay, thank you, that's helpful.
How would you describe the reaction among your staff,
if you feel comfortable doing that,
that attended the Re-Imagining Conference
and that were experiencing this?
-: They weren't upset.
That was part, you know.
They knew that the Re-Imagining Conference
was a discussion, a chance
to look at various theological points,
and that was not disturbing to them.
-: Were you or they surprised by the backlash
after the conference?
-: No.
-: Oh, interesting, why is that?
-: Because we, everything we did in that period of time
was contested by the Conservative Branch
of the United Methodist Church.
-: Would this be Good News?
-: It'd be Good News and their women's organization.
-: Just so I'm clear were the post cards
coming from Good News?
-: I imagine so, some of the people were Good News followers.
-: Yeah.
So this was a part, just to get a larger context for this,
because this is what I've been learning.
This was not an isolated event at all.
Could you say a little bit more about how
the Women's Division had been targeted,
to use that word, I guess, before?
-: Well, we were on the cutting edge of some of the issues
and we were, you know, we followed
the teachings of, not only scripture, but the discipline
of the United Methodist Church.
We talked about the rights of women
to have an abortion.
We talked about welfare reform.
We talked about peace.
We talked about things that they didn't like
and so we were always attacked,
either through mail campaigns
or through their magazine, or so forth.
-: Were there threats at all to withdraw funds?
-: I'm sorry?
-: Were there threats to withdraw funds, money?
-: Some probably did, but that was not noticeable
at all in our budgeting processes.
-: Good.
Did you receive support during this?
-: Support? -: Yes.
-: Yes, definitely.
We received support from some Bishops.
We received support from
various organizations within the United Methodist Church,
the Commission on Ecumenical Relations,
the Commission on Status Enrollment
and various people in leadership roles within the church,
and many of the membership.
-: That's good to hear.
You mentioned that you had been targeted before.
Was the attack on the Re-Imagining Conference
of a different scale of the other ones?
Was it different?
-: That was probably the largest one during my tenure,
but before that, I'm sure there were some
equally large, if not larger, when we were
taking on some of the social issues.
-: Well Joyce, how did you, you were Deputy General
for quite awhile, how did you maintain your,
your work, your enthusiasm?
-: Because I felt we were doing what we were told to do.
-: That's great, yes.
Was it those months when you're receiving the mail,
were those very difficult months for you and the staff?
-: After awhile it became just one more nuisance
that you had to deal with.
It is not good to have to deal with these kind of things
over the Christmas holidays.
So, you know, at first it was probably difficult,
but after awhile it just became the way things were.
-: Did you feel as if the Good News was able
to have an impact on the Women's Division
through this or other attacks?
-: I'm sorry.
Think that the conservative groups had an impact?
-: Yes, did they have an impact on the Women's Division?
-: I don't, not in our purpose,
not in what we were trying to do in the world,
not in carrying out our responsibilities, no.
-: Yes, well, good.
I know you didn't attend Re-Imagining,
you weren't even directly involved, but do you have
a sense of how you would define Re-Imagining?
-: The word?
-: Yeah, that, yes.
-: Well, to re-imagine something is that
you look at it differently.
-: And you felt that's what
the Re-Imagining Conference was doing?
-: Yeah, at least from my perspective.
They were taking a look at a biblical situation
and some old doctrines in a different way.
In (mumbles), we do it every day.
-: Yes, yeah, yes.
-: Up to the present time.
-: So in the end, what do you think is, or was,
the legacy of the Re-Imagining movement?
-: Well, I think there was,
on the part of the
first event, I think there was some naivety
that it would be a safe place for the women
to express their feelings.
There was just too much going on in many denominations
at the time that should include somebody that this was
not the way you need to approach some of these things.
And I'm not saying they shouldn't have done
the Re-Imagining, but the safety that
they assumed they had was not present.
-: Yes.
-: And that's the sad part of the whole thing.
One of the things that we have that's
in the United Methodist discipline
is something called
our Theological TASC.
Do you have a copy of that?
-: I don't think I have it right in front of me, no.
-: But do you have one?
-: Yes, I do.
-: Okay, because see, that is pretty rounded
in re-looking at things,
and so one of our responses was we were upholding
the discipline
by participating in an event.
-: Actually, I see in your report to the Women's Division
Executive Committee, you quote from that Theological TASC.
-: Yeah, somewhere.
-: Yes, that's very helpful.
So you saw this as part of, this was certainly within
the theological work of the United Methodist Church.
-: Yeah.
-: You mentioned, you know, the naivete
and they thought it was a safe place.
Do you have an idea of a better way to go about this?
-: Some ways you might do by invitation only.
Some ways you might make it a smaller group
of people.
Opening something up to the general public
means you also open it up to
the press and Good News and the women
that were against what was happening always
saw themselves as the press and they would get
press credentials to anything that was open to the public.
And they attended our board meetings, every meeting we had.
-: As press?
What was their role?
-: What?
-: How would they attend the board meetings?
Were they open public meetings?
-: Well, anybody can attend.
Church meetings can't be closed.
-: Right, and then they would write articles in Good News?
-: Of course.
-: My reports got plenty of critique, I can assure you.
-: Joyce, you're very involved
in the United Methodist Church.
Do you think that inclusive language and feminist theology
have become a part of the Methodist Church?
-: In some places, yes, and in some places, no.
I mean, you know, we are a broad spectrum of congregations
and theologies and so forth.
-: Yes, yes.
-: Couple of final questions.
What does Re-Imagining mean today, and I don't just mean
the Re-Imagining movement, but how does the church
or theology need to be re-imagined for today?
-: Well, for instance, it's summer here
at Scarritt Bennett Center and we have a weekly
Vespers and All That Jazz service on Sunday evening,
45 minutes of contemporary readings,
prayers, scripture, poetry, and all the music,
there's usually six numbers,
are jazz coming from all kinds of sources,
and this summer, we're doing a series on
the parables of Jesus.
And yes, we will be re-imagining
those parables to fit contemporary society.
-: That sounds wonderful.
-: You know, I think that there are groups, churches
that are doing, re-looking at theology all the time.
I've had several theo thespians
from Vanderbilt Seminary that I've worked with here.
It's something that happens.
-: My last question is about
a re-imaginging website that we're developing.
Do you have ideas about what to include
or who would benefit from it?
-: Well, I think you need a clear statement of purpose,
an understanding of what it means to use
the imagination in the interpretation of scripture,
(mumbles).
I mean, he's done a lot of work
on imagination and interpretations.
I think that it needs to be,
it could have two different audiences.
One would be the professionals and the other would be
the average woman who sits in the pew
and they would each need different information.
-: Yes.
That's excellent, that's very helpful.
Thank you.
Joyce, is there anything you would like to add
that we haven't discussed?
-: One interesting thing, after I gave that report
in April of '94,
there was a couple in attendance that had been sent
by Good News.
Once they heard my report, they told the
Good News people that were there that they no longer cared
to be part of this protest and they left.
-: Really?
-: Yup.
-: Wow, that's amazing.
-: Do you know what changed their mind specifically?
-: Well, just some of the things, the comments.
You know, it was basically from hearing my report.
-: Wow.
-: And you've got a copy of that.
-: I sure do, it's a great report.
That's great to hear that.
I'm glad you said that, Joyce.
That's very powerful.
-: You have talked to Mary Ann Lundy?
-: I have, yes.
-: How's she doing?
She's the one who really took the brunt.
-: She did, and you know, I'm gonna turn off
the recording now, and then we can have a conversation.
-: Please do. -: I will.
I'm gonna stop it now.