Slettom, Jeanyne
Loading the media player...
Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
- | Jeanyne thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed. | 0:00 |
If you could just say your full name and also spell it. | 0:03 | |
- | Okay, Jeanyne Bezoier Slettom. | 0:06 |
J-E-A-N-Y-N-E, | 0:09 | |
B-E-Z-O-I-E-R, | 0:12 | |
Slettom, S-L-E-T-T-O-M. | 0:16 | |
And I mostly go by Jeanyne B Slettom. | 0:20 | |
- | Great. | 0:23 |
And I'm glad you spelled it, thank you. | 0:24 | |
(laughing) | 0:25 | |
- | Yeah, all of those. | 0:27 |
- | And I know this is, are you layer clergy? | 0:29 |
Explain your answer to that question. | 0:31 | |
(laughs) | 0:33 | |
- | I am clergy now, but at the time of the first | 0:33 |
Re-imagining conference I was a seminary student. | 0:36 | |
And so it was a really, felt like it was an important part | 0:40 | |
of what I was in seminary for. | 0:44 | |
And ultimately I become ordained. | 0:46 | |
- | So where were you in seminary? | 0:49 |
- | United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. | 0:51 |
- | Wonderful. | 0:53 |
- | And what denomination are you associated with? | 0:54 |
- | UCC. | 0:57 |
- | UCC, wonderful, thank you! | 0:57 |
Do you want to talk about college, any other schooling | 1:02 | |
that you have? | 1:04 | |
- | Sure. | 1:05 |
I had gotten away from, after I graduated from high school, | 1:09 | |
I started college, but dropped out fairly quickly | 1:13 | |
and then took a long time getting back to it. | 1:16 | |
So I didn't graduate from Macalester College until 1985. | 1:18 | |
And at the same time I had started taking classes at United | 1:22 | |
so then I graduated with an M-div. | 1:27 | |
My undergraduate focus was humanities and then | 1:32 | |
I went and did the M-div at United and it felt like | 1:35 | |
a lovely progression humanities, divinity. | 1:39 | |
And then I went to Claremont Graduate University | 1:42 | |
and got my PhD there. | 1:48 | |
- | Wonderful, very interesting. | 1:50 |
So you were in seminary at the time of Re-imagining. | 1:54 | |
Could you say a little bit about what work or ministry | 1:56 | |
you did after Re-imagining. | 1:59 | |
- | Sure. | 2:02 |
When I finished my degree, I went to California to do, | 2:05 | |
my M-div, I went to California to do the PhD. | 2:10 | |
And while I was there I found a church in Brea, | 2:13 | |
which is in north Orange County that was also a process | 2:18 | |
church, I was studying processiology by that time. | 2:21 | |
And so I came back to Minnesota to be ordained | 2:25 | |
by my home church, then went back to California | 2:29 | |
and served as initially a part time, | 2:32 | |
and then a co-pastor of Brea Church. | 2:34 | |
And then a Brea congregational UCC. | 2:37 | |
At the same time I was an adjunct teacher | 2:40 | |
at Clermont School of Theology. | 2:42 | |
And then I came, and running a program called | 2:45 | |
Process and Faith, which is the theological | 2:48 | |
or church related | 2:52 | |
program of the Center for Process Studies. | 2:55 | |
Those kinds of things. | 2:58 | |
So that was also very much church and liturgical related | 3:00 | |
because we are an organization that was trying | 3:02 | |
to appeal to churches and give them ways of incorporating | 3:05 | |
process theology into church life, faith practices. | 3:09 | |
So very much in terms of preaching | 3:14 | |
and biblical interpretation and liturgical study and use | 3:15 | |
and pastoral care. | 3:19 | |
I mean it was pretty broadly braced | 3:21 | |
across the ministry arts. | 3:23 | |
And I was also studying my PhD. | 3:27 | |
My Dr. Mutter was Marjorie Sue Hockey, | 3:30 | |
who did, process theologian, feminist theologian. | 3:35 | |
And wonderful, did a number of really fine things | 3:39 | |
on the nature of God and how it worked in a feminist setting | 3:42 | |
and then brought that into | 3:46 | |
her process understanding as well. | 3:47 | |
So pretty key stuff. | 3:49 | |
- | Yes. | 3:50 |
- | And then when I came back to Minnesota more recently | 3:51 |
I was the temporary associate pastor | 3:56 | |
at Macalester Plymouth United Church. | 3:58 | |
And I am now just | 4:01 | |
publisher and editor of Process Century Press. | 4:05 | |
- | Yes. | 4:08 |
Wonderful, thank you! | 4:09 | |
- | That's a lot. | 4:11 |
- | That is a lot! | 4:11 |
Very fascinating. | 4:13 | |
Do you remember how and when you first became aware | 4:15 | |
of feminist theology? | 4:18 | |
- | In the late '80s | 4:21 |
before I went to seminary. | 4:24 | |
Because I, | 4:27 | |
I remember that issue of Ms. Magazine that was | 4:30 | |
tucked inside the pages of whichever it was, | 4:34 | |
Atlantic or Harper's or New York Magazine. | 4:38 | |
I don't remember which, but it was the first Ms. Magazine, | 4:42 | |
but it was in insert in one of those. | 4:47 | |
- | Oh really? | 4:50 |
- | I think that was 1968. | 4:51 |
- | Ah. | 4:54 |
- | So feminism was a huge part of | 4:55 |
where I was going with my studies. | 5:00 | |
And as I said, I went back to school later on. | 5:02 | |
Which took a long time because then I was also working | 5:07 | |
and so I was just doing it part time for a number of years. | 5:10 | |
But I was working with feminist themes | 5:13 | |
in a number of fields. | 5:17 | |
The classes that I took and what I brought it to, | 5:19 | |
I was taking classes in music and in | 5:24 | |
a lot in history. | 5:29 | |
Those were the areas where I was wanting to know more. | 5:32 | |
So then you get into the '80s and there's | 5:36 | |
more and more and more. | 5:38 | |
- | Let me just address, those were classes at Macalester? | 5:43 |
- | Macalester College, yeah. | 5:45 |
- | Okay got it, yeah. | 5:46 |
- | But at the same time you're, I was reading | 5:47 |
these early feminist writers. | 5:49 | |
Some of them came from a faith background | 5:53 | |
and they were struggling with how to go forward, | 5:57 | |
whether or not they even could. | 5:59 | |
And so there were those who left, | 6:01 | |
who just said, I can't do this. | 6:04 | |
Now I myself was away from the church at that time. | 6:06 | |
I was, | 6:09 | |
- | Really? | 6:10 |
- | I was | 6:11 |
confirmed at 14 or something like that and didn't | 6:12 | |
go back to church until I was 35 years old. | 6:15 | |
So part of that had to do with I started schooling | 6:18 | |
again in '84 I think it was and | 6:23 | |
my whole interest in feminist studies. | 6:27 | |
I have a whole bunch of books from that era, those people. | 6:28 | |
And really interested in the people who were | 6:32 | |
struggling with that question, is it even possible to be, | 6:35 | |
to be a Christian, but also who is the person who was doing | 6:40 | |
Jewish studies whose name I, | 6:46 | |
- | Judith Plaskow? | 6:48 |
- | yeah, Judith Plaskow. | 6:49 |
And Shulameth somebody? | 6:50 | |
I've forgotten. | 6:52 | |
But Judith Plaskow and, so that the question was out there | 6:53 | |
and since I was | 6:57 | |
circling around that issue myself. | 7:00 | |
I was really interested to see how they would | 7:02 | |
work with the nature of God since my understanding | 7:05 | |
of Christianity of the way I had grew up | 7:07 | |
in a Lutheran setting was just totally male dominated. | 7:09 | |
- | So what got you back to church? | 7:12 |
- | That's a longer story. | 7:15 |
- | Okay | 7:16 |
(laughs) | 7:17 | |
- | But if you want it I can give it to you. | 7:18 |
- | Well, sure, yes. | 7:19 |
- | I'll try to truncate it | 7:21 |
- | Yeah. | 7:22 |
- | because part of it was | 7:22 |
I was very much immersed in Julian psychology. | 7:24 | |
And I was using Julian categories for an awful lot | 7:26 | |
of the way I was approaching the world. | 7:30 | |
But I also reached, even though he was the more | 7:32 | |
spiritual of that Parian, of the Freudian, | 7:35 | |
I still felt as though I was hitting a, | 7:40 | |
I described it as I was living in Julian house. | 7:42 | |
And I could get so high and I had a feeling | 7:48 | |
that there was a false ceiling and that there | 7:51 | |
was something yet, another floor above that. | 7:53 | |
But Julian psychology would only take me to that one place. | 7:58 | |
And it, but I, you know like this is the top. | 8:02 | |
But I kept on feeling this is a false ceiling | 8:05 | |
there is something else there. | 8:07 | |
And so that's, then other things converged | 8:09 | |
and I started going to Macalester Theolonious Church, | 8:12 | |
which I lived across the street from | 8:16 | |
that church for 33 years. | 8:17 | |
- | Oh, really? | 8:18 |
- | Yeah. | 8:19 |
(laughter) | 8:20 | |
- | Yeah. | 8:21 |
So I had friends there and one day I just walked | 8:22 | |
across the street and, or through | 8:24 | |
the Janet Wallace Fine Arts Building | 8:27 | |
parking lot and went to church. | 8:28 | |
And that was then a continuation of that struggle | 8:31 | |
to understand what is the nature of God? | 8:35 | |
What did I really think about this person Jesus | 8:39 | |
and how did that fit with the things that I was thinking | 8:43 | |
in terms of feminist theology, feminism at large | 8:47 | |
and where I was at in my own faith journey. | 8:51 | |
- | So that was breaking through the false ceiling | 8:56 |
when you did that? | 8:58 | |
- | Yup. | 9:00 |
And then I went to seminary. | 9:00 | |
So it took me | 9:05 | |
to that other place. | 9:06 | |
- | What a fascinating journey! | 9:11 |
- | Yes! | 9:13 |
- | It has been. | 9:14 |
- | Wow, really interesting! | 9:14 |
- | Yeah. | 9:15 |
- | But feminism is woven all through that. | 9:16 |
- | Do you want to say just a little bit about that? | 9:19 |
- | I was in that generation that had been completely | 9:25 |
socialized by a patriarchy. | 9:30 | |
I was born in 1950. | 9:34 | |
- | And where were you born, I forgot to ask you? | 9:36 |
- | In Minnesota. | 9:38 |
- | In Minnesota, yes. | 9:38 |
- | So I was born in 1950. | 9:39 |
- | Right. | 9:41 |
- | All of my '50s, you know, all of my young childhood | 9:42 |
and also then just coming up to | 9:45 | |
through my teenage years very much | 9:47 | |
part of | 9:51 | |
immersed in a patriarchal socialization understanding. | 9:53 | |
So when you start to struggle against that | 9:58 | |
it felt as though the process that I was going through | 10:01 | |
was happening in the larger field around me. | 10:04 | |
With feminist scholars and people who were, | 10:08 | |
who were starting to do that work of | 10:14 | |
examining patriarchal | 10:17 | |
things and symbols and imagery. | 10:20 | |
And starting to work in a feminist vein. | 10:23 | |
So at the same time that that was happening culturally | 10:26 | |
it was happening to me personally. | 10:29 | |
So I looked around and I thought, here are all of these | 10:32 | |
people who are doing it. | 10:35 | |
And reading them | 10:37 | |
helped me continue on in my own | 10:40 | |
shaking off those shackles. | 10:43 | |
The line I keep remembering is | 10:46 | |
and I don't even remember who said it first, | 10:50 | |
but the | 10:53 | |
problem, | 10:55 | |
When you're immersed in a patriarchal mindset | 10:58 | |
you are participating in your own oppression. | 11:01 | |
So it was breaking free from that. | 11:04 | |
And then Sarah Evans books, The Personal Is Political, | 11:06 | |
and you know there was just so many ground breaking books | 11:09 | |
that were being published at the exact time | 11:12 | |
that I was happening also. | 11:14 | |
It was powerful and wonderful. | 11:17 | |
I'm so grateful to those people. | 11:19 | |
And I still have all their books. | 11:21 | |
- | Oh, I love it, that's great, wow. | 11:22 |
That is really great. | 11:25 | |
Let's move to Re-imagining that is important background | 11:27 | |
it really is, | 11:29 | |
- | Oh, okay. | 11:30 |
- | setting up for that. | 11:31 |
So first of all what led you to go to the '93 gathering? | 11:32 | |
- | So I was a seminary student, oh actually you know what? | 11:36 |
I wasn't in seminary yet! | 11:38 | |
- | Oh really? | 11:40 |
- | My husband was! | 11:41 |
- | Oh funny, really? | 11:42 |
- | Okay, my husband John | 11:43 |
was in seminary and he was there with Mary Kay Souder. | 11:44 | |
- | Oh really, okay. | 11:47 |
- | And Mary Kay stopped John at one point in the afternoon. | 11:49 |
'Cause she knew me, she knew that seminary | 11:52 | |
was something that I wanted to do. | 11:55 | |
And maybe I might have been taking one or two classes, | 11:56 | |
by that time I don't know. | 11:59 | |
I took some classes not for credit that I was convinced | 12:00 | |
I would come back later, pay for them and get the grade. | 12:05 | |
That was all worked out with the Wilson Yates | 12:08 | |
and he was fine with that. | 12:11 | |
But Mary Kay stopped John and said this is happening, | 12:16 | |
you have to tell Jeanyne, she has to go. | 12:19 | |
So it was Mary Kay. | 12:21 | |
- | Wow. | 12:22 |
- | And I thought well, okay. | 12:24 |
And I didn't even know her that well at that point. | 12:26 | |
- | Really? | 12:29 |
- | Not really, no, uh-uh. | 12:30 |
I was so impressed that she would say, this is something | 12:31 | |
she needs to do, that I did it! | 12:34 | |
(laughs) | 12:38 | |
- | I just signed up. | 12:40 |
So it was on that basis it was a comment that she made | 12:41 | |
to my husband, he came back and repeated it to me | 12:45 | |
and I thought, well okay I guess I better check this out. | 12:48 | |
So I did. | 12:51 | |
- | I love it. | 12:52 |
I'll have to make sure that Mary Kay knows this. | 12:53 | |
I don't know if she remembers that or not, she might. | 12:54 | |
- | I think she might, but I don't know. | 12:56 |
- | Yeah, yeah. | 12:59 |
So you went to the conference. | 12:59 | |
Please tell me what that experience was like for you. | 13:01 | |
- | It was | 13:05 |
amazing and wonderful. | 13:07 | |
There are so many things that come to mind for me. | 13:09 | |
One of the things we'll say at the talking table. | 13:13 | |
So you're assigned to a table. | 13:15 | |
And I get there and there are these interesting | 13:17 | |
women sitting around, one of them has a baby | 13:19 | |
that's she's pushing back and forth in a stroller. | 13:21 | |
And so going around introducing ourselves to each other, | 13:23 | |
it turns out that all of them were lesbians. | 13:28 | |
- | Really? | 13:30 |
(laughing) | 13:31 | |
- | Except me. | 13:33 |
(laughing) | 13:34 | |
And at one point, you know, at some point the next day | 13:36 | |
I realized that, they confessed that they'd | 13:38 | |
been a little worried for me. | 13:40 | |
They were concerned that I might be overwhelmed | 13:41 | |
but of course I wasn't. | 13:45 | |
But it was powerful because of the people, | 13:46 | |
because of their stories. | 13:48 | |
So it also then, in terms of breaking through stereotypes, | 13:49 | |
broke through any stereotypes I might have had | 13:53 | |
about lesbianism because they were all such different women. | 13:55 | |
And the way they came to it was so different | 13:58 | |
and the way they understood each other was so different | 14:00 | |
and how they understood themselves. | 14:03 | |
And how they understood themselves in relation to | 14:05 | |
sexuality and gender was just huge. | 14:09 | |
So that was fun. | 14:12 | |
- | Different from each other, is that what you're saying? | 14:14 |
- | Yes, yes. | 14:16 |
- | So the diversity around the table, | 14:17 |
it might have sounded like it was all the same | 14:18 | |
they were all lesbians, | 14:20 | |
but the diversity around the table was extraordinary. | 14:21 | |
And so I appreciated that. | 14:25 | |
And then some of the things that I remember, | 14:26 | |
I remember the plexiglass, | 14:30 | |
- | Podium? | 14:35 |
- | Podium, | 14:35 |
and the quarter turns that kept happening | 14:36 | |
they were so important | 14:40 | |
because it was so non-hierarchical. | 14:42 | |
(laughs) | 14:45 | |
- | Yes, yes. | 14:46 |
(laughs) | 14:47 | |
- | Logistically this had been thought through. | 14:48 |
We sat at round tables and we sat in the round | 14:51 | |
and it was, and the speakers were in the round. | 14:54 | |
And I think it's the only time I've ever seen that | 14:59 | |
in that kind of setting. | 15:03 | |
So it was powerful. | 15:04 | |
And I remember the speakers very well. | 15:05 | |
I remember that's the first time I heard Quoc Pulan. | 15:08 | |
And as a result of that | 15:13 | |
I've paid attention to her ever since. | 15:14 | |
- | Really? | 15:18 |
- | I think I had heard of Rita Nakashima Brock | 15:19 |
but her story was so important that that | 15:22 | |
obviously the process connection too. | 15:26 | |
But I've kept up with her all of this time. | 15:29 | |
And an interesting thing based on the story that she | 15:32 | |
told about her background and how she found herself | 15:34 | |
and talked about how important her name is to her. | 15:39 | |
As the occasion has arisen as an editor | 15:43 | |
I have been able to correct writers who think | 15:48 | |
that they could just off handedly refer to her | 15:51 | |
as Rita Brock, as if that makes them more familiar with her. | 15:54 | |
And I'll always put Nakashima in there because | 15:59 | |
she said how important it was to her. | 16:02 | |
So things like that. | 16:05 | |
And I remember the sessions I went to. | 16:06 | |
There was one in particular, it's the funniest | 16:11 | |
thing to remember, but | 16:14 | |
(laughing) | 16:17 | |
Dolores Whims is wonderful. | 16:19 | |
I think it was Barbara Lundly, but I am not sure. | 16:21 | |
I've have some ongoing confusion about | 16:25 | |
who it actually was, | 16:28 | |
who did something on biblical interpretation. | 16:29 | |
And she was doing the story where Jesus does something, | 16:32 | |
and he turns around and writes something in the sand. | 16:35 | |
And she said, if we only knew, | 16:39 | |
what he had written. | 16:42 | |
(laughter) | 16:43 | |
- | Yes. | 16:44 |
- | That has just stuck with me! | 16:45 |
Because there is so much that we don't know | 16:48 | |
and so we project it, I mean it was just wonderful. | 16:52 | |
And I walked away from there with that whole sense of | 16:55 | |
what was Re-imagining about? | 16:58 | |
It was re-imagining Christianity as if women mattered. | 17:00 | |
And that was the most powerful take away I had. | 17:04 | |
re-imagining Christianity as if women mattered. | 17:06 | |
And if women matter, how does it matter | 17:11 | |
in terms of biblical interpretation? | 17:13 | |
How does it matter in terms of how we talk about | 17:15 | |
the nature of God? | 17:17 | |
How does it matter in terms of who we tell our stories | 17:18 | |
about who we are theologically and how we connect? | 17:21 | |
It was amazing. | 17:24 | |
At the time I thought there were only a handful of men, | 17:29 | |
but I understand later that there were more than I thought. | 17:31 | |
I don't remember the exact number, 70, 80 | 17:35 | |
something around there. | 17:37 | |
- | Okay, yeah. | 17:38 |
- | So I thought, I was surprised that there were, | 17:39 |
I thought there were fewer than that, | 17:41 | |
but I was really glad they were there. | 17:43 | |
Well because one of them was a colleague | 17:45 | |
for Macalester Plymouth Church on Christianson. | 17:47 | |
- | Oh! | 17:50 |
- | He was there. | 17:51 |
- | And he is a man who | 17:52 |
his social justice has been his calling. | 17:54 | |
He's ordained he's just stuck, | 17:58 | |
he has hued to that path. | 18:01 | |
So the fact that he was there, | 18:02 | |
he was there as a pro-feminist. | 18:05 | |
Not as one of the ones that was there to tear it down. | 18:08 | |
Of course I remember the sacrament at the end. | 18:12 | |
- | The milk and honey? | 18:16 |
- | The milk and honey. | 18:17 |
And it was powerful and I am | 18:18 | |
so glad I did that. | 18:21 | |
And it was, | 18:23 | |
it's almost like it's real, | 18:24 | |
like reworking the set as it was happening. | 18:30 | |
Like those images where | 18:33 | |
there's a theatrical set so you have all the, | 18:34 | |
- | And then maybe somebody comes in | 18:38 |
and they change it all around. | 18:41 | |
But if you saw that in stop motion and fast forward, | 18:41 | |
you know, so that you could go through it quickly, | 18:46 | |
was like something coming apart and coming together again | 18:47 | |
at the same time just to experience that. | 18:50 | |
Because it was experiential, it wasn't just. | 18:52 | |
- | That's an interesting image, say some more about | 18:56 |
what was coming apart, what was coming together. | 18:57 | |
Say some more about that, that's interesting. | 18:59 | |
- | Well, first of all the notion of blood sacrifice. | 19:06 |
There's nothing in milk and honey that requires blood. | 19:12 | |
And milk is life giving and blood is life letting, | 19:17 | |
so to speak, you know? | 19:22 | |
So it was undoing that and it was | 19:24 | |
really bringing the Sophia element | 19:27 | |
of that story | 19:32 | |
of commemoration into the whole picture. | 19:33 | |
So it really was like watching in my own head, | 19:37 | |
watching things, and structures in my own head | 19:40 | |
come apart and collapse while, | 19:43 | |
and then new things being put up. | 19:45 | |
It felt fabulous, so I like that. | 19:48 | |
And I liked, | 19:50 | |
I can still remember the, | 19:53 | |
♪ Bless Sophia ♪ | 19:54 | |
and there are many times since then I have | 19:57 | |
actually sung that to myself. | 19:59 | |
That's a wonderful. | 20:04 | |
- | And why do you sing it yourself? | 20:06 |
What does it mean? | 20:07 | |
- | Well for one thing it centers me. | 20:10 |
And then it's a way of putting myself | 20:12 | |
in a listening mode or an attentive mode, | 20:15 | |
in effect being process theology and hear | 20:20 | |
a process spirituality is opening yourself to the lure, | 20:25 | |
or the impulse, or the urging. | 20:28 | |
Not urging that's too strong. | 20:31 | |
But you now, the lure of God. | 20:32 | |
So it's the same kind of thing it's you | 20:34 | |
are opening yourself up and giving space | 20:37 | |
for hearing whatever comes or taking | 20:42 | |
and however it comes. | 20:44 | |
It's just a, | 20:46 | |
an invocation of sorts. | 20:48 | |
But it's the same thing about process | 20:54 | |
and the Sophia image that I think is so important. | 20:56 | |
Is it's not asking something from out there | 20:59 | |
to come into you. | 21:02 | |
It's not an exterior resource. | 21:04 | |
It's saying this is in me, wisdom is in all of us. | 21:06 | |
So it's recognizing the wisdom of Sophia | 21:10 | |
that flows through all of us. | 21:13 | |
And then you're saying, I want to open myself up to | 21:15 | |
what's in me and what may come to me | 21:18 | |
from the wisdom that's around me. | 21:21 | |
And that's very process-y as well. | 21:24 | |
Joy like that. | 21:28 | |
- | That's wonderful. | 21:29 |
- | I always loved that. | 21:29 |
I'm trying to think of other things. | 21:31 | |
Those are the main things. | 21:37 | |
Years later when I understood what John Cobb had done | 21:41 | |
with process philosophy that he had taken | 21:45 | |
process philosophy and put it into Christian categories. | 21:49 | |
I think what Re-imagining did was it took feminism | 21:53 | |
and put it into Christian categories. | 21:57 | |
And of course your understanding | 22:00 | |
of those categories changes completely. | 22:03 | |
Process does that, the nature of God. | 22:06 | |
Who is Jesus, what is this period, what is sin, what is? | 22:08 | |
You know all of those things | 22:10 | |
just are are reformulated. | 22:12 | |
As reformulations you can re-appropriate them | 22:17 | |
instead of losing them. | 22:20 | |
So I think Re-imagining came along at | 22:22 | |
probably a critical time when I was on the cusp | 22:25 | |
of deciding whether I would be on the side of saying, | 22:28 | |
feminism has entered me so deeply that I can't | 22:33 | |
make piece with Christianity, it makes no sense to me. | 22:39 | |
I can't deal with this patriarchal God. | 22:42 | |
Freud was right. | 22:45 | |
(laughing) | 22:46 | |
- | Yes. | 22:47 |
- | All that stuff and then it gets put, then feminism, | 22:49 |
Christianity gets put in feminist categories | 22:53 | |
and you start to understand things differently | 22:56 | |
about the nature of God, for example. | 22:58 | |
Not controlling, not a Father figure, | 23:01 | |
not forceful, not all authoritative, | 23:03 | |
not any of the omnis, not all powerful. | 23:05 | |
The only omni you keep is omnipresence | 23:09 | |
which I'm again I'm spilling over | 23:12 | |
into process theology, obviously. | 23:13 | |
I think the Re-imagining conference sort of | 23:18 | |
set the stage for where I went after that, | 23:20 | |
both in terms of my own feminist studies | 23:24 | |
and theological studies. | 23:26 | |
Theology pretty much absorbed then the straight feminist | 23:30 | |
stuff I wasn't reading as much of that. | 23:35 | |
But | 23:38 | |
from the sociological perspective, | 23:40 | |
more of the feminist and womanist and | 23:43 | |
(speaks a foreign language) | 23:45 | |
in a theological framework for reading in that sense. | 23:48 | |
It's pretty much set the stage | 23:54 | |
for all of my subsequent study. | 23:56 | |
- | That's amazing. | 23:59 |
Did it have anything to do with you then | 24:00 | |
going to seminary after that? | 24:01 | |
How did that come about? | 24:04 | |
'Cause you said this was before. | 24:04 | |
- | I'm trying to remember that. | 24:06 |
I think, | 24:08 | |
I think I already, I already knew I wanted to go. | 24:10 | |
- | Yeah, 'cause you had been taking some classes already. | 24:14 |
- | Yeah, I think so, yes. | 24:16 |
I had wanted to go. | 24:17 | |
- | Yes. | 24:19 |
- | But I just hadn't managed it yet. | 24:20 |
For one thing I was finishing degree at | 24:23 | |
Macalester. | 24:26 | |
- | Macalester. | 24:27 |
- | So I think that was it. | 24:28 |
- | Yeah. | 24:29 |
You have a great memory, you've remembered | 24:30 | |
a lot of important things. | 24:31 | |
Let's talk about the backlash for a minute. | 24:34 | |
Were you directly affected | 24:35 | |
by the backlash? | 24:36 | |
- | No. | 24:37 |
- | Okay. | 24:38 |
- | No. | 24:39 |
I was not, although I was aware of it | 24:40 | |
and disturbed by it. | 24:46 | |
And | 24:48 | |
not surprised in one sense, but surprised that | 24:51 | |
that it would go to such an extent | 24:55 | |
that people would lose their jobs. | 24:56 | |
Who was the woman who, the Presbyterian woman | 24:58 | |
who was fired? | 25:01 | |
- | Mary Ann Lundy. | 25:03 |
- | Mary Ann Lundy. | 25:03 |
- | Yes. | 25:04 |
Who then subsequently went to Geneva? | 25:05 | |
- | Exactly. | 25:07 |
(chuckles) | 25:08 | |
- | That was, Marjorie Sue Hockey has a phrase | 25:08 |
that she Googled, God. | 25:12 | |
(laughing) | 25:15 | |
That transformative power. | 25:16 | |
So she has this awful experience, | 25:20 | |
very disruptive experience. | 25:24 | |
But | 25:25 | |
then transformed into something like this job in Geneva. | 25:26 | |
And that was a victory. | 25:30 | |
And I felt it very keenly, I don't know her. | 25:33 | |
And yet I was aware from afar of what was happening | 25:37 | |
as in broad strokes. | 25:41 | |
And so when she got the job in Geneva | 25:43 | |
it did feel like | 25:45 | |
a victory. | 25:48 | |
- | Yes. | 25:49 |
How do you account for it looking back on it? | 25:50 | |
Why did that happen? | 25:52 | |
- | I think a lot of it had to do with the | 25:53 |
communion sacrament at the end. | 25:56 | |
That there were people who were just so offended | 25:59 | |
that we wouldn't do blood. | 26:02 | |
And we would do milk. | 26:06 | |
You can't get milk out of Jesus. | 26:08 | |
You know, so where's Jesus | 26:10 | |
if you don't have blood? | 26:12 | |
Milk comes from the female of the species, | 26:16 | |
so how do you? | 26:19 | |
Which was a way of saying, | 26:21 | |
confronting the whole Sophia nature of Jesus as well. | 26:23 | |
Or I would say of, | 26:27 | |
it gets complicated because back then I wasn't making | 26:30 | |
such strong distinctions with understanding with | 26:33 | |
whether you use Jesus, whether you use Christ, | 26:36 | |
whether you use, how you? | 26:39 | |
I wasn't doing it at that time. | 26:41 | |
- | Sure. | 26:43 |
- | I think that that was just offensive to people | 26:47 |
and I think they felt | 26:49 | |
that | 26:51 | |
it was taking Jesus out of the Trinity, | 26:53 | |
which subsequently I've done anyway. | 26:56 | |
- | Yes, yeah, yeah. | 26:58 |
- | And not to lessen the importance of Jesus, | 27:01 |
but I don't think we need a divine | 27:04 | |
Jesus. | 27:08 | |
- | Yes, yeah. | 27:09 |
- | So that veers off into other areas. | 27:10 |
But Re-imagining in some ways has sort of like | 27:13 | |
opened up the doors that then just kept going | 27:15 | |
wider and wider and wider. | 27:19 | |
So it was a wonderful experience. | 27:20 | |
- | So that is great Jeanyne. | 27:23 |
You mentioned that you went to a couple | 27:24 | |
of gatherings after that and we won't | 27:25 | |
worry about the dates or anything. | 27:27 | |
But just memories you have of those later conferences | 27:29 | |
that stand out. | 27:33 | |
- | I just remember being in the room | 27:34 |
in the large | 27:38 | |
like dining hall of a hotel or something like that | 27:39 | |
and listening to people. | 27:43 | |
I remember, oh that's I think, | 27:49 | |
I am unsure maybe blending memories. | 27:52 | |
- | Sure. | 27:55 |
- | But Carter Hayward was at one of them. | 27:55 |
And she described | 27:58 | |
what it was like to be one of that original batch | 28:02 | |
of Episcopalian women that were ordained. | 28:05 | |
And she told this story and I'm pretty sure | 28:08 | |
that this is where I heard it. | 28:11 | |
She told a story of serving communion | 28:13 | |
and of somebody, | 28:16 | |
she's holding out the cup, somebody grasping for it. | 28:18 | |
And | 28:20 | |
dragging their nails across the back of her hand | 28:21 | |
so powerfully that it drew blood. | 28:26 | |
- | Wow. | 28:28 |
- | That | 28:31 |
has stayed with me. | 28:32 | |
- | Yes. | 28:33 |
And this was an attack on her? | 28:34 | |
- | Yeah she was serving communion and someone took | 28:38 |
that opportunity to scrape their fingernails against | 28:40 | |
the back of her hand so hard they drew blood, a man. | 28:43 | |
So it was expressing that | 28:47 | |
anger and rage. | 28:50 | |
And actually I want to back up for a minute | 28:52 | |
about the backlash. | 28:55 | |
- | Yeah. | 28:58 |
- | I think it was male hysteria. | 28:59 |
'Cause I've encountered male hysteria since then. | 29:00 | |
And they don't like to be considered hysterical, | 29:04 | |
but | 29:07 | |
I think that it was, that's what it was. | 29:08 | |
So in this case though it was rage. | 29:11 | |
That was a powerful story. | 29:16 | |
And then the other one that I was at | 29:18 | |
was at a different place. | 29:20 | |
I think that one might have been in St. Paul | 29:21 | |
and then the next one was in Minneapolis. | 29:22 | |
And the one thing that I've remembered | 29:25 | |
from that one was we were talking about Psalms | 29:28 | |
as a plannery, so lots of, | 29:30 | |
and talking about all the questions also, | 29:32 | |
not just Psalms. | 29:35 | |
Just talking about all, how many questions the bible asks | 29:36 | |
and does the person whoever it was asked us to just | 29:39 | |
call out some of the questions that we're | 29:44 | |
familiar with from biblical literature. | 29:47 | |
So | 29:50 | |
things came out, | 29:51 | |
one how long? | 29:52 | |
Definitely came out. | 29:55 | |
But there were so many stories, or so many questions. | 29:56 | |
It's like yeah! | 30:02 | |
Like the bible is full of questions | 30:03 | |
and people keep looking to it for answers. | 30:05 | |
And the questions so much are so important | 30:08 | |
to shaping where you go. | 30:11 | |
I remembered that was just interesting to hear. | 30:15 | |
These voices popping up from everywhere, | 30:17 | |
calling out the questions, | 30:19 | |
because it felt like | 30:21 | |
they weren't saying the questions | 30:23 | |
from the bible, reciting them. | 30:28 | |
They were | 30:30 | |
living them. | 30:31 | |
- | And I don't mean encroach on living the questions. | 30:33 |
(laughing) | 30:36 | |
But you know what? | 30:37 | |
But it was kind of like that when people said | 30:38 | |
that the questions | 30:40 | |
and they sounded really personal. | 30:42 | |
It's like, this is my question, | 30:45 | |
or an oh, I happened to find it in the bible. | 30:46 | |
I can say that one. | 30:48 | |
And so that has stuck with me. | 30:50 | |
And then that was also the one where we heard that | 30:53 | |
Ezekrah Bean had been assassinated. | 30:57 | |
And it just, | 31:02 | |
just took the wind right out of every body. | 31:06 | |
Somebody came in they announced it and, | 31:09 | |
so we just held | 31:18 | |
silence for that | 31:20 | |
recognizing | 31:23 | |
what had happened | 31:26 | |
and what impact, | 31:27 | |
where it had, | 31:29 | |
it just put all of the problems out there again. | 31:32 | |
This is what we're up against, this is the world. | 31:36 | |
We're in our little enclave and it's wonderful, | 31:39 | |
but this is, we have to hold space for this. | 31:42 | |
And the silence lasted a long time. | 31:46 | |
It was a really powerful moment. | 31:49 | |
So you can Google when he died and find out | 31:53 | |
which one that was. | 31:56 | |
- | Yes, that's right! | 31:57 |
That's right. | 31:58 | |
- | So those are my memories mostly from then. | 31:58 |
And I also remembering wishing, oh the other thing, | 32:00 | |
I wished that I could | 32:04 | |
hear the speakers again. | 32:08 | |
So what you're doing is really important. | 32:11 | |
I just kept on saying, so much was going by me | 32:14 | |
I was trying to take notes. | 32:17 | |
And I have no idea where those notes are anymore. | 32:18 | |
But just to plow that field again. | 32:21 | |
- | Yeah. | 32:23 |
- | I just really wanted to. | 32:25 |
- | It's really important | 32:26 |
- | Yeah it was like this stuff, | 32:27 |
- | to get those voices back. | 32:28 |
- | yeah, this stuff is so important | 32:29 |
and I don't want to miss it. | 32:31 | |
- | Yeah, we definitely don't want to lose it. | 32:34 |
And it's on cassette tape, so we need to, | 32:37 | |
we're digitizing them which you know. | 32:39 | |
- | Which I'm very glad of. | 32:41 |
- | Yeah, it's really important. | 32:43 |
Those are really powerful memories. | 32:45 | |
In the end, I think you already started | 32:47 | |
to move in this direction, but how would | 32:49 | |
you define Re-imagining? | 32:50 | |
What was Re-imagining? | 32:52 | |
- | Yeah I think I did say it's something. | 32:53 |
It gathered up feminism as it had been unfolding | 32:57 | |
since the late '60s. | 33:03 | |
That second wave feminism. | 33:04 | |
From Bella Abzug on. | 33:07 | |
(laughing) | 33:09 | |
And Jermaine Greer and all these wonderful people. | 33:12 | |
And I think Ms. Magazine was that? | 33:19 | |
I'm just pretty sure that the first | 33:22 | |
magazine cover that I saw on the women's movement | 33:27 | |
was in like 1969. | 33:31 | |
That needs to be checked. | 33:35 | |
- | Sure. | 33:37 |
- | But there it was. | 33:37 |
So all of this, so I gathered up all of this stuff, | 33:39 | |
all of this feminist thought and ferment | 33:43 | |
that had been going on in so many different fields. | 33:46 | |
And then say, okay it's happening everywhere else | 33:50 | |
why don't we take it to the field that is | 33:53 | |
supposed to be immovable. | 33:54 | |
The field with all of the absolutes. | 33:56 | |
Which is part of why I think so many people | 34:00 | |
were trying to figure out if they could remain | 34:02 | |
in their faith traditions because of the absolutist | 34:04 | |
language that's always used. | 34:07 | |
The ahistorical and absolutist thought. | 34:10 | |
So it's like taking all of that | 34:13 | |
and putting it into then the lap of these | 34:15 | |
wonderful women | 34:20 | |
who organized it. | 34:22 | |
And then the speakers who, | 34:24 | |
who filled it out so well. | 34:27 | |
And said, it is possible to include Christianity in this | 34:32 | |
movement in this cultural, intellectual, | 34:37 | |
social movement that's happening all around us. | 34:42 | |
And theology is not, and church, is not somehow | 34:45 | |
off to the side it's part of this too. | 34:52 | |
And we can bring the whole thing into it | 34:54 | |
and we can make sense of everything | 34:55 | |
or make sense of both of them. | 34:57 | |
Faith, church and | 34:58 | |
feminism. | 35:02 | |
So it felt | 35:03 | |
it was really important. | 35:06 | |
It's like when people started doing | 35:12 | |
the really intensive text study of ancient text, | 35:16 | |
the Greek and | 35:20 | |
pieces, yeah they were looking into all that. | 35:23 | |
Then they realized that ancient literature | 35:25 | |
was something that you could take apart and look at it | 35:29 | |
in these different kinds of ways | 35:31 | |
and the philologist and all of that. | 35:32 | |
But the place you couldn't go was the bible | 35:34 | |
because that was by itself, that was sacred. | 35:36 | |
You couldn't apply those same methods to that book. | 35:40 | |
And then people like David Strauss did. | 35:44 | |
It was kind of like that. | 35:51 | |
All of this ferment was happening and feminism | 35:54 | |
was making in roads into all of these areas, | 35:57 | |
academic and social and it was doing all of that. | 36:01 | |
But there was this sense in which, | 36:04 | |
and there were people chipping away at theology, | 36:06 | |
but there was still this broader cultural sense | 36:09 | |
that theology of that church was | 36:12 | |
in some kind of bubble by itself. | 36:13 | |
And this conference for me just sort of blew it wide open | 36:16 | |
and said, no you can look at this institution | 36:20 | |
and it's doctrines. | 36:28 | |
The same way you look at everything else. | 36:30 | |
Just like you can look at the bible with the same tools | 36:34 | |
that are used for other hermeneutical | 36:38 | |
or philological research. | 36:41 | |
- | Yes, yeah, yeah and so that's one of the things | 36:43 |
that was most significant for you it seems. | 36:46 | |
- | Mm-hmm. | 36:48 |
- | Absolutely, yeah. | 36:49 |
Well, I'm intrigued because you went on to do work | 36:50 | |
trying to bring feminists, I mean excuse me, | 36:53 | |
process theology into churches, right and into the worship | 36:55 | |
life and of course Re-imagining was trying to do that | 36:59 | |
with feminist theology. | 37:02 | |
There's an interesting parallel there. | 37:05 | |
As you look around, how much do you think that has happened? | 37:07 | |
Is inclusive language in feminist theology part | 37:11 | |
of Christian churches today or not? | 37:13 | |
- | Depends upon the church, depends upon the denomination. | 37:15 |
I think that the UCC has gone pretty far in the direction | 37:19 | |
of that, but of course it's not uniformly that | 37:23 | |
way because of it's pollady. | 37:25 | |
Each individual church makes those kinds of decisions. | 37:27 | |
So you can find, I think you can find progressive | 37:33 | |
I mean progressive and feminists and LGBTQI, | 37:37 | |
you know, those it's almost like that's the Litmus test. | 37:41 | |
If they've passed that one you know that they've got | 37:45 | |
a progressive of | 37:48 | |
- | The LGBTQ is the Litmus test or what's the Litmus test? | 37:51 |
- | Inclusive language and those two things. | 37:55 |
It's like if the church is there, it's probably there. | 37:58 | |
So you can find progressive Christian churches | 38:00 | |
in the UCC, Presbyterian, Methodist, | 38:04 | |
certainly in the UUA and | 38:09 | |
American Baptist. | 38:13 | |
What am I leaving out, Episcopalians. | 38:15 | |
I think Catholics is interesting to see too, but | 38:17 | |
I don't know as much about that as I do about Protestantism. | 38:21 | |
Disciples. | 38:26 | |
So you can find it in all of the denominations | 38:27 | |
which means it's pretty dependent upon | 38:33 | |
the leaders that those churches have had | 38:41 | |
and what they've shared with their congregations | 38:43 | |
and then in part also the make-up of the congregations. | 38:47 | |
But I think of someone like Mary Kay, who was an interim | 38:51 | |
minister for so many years and people told her, | 38:55 | |
well process theology, you can't do process | 38:58 | |
in an interim setting, you just can't do it. | 39:00 | |
And she said nuts to that and she brought process | 39:03 | |
theology into every interim church that she served. | 39:05 | |
- | Did she? | 39:08 |
This is Mary Kay Souder. | 39:09 | |
- | Mm-hmm, this is Mary Kay Souder. | 39:10 |
So there are these little churches all over | 39:12 | |
Minnesota that have, that have congregations | 39:16 | |
that have a sustained | 39:21 | |
interest in process theology because she did it. | 39:23 | |
- | Interesting. | 39:26 |
- | Yeah, and I think of things like | 39:27 |
the hymnals. | 39:34 | |
Huge the UCC got into trouble for going too far. | 39:36 | |
It was held that they messed with the Christmas carols | 39:40 | |
and people lost their minds over that. | 39:44 | |
But I, as a person who picks hymns very carefully | 39:49 | |
and has picked them for Sundays for the last, | 39:53 | |
well not anymore, but for a long time. | 39:55 | |
I relied heavily on the UCC because | 39:59 | |
I could trust the language. | 40:03 | |
There are a lot of hymns that are really alike | 40:05 | |
and you look at the way they're done in different | 40:06 | |
hymnals and the language isn't | 40:08 | |
as firmly | 40:13 | |
feminist, but also getting rid of the thees and the thys | 40:15 | |
and the thines, because that kind of language | 40:19 | |
says this is something separate and apart, again. | 40:24 | |
As opposed to integrated into who and what we are. | 40:27 | |
I actually knew | 40:32 | |
of a minister | 40:34 | |
that in all of his sermons used thee and thou. | 40:37 | |
- | Wow. | 40:41 |
- | Yeah, talk about saying this is | 40:44 |
a set apart discourse, | 40:46 | |
you can't, you know it's just awful. | 40:48 | |
So anyway, you were asking a question | 40:51 | |
and I went off on another tangent. | 40:54 | |
- | Well it was an interesting tangent. | 40:55 |
- | Yes. | 40:57 |
- | Talking about what was, | 40:58 |
- | Well bring me back. | 40:59 |
- | well that was what aspects are most significant to you. | 41:00 |
I'm curious could you say a little bit more | 41:02 | |
about how your involvement in Re-imagining | 41:03 | |
changed your perspective on feminist theology, | 41:05 | |
and on the church, and or the church? | 41:07 | |
- | Mostly and or the church. | 41:10 |
- | Say some more about that. | 41:11 |
- | Because it made church possible. | 41:12 |
I know this story, I can't help it, about John Cobb, | 41:18 | |
when he, | 41:22 | |
when he went to University of Chicago | 41:24 | |
and he was a very pious young man. | 41:27 | |
And he thought he could take everything on. | 41:31 | |
So he went there and he said, you know, | 41:35 | |
give it your best shot, and he wanted all | 41:37 | |
of the arguments against religion and against | 41:40 | |
theism, and he wanted it all. | 41:42 | |
You know it's just like, I can stand up | 41:44 | |
to that, and within six months he had lost his faith. | 41:46 | |
- | Really. | 41:49 |
- | Yeah, and then he took a class from Charles Heartshorn, | 41:49 |
who taught Whitehead, and process. | 41:54 | |
And John said literally that | 41:57 | |
it made his faith possible again. | 42:00 | |
- | Wow. | 42:04 |
- | And I think that that's the case for me | 42:04 |
with feminist theology, and the platform on which | 42:07 | |
all of that stood was the Re-imagining conference. | 42:10 | |
So, it made church possible. | 42:14 | |
- | Wow. | 42:18 |
- | And I wasn't sure if I wanted to serve a church | 42:19 |
I thought I might just want to go into teaching. | 42:22 | |
Of course we all know how difficult that is. | 42:24 | |
- | Yes. | 42:26 |
- | At the time it wasn't as, I told you | 42:27 |
it took me a long time to do these things. | 42:29 | |
So, | 42:31 | |
but I served the church with pleasure | 42:34 | |
because of the congregations I served as well. | 42:36 | |
It was fertile ground. | 42:40 | |
The church in Brea, in California, | 42:43 | |
was served by a guy who had studied | 42:46 | |
with David Griffin at Claremont School of Theology, | 42:48 | |
so he'd been preaching process theology for years, | 42:50 | |
without ever naming it. | 42:52 | |
And I came along, we just started to name it. | 42:55 | |
And the members wanted to know more about it. | 42:58 | |
They took classes in it. | 43:01 | |
And they proudly self identify as a process church. | 43:02 | |
- | Is that right? | 43:05 |
- | And they're very concerned about the language. | 43:06 |
But for me process and feminism are so intertwined | 43:09 | |
I couldn't pull one out from the other. | 43:13 | |
And so the liturgy, any liturgy that I write, | 43:15 | |
and I write liturgies, 'cause I don't, | 43:20 | |
in the UCC you're not, | 43:22 | |
you don't have to follow a particular order. | 43:23 | |
Like, The Book Of Common Prayer or something. | 43:27 | |
So you can use resources out there, | 43:30 | |
or you can write your own. | 43:33 | |
Well I always wrote my own. | 43:34 | |
And they always would have a process sensitivity, | 43:35 | |
and a feminist sensitivity. | 43:41 | |
'Cause there's no way to do it otherwise. | 43:42 | |
So, they were all in there. | 43:44 | |
And having Marjorie Sue Hockey as a teacher | 43:45 | |
was really important in that regard too, | 43:47 | |
because they're so blended with her. | 43:49 | |
- | Exactly. | 43:52 |
- | Really, blended, the work that she did | 43:53 |
on the nature of God, was really important. | 43:56 | |
From a feminist prospective. | 44:01 | |
And she did some of that early work, | 44:03 | |
in the '70's. | 44:04 | |
Is that right? | 44:08 | |
I'm trying to remember, or was it the '80's? | 44:09 | |
But way back when. | 44:12 | |
And there was a conference | 44:14 | |
in Claremont on process and feminism, | 44:19 | |
and process, The Center for Process Studies, | 44:22 | |
publishes a journal called The Process Studies, | 44:25 | |
and all of these back issues are available. | 44:27 | |
Except for one issue. | 44:32 | |
It sold out and that's the issue on process and feminism. | 44:34 | |
- | Is that right? | 44:37 |
I didn't know about that, that's wild. | 44:38 | |
- | They have a photocopy of that, but you can't find | 44:39 |
the actual thing anymore. | 44:41 | |
And then there was | 44:44 | |
a conference and it led to a book. | 44:45 | |
A wonderful book. | 44:48 | |
That was edited by Sheila Devaney. | 44:49 | |
And Marjorie had a piece in there, Sheila Devaney, | 44:53 | |
and somebody else, but also, | 44:57 | |
oh dear me, | 44:59 | |
age, names. | 45:04 | |
Valerie Saving. | 45:06 | |
- | Oh right. | 45:08 |
Okay yes. | 45:09 | |
- | And Valerie Saving was in that. | 45:10 |
- | Oh really? | 45:11 |
- | And of course she wrote that extraordinarily | 45:12 |
important article. | 45:15 | |
- | On women and sin. | 45:17 |
Yep, seminal. | 45:17 | |
- | Yes, one hesitates to use that word, | 45:18 |
but it totally was. | 45:21 | |
And she was one of the conference people too. | 45:23 | |
- | Wow. | 45:26 |
- | And so her work is in there. | 45:27 |
It was really important stuff. | 45:28 | |
There's not a lot of difference, i have not tweaked out | 45:35 | |
differences between process and feminism | 45:38 | |
on the nature of God for example. | 45:42 | |
I'm sure that people can find nuances, | 45:46 | |
and there might be some really good arguments | 45:49 | |
to be mounted, but I haven't thought about them. | 45:52 | |
Because I haven't felt the need to. | 45:55 | |
Or I haven't felt I needed to justify to one side | 45:57 | |
or the other why they make sense together. | 46:01 | |
That's a better way of saying it. | 46:05 | |
That they make sense together. | 46:07 | |
And so those two things have informed | 46:09 | |
my entire clerical career. | 46:11 | |
- | Wow. | 46:14 |
Could you say then, what do you think | 46:15 | |
is the greatest legacy of Re-imagining? | 46:17 | |
- | It was the impetus. | 46:24 |
It was what pulled, when I was talking to you | 46:26 | |
about all of the stuff that was swirling around, | 46:29 | |
and it gathered it all together and said, | 46:32 | |
okay, now we're gonna do it from the perspective | 46:35 | |
of the church, and you can't tell us that | 46:38 | |
we can't do this. | 46:41 | |
So going back to saying taking feminism | 46:43 | |
and putting it into Christian categories, | 46:46 | |
that was huge, but it was also just, | 46:49 | |
it was the statement at the moment. | 46:51 | |
It was part of the zite guys to just gather up | 46:54 | |
all of that stuff and say we can bring this | 46:56 | |
into theology and the institution of the church as well. | 46:59 | |
So they did. | 47:03 | |
And that was the way forward. | 47:04 | |
That's for me the platform I've stood on. | 47:08 | |
For, | 47:10 | |
the rest of my career. | 47:13 | |
- | And you think despite the backlash, | 47:14 |
I mean how would you figure the backlash into that? | 47:16 | |
- | Oh, the backlash, | 47:19 |
in one sense it only made it better, | 47:20 | |
do you know what I mean? | 47:22 | |
- | Say some more, I think I do but I want | 47:22 |
to hear you say it, why? | 47:24 | |
(laughing) | 47:25 | |
- | It was, if men could be so hysterical | 47:27 |
about what was going on, then we had to be | 47:31 | |
doing something right. | 47:33 | |
- | Yeah, and it did lead to the formation of the community. | 47:36 |
- | Yes. | 47:38 |
- | Never would've formed without it. | 47:39 |
- | Yeah, and the community, oh man they tried to keep | 47:40 |
it going, and I had the newsletter for awhile, | 47:42 | |
but it was just too hard. | 47:45 | |
- | It was. | 47:46 |
- | And that's unfortunate, but yeah. | 47:47 |
- | Yeah, yeah, | 47:50 |
it lasted for 10 years, but yeah. | 47:52 | |
With little money and all volunteers pretty much. | 47:53 | |
It was hard for you. | 47:56 | |
- | Those things are almost thankless. | 47:59 |
I was the director of process and faith | 48:02 | |
for a number of years, and there was no money. | 48:04 | |
It's just, you just lose heart. | 48:06 | |
It's very hard to keep it going. | 48:09 | |
- | It is. | 48:12 |
Well I have two more questions for you, | 48:13 | |
a big one, and then a very particular one. | 48:14 | |
The big one is, what does Re-imagining mean today? | 48:16 | |
And I don't just mean, the Re-imagining conference, | 48:19 | |
or community, I mean what needs to be, | 48:22 | |
or is being re-imagined in the church today? | 48:24 | |
Where do we need to go forward? | 48:26 | |
- | I think this is happening. | 48:30 |
But, it's re-imagining religious pluralism. | 48:32 | |
And non violent | 48:38 | |
resistance. | 48:40 | |
'Cause those are some of the pressing areas | 48:43 | |
that we're dealing with today. | 48:45 | |
And then the other thing is there were some, | 48:47 | |
that whole trajectory of eco-feminism. | 48:51 | |
Terribly important, and in the context | 48:55 | |
of climate change to be intentionable. | 48:57 | |
Intentional, about | 49:02 | |
like so many people are doing this work, | 49:09 | |
but just keep the feminism foot in there too. | 49:11 | |
About the re-imagining of doctrinal and biblical issues | 49:17 | |
that bring us to an understanding | 49:21 | |
of what our role is in terms of climate change. | 49:22 | |
But also I think that more of that work has been done | 49:25 | |
in the last | 49:28 | |
well since Lynn White's article, that really | 49:30 | |
shook everybody up, and then, | 49:32 | |
so you can draw a line from there to | 49:36 | |
the Popes And Cyclical, it took a long way. | 49:38 | |
And in between there, there is John Cobb, | 49:40 | |
who wrote his Is It Too Late, in 1970. | 49:43 | |
- | Wow. | 49:46 |
- | Which, as he said, at that point it wasn't. | 49:47 |
But now he fears it is. | 49:51 | |
But at any rate, so climate change. | 49:53 | |
But I think the other, where I, I think, | 49:55 | |
people are doing it, it bubbles up. | 49:58 | |
But they're more intentionality about re-imagining | 50:00 | |
Christian community, and religious pluralism. | 50:09 | |
And interfaith conversation. | 50:12 | |
- | Absolutely. | 50:18 |
- | And even such things as multiple belonging. | 50:19 |
I mean that's an area that doesn't get a lot of attention. | 50:22 | |
But that one's bubbling up too. | 50:26 | |
As people feel very comfortable, say between | 50:30 | |
Judaism, and Buddhism, seen that one a lot. | 50:39 | |
And people feel the dual belonging. | 50:43 | |
I know African American scholars who are | 50:45 | |
Christian in Aruba, and others who, | 50:48 | |
what's the other one, can't think of it right now. | 50:55 | |
But that understanding of what, | 50:57 | |
what does dual belonging mean? | 51:00 | |
And again, it really | 51:03 | |
chips away at absolutes. | 51:06 | |
And I know I keep going back to John Cobb here, | 51:11 | |
but, | 51:14 | |
I'll tell you an interesting story, | 51:15 | |
I think Re-imagining was part of this too, | 51:18 | |
but the whole general change in feminism that was happening. | 51:21 | |
He and a number of male | 51:26 | |
academic theologians | 51:28 | |
of his age, | 51:31 | |
look back on their work, | 51:34 | |
and are profoundly embarrassed by the male pronouns. | 51:37 | |
And John has said if he can go back and redo | 51:41 | |
every book the one thing he would change | 51:44 | |
is he would make an inclusive language. | 51:48 | |
- | Wow. | 51:50 |
- | And he talks about that as the C-change, | 51:51 |
that took place and Rita Nakashima Brock | 51:54 | |
was part of that for him, and Rebecca Parker. | 51:56 | |
They were important figures for moving, | 51:59 | |
and obviously Katherine Keller. | 52:02 | |
But moving in that direction. | 52:04 | |
But | 52:06 | |
I lost my track again, dual belonging. | 52:09 | |
Absolutes, John Cobb, | 52:14 | |
it is one image that we have | 52:18 | |
of understanding religious pluralism. | 52:20 | |
It is the mountain idea, right? | 52:23 | |
With different paths, to the same peak. | 52:26 | |
Which assumes one ultimate again. | 52:29 | |
One absolute. | 52:32 | |
- | Right, right. | 52:33 |
- | And he has suggested the potential | 52:35 |
of two or three mountaintops. | 52:37 | |
And multiple ways up to those | 52:40 | |
two or three mountaintops. | 52:42 | |
So it sort of pushes through the notion of | 52:43 | |
an absolute truth, a singular, hierarchal truth. | 52:47 | |
That can gather all of those truths under it. | 52:52 | |
And impose itself from the top down. | 52:55 | |
That kind of religious pluralism or understanding | 53:00 | |
of religious pluralism that is a non hierarchical, | 53:04 | |
feminist approach, and it really | 53:08 | |
busts the notion of absolutes. | 53:10 | |
So that's an area that might be interesting to pursue. | 53:14 | |
- | Yeah, oh that's great. | 53:19 |
And that brings me to my final question | 53:20 | |
which is, we're working on a Re-imagining website | 53:22 | |
and part of it is, the plan is to make it historical | 53:25 | |
to digitize those conferences you were talking about. | 53:29 | |
Make them available, | 53:31 | |
and also, but looking toward the future and gathering | 53:33 | |
resources, so any suggestions you have about, | 53:36 | |
things to link to, things to include, | 53:39 | |
and also audience who would benefit from it. | 53:42 | |
We're just soliciting ideas. | 53:45 | |
- | I think about stuff like this, because | 53:51 |
I try to, I think about how do I get people | 53:53 | |
to my website for process. | 53:56 | |
You have to have a Twitter account, I'm sorry. | 54:01 | |
- | Is that right? | 54:03 |
Okay, well see there you go. | 54:04 | |
- | Yeah, I'm not really much into it, | 54:05 |
but I think that the social media approach | 54:08 | |
is important, that's where you're gonna capture, | 54:12 | |
- | Well thank you, 'cause that's important right there, | 54:15 |
yes. | 54:17 | |
- | where you're gonna capture younger people. | 54:18 |
- | Right. | 54:20 |
- | The thing that I struggled with, | 54:21 |
which is I'm sure what you have heard from others, | 54:22 | |
or that you have experienced yourself, | 54:24 | |
is that for someone like me, who was coming of age | 54:26 | |
at that same time as that wave of feminism, | 54:30 | |
and we know what we had to do in ourselves | 54:35 | |
in order to take down the patriarchal structures | 54:39 | |
in ourselves, and then all around us, | 54:46 | |
looking at all of the stuff that was, | 54:50 | |
what we went through to get to where we are today | 54:52 | |
on the one hand, it's great that young women | 54:56 | |
now think that that's over. | 54:58 | |
On the one hand, because it means that | 55:02 | |
we have given, they have inherited something from us | 55:03 | |
that was important to do. | 55:08 | |
But it's frightening to think of how little they | 55:11 | |
seem to understand, what's still at stake. | 55:18 | |
I heard one person say | 55:25 | |
that young women seem to think that the battles | 55:30 | |
are won, until they've been in the workforce | 55:34 | |
for about 10 years and start to realize | 55:40 | |
how little they make compared to men. | 55:42 | |
But that's one thing. | 55:44 | |
But to reach people, | 55:47 | |
I saw something today but I haven't read it yet | 55:50 | |
it's in Religion Dispatches about why women | 55:53 | |
are leaving the church, | 55:55 | |
- | Oh interesting. | 55:56 |
- | you should go back and read it. | 55:57 |
- | Yes. | 55:58 |
- | But if women are leaving the church, | 55:59 |
then Re-imagining has a job to do. | 56:07 | |
(laughs) | 56:09 | |
- | And how would you describe that job? | 56:13 |
Is it to meet them outside the church? | 56:16 | |
Is it to bring them into the church, | 56:17 | |
or something else? | 56:19 | |
- | Good way of putting it. | 56:21 |
I think that it's | 56:22 | |
it's not necessarily to bring them into the church, | 56:37 | |
but to bring the church to where they are. | 56:40 | |
Everybody's struggling with this one, you know. | 56:52 | |
The seminary's are struggling to survive. | 56:54 | |
The church is struggling, everybody's. | 56:56 | |
- | The growth of the nuns. | 56:58 |
- | Oh boy, yeah the growing nuns, and all of that, | 56:59 |
everybody's struggling with it. | 57:02 | |
But if you can connect | 57:05 | |
Re-imagining to | 57:10 | |
a real need, | 57:20 | |
I'm saying this so poorly. | 57:24 | |
- | No I think you're on to something, yes. | 57:26 |
- | But there's a lot, there is a lot of need. | 57:29 |
Some of it's a wash in the ocean, | 57:32 | |
and they don't really know where it's gonna go | 57:34 | |
or, it's not attaching to anything but it's there. | 57:36 | |
And then there are people who are slowly | 57:40 | |
moving away from the church, and then they come back | 57:43 | |
for their kids, and then leave again | 57:46 | |
once their kids are grown. | 57:48 | |
So you got that. | 57:49 | |
And I haven't seen a whole lot about that. | 57:51 | |
Mostly you see, they drift away in their youth, | 57:52 | |
and then they have kids and then they come back. | 57:56 | |
But I haven't seen a whole lot about leaving | 57:58 | |
again once the job of raising their kids is over. | 58:00 | |
- | That's interesting, yes. | 58:04 |
- | And maybe that's what this article | 58:05 |
in Religion Dispatch is about, I don't know. | 58:07 | |
I meant to read it before I came here but I forgot. | 58:11 | |
There's so much going on. | 58:17 | |
See I feel | 58:21 | |
this huge | 58:25 | |
awareness of, and appreciation | 58:29 | |
for the Re-imagining community and what it did | 58:31 | |
and how it worked through the, | 58:34 | |
maybe if I say it gathered the zite guys | 58:37 | |
to put it in church language, | 58:40 | |
maybe it's something like, doing something | 58:42 | |
like that again, is looking around at | 58:44 | |
where are we now, what's swirling around us? | 58:47 | |
And pulling all of those pieces together, | 58:52 | |
and then saying what would this look like if we | 58:56 | |
re-imagined it as if women mattered? | 59:00 | |
As if we were doing this from a theological, | 59:03 | |
or a church perspective, we're looking at | 59:05 | |
everything that's going around us and saying, | 59:08 | |
as if women mattered, I still think there's | 59:10 | |
so much work to be done. | 59:12 | |
- | Yes, and I think that's a really important phrase. | 59:14 |
I'm gonna have to use that, I think that's | 59:16 | |
really important. | 59:18 | |
- | Which one? | 59:18 |
- | As if women mattered. | 59:19 |
- | As if women mattered. | 59:20 |
Oh that was very powerful, I mean talk about | 59:21 | |
what does Re-imagining, and people say what is it? | 59:24 | |
Like re-imagining the church as if | 59:27 | |
women mattered, and then you go back and you do the history | 59:30 | |
and you do biblical study, | 59:35 | |
and you just start doing everything differently. | 59:37 | |
- | That's right, yeah. | 59:41 |
Jeanyne this has been a great conversation, | 59:43 | |
is there anything that you want to add | 59:45 | |
that we haven't talked about? | 59:47 | |
- | I just really appreciate what you're doing, | 59:49 |
and I'm so glad Mary Kay or whoever, that pulled people | 59:50 | |
together again, | 59:54 | |
- | I know. | 59:55 |
- | because the website is terribly important. | 59:56 |
And I think as you establish it, | 59:58 | |
it will be a academic resource so that people | 1:00:00 | |
who are doing their work in these fields, | 1:00:03 | |
they'll have to go to your site | 1:00:05 | |
because they'll need it, for archival purposes. | 1:00:07 | |
But hopefully there will be that piece | 1:00:10 | |
which you were trying to tease out of me, | 1:00:13 | |
and which I did so poorly at, of how | 1:00:14 | |
to carry it forward into the future, | 1:00:16 | |
I don't know. | 1:00:17 | |
- | Yeah, well we're still struggling too. | 1:00:19 |
- | Apparently, | 1:00:20 |
I think Twitter's perfect. | 1:00:21 | |
(laughing) | 1:00:23 | |
- | Yes well that is an important piece. | 1:00:24 |
- | And getting followers, honestly. | 1:00:24 |
You tweet stuff, and then you get followers, | 1:00:26 | |
and then they yep, yeah. | 1:00:29 | |
- | Thank you so much this has been great. | 1:00:34 |
- | Thank you. | 1:00:36 |
Item Info
The preservation of the Duke University Libraries Digital Collections and the Duke Digital Repository programs are supported in part by the Lowell and Eileen Aptman Digital Preservation Fund