-: John, thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed.
If you can just say and spell your name.
-: My name, my full name is John, J-O-H-N
Edward, E-D-W-A-R-D
Strausz, S-T-R-A-U-S-Z
Clement, C-L-E-M-E-N-T.
-: Thank you very much.
And, are you lay or clergy?
-: I am clergy.
-: And, your denomination is?
-: Presbyterian.
-: Thank you.
John, when and where were you born?
-: I was born in Enid, Oklahoma.
-: Great. And, when were you born?
-: January 9, 1934.
-: Thank you very much.
Where did you go to school?
Graduate, Divinity school ...
-: I graduated from Oberlin College and went to
Union Theological Seminary.
-: Oh, great. Thank you.
And John, what work or ministry were you doing
at the time of Re-Imagining, in 1993?
-: I was the executive of the Presbytery of Pittsburgh.
-: Okay. Thank you very much.
And, what work or ministry did you do after Re-Imagining?
-: I did an interim ministry in Carlisle, Pennsylvania
in the Presbytery of Carlisle in Pennsylvania,
for an interim after I left Pittsburgh.
Then I went to a permanent position in
Blackhawk Presbytery in Illinois.
Oregon, Illinois.
-: Okay, thank you.
John, how and when did you first become aware
of feminist theology?
-: With my former wife,
Jan Simpson Clement,
who died before the conference began,
but she was a strong feminist
and did read feminist theology.
She was an elder in the Presbyterian Church.
-: Oh, okay. That's great. Okay.
So, you attended- you're wife at the time, Judy,
was involved in planning the 1993 gathering, correct?
-: Yes, I knew- it was after my wife had died.
Judy and I began conversations and
she ended up- before we got married, she was working
on the conference.
And, she suggested that I might want to attend.
I had never heard of it.
And, so I did.
I did go to my committee, my personnel committee
and ask if I could use
my Sunday leave time
to go to the conference, and Sunday leave money,
and they approved it.
-: John, what do you recall about your experience
at the Re-Imagining conference?
-: I found it very exciting.
Of course, I was only one of the 83 men,
out of the several thousand women who were there.
I was welcomed, and I sat at a table
with all women, except myself,
and I had a very positive experience with that table
and with the conversations that went on there,
and with the whole conference.
-: Oh, that's good to hear.
Are there particular memories that you have
from that conference
that were very meaningful to you?
-: Well, yes, I had not been familiar
with the theology of Sophia,
and wisdom.
So, that was a new experience for me,
and new knowledge,
so that was one of the very positive
that I got.
-: That's great.
I know that you were directly affected by the backlash.
Could you talk about how you were affected by it?
-: Well, let's see, how do I go about that?
After my wife died, I went-
I had-
My ability as an Executive was focused on
being with her and with her death
and sometime thereafter,
in the- after that death.
So, I don't think- I just-
My own impression was that I was not being
as effective as a Presbyter Executive
that I should be.
Anyway, after,
after my wife died,
and Judy and I-
Judy had mentioned the conference
and she- about five months before our marriage.
Then when we got married in November,
I mean, we got married in May 30th,
let's see what was the date?
It was in May 30th, 1993.
And the conference took place in November.
-: Right.
-: And so, well I had already heard about the conference
before we got married and I had already
made plans to attend it.
Now, did I answer the question,
or is there still more that I need to say?
-: Oh, well that's helpful,
that explains how you went to the conference.
Now, just to be clear, were you already-
you were already Executive Presbyter
in Pittsburgh at the time of the conference.
-: That is correct.
-: Okay.
-: I was Executive with my wife Jan there with me in '92,
so, yes, I was there.
-: Okay, good. So, then you and Judy got married in May.
You attended the conference.
You were in Pittsburgh Presbytery.
-: Correct. -: And then you were-
How were you affected by the backlash against Re-Imagining?
-: Well, I think, you know, there was, what happened
was that on the- in January, the conference
was in November,
the first Presbyterian meeting in January.
I was attacked verbally on the floor
of the Presbytery for attending the conference.
And, the next meeting of the Presbytery in February
I gave that statement, which you have,
-: Yes.
-: Defending the Presbyterian understanding
of reformation and reform,
reform and constantly reforming.
And that Presbyterians are open to hearing new ideas
and new ways of thinking about the scripture and faith.
And, that statement clarifies
what I was trying to say.
That's how it affected me.
Following that,
through the year following that,
that was in 1995,
was it?
Or, 1994.
-: Right.
-: Following that year there were some
I guess people who felt that I was not,
was not
the executive I should be,
and Pittsburgh Presbytery is a very, very
conservative Presbytery.
And I am not a very, very conservative person.
Or, theologically I am not.
So, there might have been some minor conflict there.
But, there was a group that I suspect,
I cannot say for sure, but I suspect
formed a cabal to get rid of me.
And, I do remember saying to my staff,
I'm not planning to leave,
I'm planning to retire from here.
So, I knew there was something going on
in the background.
But, I didn't know exactly what it was.
They, or this group, or persons
who didn't want me around
finally got our general council in January
to set up a special committee to review my work.
And, I had already been reviewed
by the personnel committee, so why did they
need to do that?
But, they did it anyway, and the committee was set up
to review my work.
And that committee interviewed me several times,
had several meetings with me,
and I realized at the time
that I was in trouble.
So, I asked some Executives in nearby Presbyteries,
whom I knew, to go to the meetings with me,
well none of them were able to make
those committee meetings, and so,
one did, and one came one time.
So, I asked the Synod Executive,
which is- do you know the Presbyterian system?
-: Not all the details of it, honestly.
-: Well, the Presbyteries belong to a geographic area
called a synod, and the Synod Executive
is kind of the coordinator for the Executives
and the Presbyteries within that geographic area.
I asked the Synod Executive to come to the meetings with me,
and he
was also unable to come,
or decided not to come.
And, I believe he might have made a phone call,
but that was all, and then he gave Tom
the equivocal support.
So, I felt very much alone.
So, I went, I got
a retired attorney
who was known to be very feisty
and very supportive of his clients,
and he went with me pro-bono
to some of the meetings,
and let the committee know that I
was not going re-routed.
So, that's how it went.
The committee, the personal, special committee
that was established came to me in May of that year.
I believe it was May of that year.
They had a special meeting with me first, I guess.
They came to me with the-
They invited me to come to lunch
with two of the members, three of the members
of the committee.
So, I didn't know what they wanted.
I didn't know why they were inviting me to lunch.
They didn't give me any agenda for the lunch.
So, I went to lunch, and at the lunch
they said that they were going to ask me to resign,
they had a report and they were gonna bring that report
to the Presbytery meeting
on May the 25th.
And, they said they were gonna-
They would offer me a three month's severance.
If I would resign.
I was totally surprised.
Totally surprised.
I wasn't expecting this.
I refused to give them-
they pressed me for an answer,
and I refused to give them an answer.
Left half my lunch on the table and walked out.
And then Judy and I spent a lot of time thinking about this,
talking about it, in fact we had been thinking
and talking about it even before that meeting took place.
And praying about it. And so, on May the 10th,
I announced at the Presbytery Council meeting,
I decided I wanted to take
responsibility for my own life
and not have somebody push me out.
So, I chose to announce my retirement.
I would take charge and announce my retirement,
effective May the 31st.
That then got published in the Presbyterian.
Quite a few members of the Presbyter,
they called me and asked me to think about
rescinding my resignation, because they felt like
I was well enough liked and supported
that I had enough support that I could
win this challenge.
And, on the 25th of May, when the Presbytery meeting met,
the Presbytery voted to accept my resignation,
although they had to send somebody to.
I sat in a separate room, I didn't even go inside
where the Presbytery meeting was meeting.
I sat in a separate room,
they sent a person to that room
and said, "Would you be willing to
take your resignation off the table?"
And, I said, "No, I've made the decision,
I'm gonna stick with it."
So, we went back, and the Presbytery voted
to accept my resignation, but they gave me
a year
severance pay.
Or, as much as- up until I got a new job.
So, if I could find in six months,
I would get six months severance,
if I got three months, I'd get three months,
if I got ten months, I'd get ten months, and so forth.
So, that night, after I had resigned,
they voted that, for the full year.
Then my friends came to me and said, look,
you've got a year's vacation, take it.
I didn't.
It was tempting, of course.
But, I didn't take it.
And, within two months, I was the Interim Executive
in Carlisle Presbyterian.
-: Wow, John, that's quite an experience you went through.
-: Judy-
-: Yes?
-: Judy later on said that, if I hadn't-
let me say a little bit more about the Presbytery.
-: Yes.
-: Let's see, Judy and I spent many hours talking about this,
resignation is effective.
Friends urged me to take a vacation, yes.
Okay.
Oh, letter to the editor, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
On June the 6th, after that Presbyterian meeting
where I resigned, the reverend Robert R. Kopp,
the conservative pastor of Logan's Ferry
Presbyterian Church wrote in the letter to the paper:
"While being an Executive in Pittsburgh Presbytery
is like putting on a deer skin and walking
through the woods on the first day
of hunting season,
it must be said loud and clear
that most members of Pittsburgh Presbytery
liked and affirmed our recently resigned
Executive Presbytery.
His ministry was liked and affirmed
by liberals, conservatives and moderates.
He was undermined and eventually encouraged to resign
by folks with dubious motives."
-: Wow.
-: Then Judy said later, reflecting on our experience noted
that the tensions, the stress, and the pressures
of the job, with the conflicts that went with it said,
"If we had stayed you probably would be dead by now."
-: Oh, John. Wow.
-: So, how did it affect me?
-: Yeah. Wow. I just- this all happened in 1994?
Is that correct?
-: '94 and '95.
I was attacked on the Presbytery floor
in January of '94, and my resignation took place
in May of '95.
-: Oh. And, so that was a long time.
-: That period in '94, that period is what I was
talking about when I knew there was rumblings
going on in the Presbytery,
and then the Presbytery general council
formed a special committee in January of '95,
and then my resignation took place in May of '95.
-: Thank you for clarifying that.
Now, who were the members of the committee?
I don't necessarily need names, but who
would be on the committee? Elders?
-: Some pastors and some laypeople.
-: Okay.
-: And there was a judge on there
that I will not name,
who was on the search committee when they called me
and they put him on the committee as well.
But there were members of the Presbytery,
some pastors and some laypeople,
I do not now know how many.
It was probably six or seven.
-: And you had mentioned they asked you questions, John.
What kind of questions were they asking you?
-: Well, I think they asked me-
they asked me questions like,
do you return your phone calls?
Do you answer your letters?
Of course I did all of that, stupid questions.
The-
The committee wanted to know- I think
I remember now, I read the committee report
that's been destroyed, and I don't have it.
Because the committee report never got on
the floor of the Presbyterian.
Because of my resignation,
that was never read, never brought
to the floor of the Presbytery.
So, that report is dead and gone.
And, so, I'm just doing this from memory,
but they- one of the accusations that I felt
was very wrong was that I hadn't raised money
for the Presbytery.
And, of course, I had, but-
And, there were other questions in that report
that I could have fought,
and my attorney could have helped me with that,
but I chose not to do it.
-: What do you actually think was behind this committee?
-: I think probably the fact that I
was too liberal
for the Presbytery and I admit that.
I was really surprised that I became
the Executive of the Presbytery, I had been warned
by the Synod Executive where I was Presbytery Executive
in Syracuse, New York.
The Synod Executive Eugene Turner was counseling me,
said, that's a very conservative Presbytery,
I wouldn't go there.
Well, I didn't listen to him.
And, I went, and so, I think the fact that
I was not a good fit,
theologically,
for the Presbytery was behind it,
as well as the fact that I went to the-
publicly went to the Re-Imagining conference.
-: How big a role do you think your attendance
at the Re-Imagining conference played?
-: Well, it was certainly a start.
I think the fact that my wife had died,
I didn't function very well for a while,
even though, as I look back on it,
and I look back at my reports,
I had work objectives which I had accomplished,
even while all of that was going on.
But, I think that the fact that-
that probably helped, plus the fact that
I was theologically liberal,
and that I attended the conference.
All three probably contributed to the fact
that I was asked to resign.
-: John, how do you account for the backlash
against Re-Imagining in general?
-: Oh, well, the late committee was very-
and you've probably heard this from a lot of people,
the late committee had a published paper called,
"The Layman," and it's a conservative element
of the whole Presbyterian Church.
It's constantly attacking social justice
and liberal issues of the church.
And, they just lambasted the conference,
calling it heretical.
And, I had called the conference - not publicly,
but to Judy and to friends - it was a watershed
for the Presbyterian Church.
-: In what sense would you say it was a watershed, John?
-: Well, it totally opened up new avenues of thinking
about the scripture.
The feminist theology saw things in scripture
that the men had never seen.
And that new knowledge,
new insight into the scriptures,
from a woman's womanist point of view,
was very significant.
And, it was a new turn in the whole understanding
of the theology.
And, that's why I call it a watershed,
because it was a turn,
a switch, a movement in a new direction.
A lot more women coming into the Presbyterian church,
through seminaries and through being called in the church.
That had already begun, and it was becoming
more and more so.
And, I think now,
seminaries now probably have more women,
or at least have women in the seminary,
as there are men.
And, I think that that whole element gave women
a new enthusiasm for their theology,
and their faith as well.
As well as men.
-: Yes. Yes. Before I forget, I wanted to ask
if you attended the 1994 General Assembly,
where the report was issued about Re-Imaging,
and if you have any memories of that?
-: Yes, well I think John Buchanan was the chair
of the committee, I believe he was.
-: He was, and I've interviewed him, yes.
-: So, I do remember that, and they gave
a very balanced report back to the whole church
that was adopted by the General Assembly.
It wasn't a condemnation of the Re-Imagining conference,
they did not do that.
They supported the women in the Re-Imagining conference,
but they gave a balanced report.
Now, I can't remember how the balanced-
what the details of that report was,
but I was watching that meeting and sitting in that meeting,
both Judy and I were sitting in that meeting while John
and the committee worked on their response
to the Re-Imagining conference.
And, I think they gave a very balanced report.
-: Oh, great. Thank you, I appreciate that.
In the end, John, what aspects of Re-Imagining
were more significant to you, and why?
-: Well, I think I've already spoken to that,
the fact that there was new insight in scripture,
and new insight into our faith,
from the womanist point of view,
was the most significant thing that had happened,
and it was the most significant thing for me.
-: Yes, good. Did your involvement in
the Re-Imagining conference and the backlash
change your perspective on feminist theology
or the church?
-: No, it just confirmed it.
-: What did it confirm?
-: Well, I was subliminal feminist before
the conference ever took place.
So, it simply affirmed,
as I said I got new knowledge and new understanding,
but it was, I thought it was great,
and it affirmed, for me it just affirmed
what Jan and then Judy had,
and I had talked about,
and studied.
-: Yes. Yeah.
In the end, what do you think is the greatest legacy
of Re-Imagining?
-: Well, I guess I just have to repeat myself,
the new understanding of the scripture,
it was not cold, but looking at Sophia,
looking at the Orthodox Church,
there's a church named Sophia.
-: Yes.
-: That's not new, but it was new for Presbyterians
and it was new for me.
I think the most significant thing was that
they opened up the eyes of women,
and ears of women to theology that
they can affirm and be part of.
-: Yeah. That's really helpful.
And, it sounded like the word Sophia
resonated with you as well.
-: It did.
-: In what way, John?
-: Well-
It did for me, because you think,
as Presbyterians, we think of God
as God the father or mother,
and that also is important,
to think of God as mother as well as father.
And, there are other images in scripture,
we think God is mocking other things
there are in scripture,
and the God as the son, Jesus,
and God as spirit,
but spirit could be translated: wisdom.
And, God could be female as well as male.
-: Yeah.
-: Because wisdom in the scripture is female.
-: Right. Yeah.
Two of the goals of Re-Imagining were
to bring inclusive language and feminist theology
to Christian churches.
How would you evaluate where we are today in that?
-: Well, I think that's what the watershed is all about.
A lot of our churches now are inclusive in the language,
the new pastors that are coming in,
more inclusive.
The women pastors had been there for a long time,
but the new male pastors coming in
are using inclusive language too.
It's only the perhaps very conservative
who simply will not accept anything but God the father
and male theology
may still be resistant,
but I think as a total church,
I think the church has moved to inclusive language.
-: Mm-hmm. Great. And, I have two final questions.
John, what do you think Re-Imagining means today?
In other words, what is or should be Re-Imagined
in the church today?
-: Huh. Good question.
I haven't been thinking about that.
What should the church be doing today?
-: Yeah.
-: Well, I don't know,
I would assume that maybe the church,
maybe the more conservative element of the church
may come along and join
in the inclusive language
and the understanding of scripture, not only
from their point of view, but also
from the point of view of feminists.
-: Yeah, yeah. Good, thank you.
And my final question is,
we are working on a Re-Imagining website,
it will be both historical, we're digitizing
all the conferences, but also including resources,
current resources, and I'm wondering if you-
-: Current what? Resources?
-: Resources, yes, links to other organizations, or-
-: Oh, okay.
-: And, I'm wondering if you have ideas
about what could be included in the website.
That would be helpful.
-: Huh.
Huh.
You've probably got more ideas than I do
about this.
I'm on the computer every day, but I don't know,
I suppose an interactive
website that people could
put information in and receive information back,
and get in discussions, but I'm sure
you already do that now, or are planning to do that,
but that, I think, would be a good website.
-: Yes, well, that's good to hear.
That's encouraging.
I have so appreciated your thoughts and time,
is there anything that we have not discussed
that you would like to add?
-: Um, not that I know of,
Judy and I are very appreciative
of the fact that you're doing this
and, oh, is this going to end up
in the book, as well?
-: Yeah, hold on one second, I'm gonna turn off the recording
so hold on one second.
-: Okay.