Ortega, Ofelia
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- | Thank you so much, Ofelia, for being interviewed, | 0:01 |
and I have some background questions for you. | 0:04 | |
If you could first say your name. | 0:07 | |
- | Yes, my name is Ofelia Ortega, yes. | 0:09 |
- | Thank you, and are you lay or clergy? | 0:13 |
- | I am a clergy. | 0:16 |
I was the first woman to be ordained in Cuba, | 0:17 | |
in 1967, long time ago. | 0:20 | |
- | Yes, and that was in the Presbyterian church? | 0:23 |
- | Presbyterian church, yes. | 0:26 |
I have been Presbyterian since I was four years old. | 0:27 | |
- | Really? | 0:30 |
- | I have been | |
in the Presbyterian Church all of my life, | 0:33 | |
and then in 1967, I was ordained. | 0:35 | |
It was the same year that the Presbyterian church in Cuba | 0:38 | |
become autonomous from the Synod of New Jersey. | 0:42 | |
- | Of New Jersey? | 0:46 |
- | Until 1967, we belonged to the Synod of New Jersey, | 0:47 |
then we become autonomous. | 0:50 | |
And then, it was a very incredible service there, | 0:52 | |
to become autonomous, by ourself now, after 1967, | 0:58 | |
and be ordained at that time. | 1:04 | |
- | Oh, amazing, and I am so interested in this. | 1:06 |
How did you decide to become ordained? | 1:09 | |
What led you to that? | 1:11 | |
- | I want to tell you that when I finish in our seminary | 1:13 |
in Cuba, my first degree in Christian education, | 1:18 | |
it was a time that the missionaries left. | 1:22 | |
I finished my first degree in 1959, | 1:25 | |
the same year of the revolution in Cuba. | 1:28 | |
Then many of the missionaries left in the '60s. | 1:31 | |
Then in 1960, then I began to teach already, | 1:34 | |
at the seminary there in Cuba, | 1:38 | |
and then I worked for eight years in the Presbyterian church | 1:43 | |
since 1959, more or less, until 1967, | 1:48 | |
as what they call a commissioner for Christian education. | 1:52 | |
Then when I was ordained it was more or less | 1:59 | |
already eight years of work in Christian education. | 2:02 | |
In the first decade of the revolution in Cuba, | 2:05 | |
the '60s, that was the most hard time of that moment. | 2:09 | |
And then I never struggle for ordination, | 2:14 | |
it was the general secretary of the church, | 2:21 | |
because after that, I took then my degree in theology. | 2:23 | |
And then, the general secretary of the church said | 2:27 | |
you are one of our best theologians, he asked me, | 2:30 | |
Ofelia, I think it's time for you to be ordained now. | 2:34 | |
And then I told him, what, then I need | 2:38 | |
to pass exams, one evening. | 2:41 | |
No, no, buy a nice dress for the ordination. | 2:44 | |
You need to buy a nice dress for the ordination. | 2:47 | |
I was the only Cuban that never pass exams of ordination. | 2:49 | |
- | Is that right? | 2:55 |
- | But I have already eight years of work, you see? | 2:56 |
They realize that, that I don't need to be proved | 2:59 | |
that I was good, because I had been working | 3:02 | |
for eight years in Christian education, doing workshops, | 3:05 | |
doing a lot of things in the Presbyterian church, | 3:10 | |
and then he says I only need to go | 3:12 | |
and buy a nice dress for the ordination. | 3:15 | |
- | That's a great story. | 3:18 |
So you hadn't thought about being ordained, | 3:19 | |
he was the one who thought that? | 3:21 | |
- | It was the general secretary who asked me, | 3:23 |
I think we could ordain you now, | 3:25 | |
because now you have the second degree in theology. | 3:27 | |
I was the first woman to have this degree, | 3:30 | |
of theology in our theological seminary in Matanzas, | 3:32 | |
because I realized I cannot be a good Christian educator, | 3:36 | |
a professor, without a good degree in theology. | 3:39 | |
Then I passed the degree in theology | 3:47 | |
and then the general secretary of the Presbyterian Church | 3:49 | |
asked me to be ordained. | 3:52 | |
It was more or less a mandate. | 3:55 | |
- | And that was the same place you returned later | 3:58 |
to be rector, is that the same seminary? | 4:00 | |
- | Yes, yes, yes, but I work in different churches, | 4:02 |
especially in the rural areas. | 4:07 | |
When I was ordained I was assigned | 4:09 | |
to at least four different churches, | 4:11 | |
during more or less some years, more than 15 years, | 4:14 | |
and then I returned to be the principal | 4:19 | |
of our theological seminary. | 4:23 | |
Really, when I finished my task | 4:26 | |
in the World Council of Churches. | 4:29 | |
I was called to work | 4:31 | |
in the World Council of Churches in 1985. | 4:32 | |
I never applied to work in the World Council of Churches, | 4:36 | |
they called me to work there in 1985. | 4:39 | |
- | Really? | 4:41 |
- | Then I worked in the World Council of Churches | 4:44 |
from 1985 until 1997. | 4:45 | |
Then I returned to Cuba to be the principal of the seminary | 4:49 | |
in Matanzas, the place that I was teaching for some years. | 4:52 | |
Yes, it has been good time in life. | 4:57 | |
Teaching, and my time at the World Council of Churches | 5:01 | |
was wonderful, especially working with women | 5:04 | |
and struggling for the rights of women all over, | 5:07 | |
inside the building and outside the building. | 5:12 | |
- | Now that's what you were doing | 5:15 |
during Re-Imagining, correct? | 5:16 | |
- | Exactly, in '93, because I was in | 5:18 |
the World Council of Churches in '93. | 5:20 | |
I arrived 1985, then in 1993 I was | 5:22 | |
in the Council of Churches, because I returned from Geneva, | 5:26 | |
in Switzerland in 1997 to Cuba. | 5:29 | |
I remember the first of April, that it was a foolish day! | 5:33 | |
- | That's right. | 5:39 |
- | Then some people | |
were thinking, are you going back to Cuba, | 5:40 | |
in the foolish day, yes. | 5:42 | |
Many were very interested, and they noticed | 5:45 | |
that we returned in the foolish day, to Cuba. | 5:48 | |
- | What brought you back to Cuba? | 5:50 |
The position at the seminary? | 5:53 | |
- | The call of the church, yes, yes, yes. | 5:53 |
I went to Geneva with the support of my church. | 5:55 | |
They told me okay, now is the moment | 5:59 | |
that maybe you will be good that you go to the work | 6:02 | |
of other churches to work, | 6:04 | |
to respond to this call. | 6:06 | |
And then I returned when the church called me back | 6:08 | |
to work in Cuba, and I was happy. | 6:11 | |
- | I was happy to return to Cuba, | 6:15 |
to work at the seminary there. | 6:15 | |
- | And what was your title at the World Council of Churches? | 6:19 |
- | I was, the first three years, I work as professor, | 6:22 |
in the Ecumenical Institute of Bossey, for three years. | 6:30 | |
And after three years, they moved me | 6:35 | |
to the program of theological education | 6:39 | |
for Latin America and the Caribbean. | 6:41 | |
Then I was more or less the executive secretary | 6:44 | |
in the program of theological education | 6:47 | |
of the World Council of Churches, | 6:49 | |
but especially for my region, Latin America and Caribbean. | 6:50 | |
And I want to tell you that it was a wonderful time. | 6:55 | |
- | Was it? | 6:58 |
- | Because it was a time | |
that could really raise a lot of funds to support women | 7:00 | |
to get their degree in theology, | 7:05 | |
in Latin America and the Caribbean. | 7:07 | |
Many women that today are working, | 7:10 | |
it was during that time that they received | 7:13 | |
really a lot of support from the World Council of Churches, | 7:17 | |
on this theological educational program, to help. | 7:21 | |
I remember that my boss was John Kwofie, an African, | 7:27 | |
wonderful man, that he is now actually a bishop in Ghana. | 7:33 | |
He was my boss, he was excellent. | 7:38 | |
And then, John Kwofie decided one woman in our program, | 7:40 | |
that we need to support women 100%. | 7:46 | |
This means there are men good | 7:52 | |
in different part of the world. | 7:54 | |
- | And this African, he's a bishop now in Ghana. | 7:57 |
I hope that he will see the web and say, | 8:00 | |
oh, Ofelia's mentioning me. | 8:03 | |
John Kwofie, wonderful man, and 1% of our funds | 8:06 | |
were given to women. | 8:10 | |
And then there was the time, that it was organized | 8:12 | |
by our support, of this circle of women in Africa, | 8:15 | |
with Mercy Amba Oduyoye as the boss of this circle. | 8:19 | |
It was the time that we said, now women in Africa | 8:26 | |
need to be organized very well, to be writers. | 8:31 | |
And then Mercy Amba Oduyoye said, yes. | 8:35 | |
And the Institute is still working there in Africa. | 8:38 | |
- | Is it? | 8:41 |
- | It is still working | |
under the leader of Mercy Amba Oduyoye, | 8:42 | |
my dear friend and sister. | 8:44 | |
And we did a lot, for example, during that time, | 8:47 | |
it was Elsa Tamez, we really find the funds, | 8:50 | |
to bring Elsa Tamez to Geneva, to Switzerland, | 8:57 | |
to Lucerne, to have her degree. | 9:03 | |
And she has been one of the best biblical scholar | 9:07 | |
in the whole Latin America. | 9:10 | |
Then the funds were provide by the workers of our church, | 9:12 | |
for her and for some men too in the area, | 9:18 | |
but we support women all over | 9:23 | |
to see that they will get a degree | 9:25 | |
in theological education during that time. | 9:28 | |
- | That is exciting. | 9:30 |
You mentioned, how else did you support women? | 9:32 | |
Both in that role, | 9:34 | |
that sounds so important. | 9:37 | |
- | How what? | 9:38 |
- | Oh, how else did you support women, | 9:39 |
you mentioned other ways? | 9:42 | |
- | Well, yes, | |
during the decade of this church is | 9:44 | |
in solidarity with women, | 9:46 | |
we have what we call the living letters. | 9:47 | |
We were visiting the churches in Latin America. | 9:52 | |
I remember that I visit Peru and Chile | 9:55 | |
with a French man, | 10:00 | |
a lovely French man, | 10:02 | |
and that he died already. | 10:04 | |
We worked together visiting, we called the living letter. | 10:07 | |
People go in there to visit, | 10:11 | |
to see what happened to churches. | 10:13 | |
We have all kind of stories. | 10:15 | |
For example, I remember, | 10:17 | |
we went to one church. | 10:19 | |
One of the women said, | 10:26 | |
my pastor said that I cannot even go to the pulpit | 10:27 | |
or read The Bible or whatever if I have menstruation. | 10:32 | |
This man's Leviticus. | 10:38 | |
Taking Leviticus, The Bible in a way | 10:41 | |
that you cannot imagine that. | 10:43 | |
And another woman said, my pastor said that I cannot go | 10:45 | |
to read The Bible, or whatever, | 10:48 | |
if I have a sexual relationship with my husband | 10:49 | |
the night before. | 10:52 | |
All kind of stories we heard. | 10:53 | |
This is incredible stories that we said, | 10:58 | |
how this could be? | 11:00 | |
How this could happen in this century? | 11:02 | |
That we are taking The Bible in such a way | 11:06 | |
that limited the expression of women, | 11:10 | |
and even limited the, I would say, the sexuality of women. | 11:13 | |
Women's menstruation is a gift from God. | 11:19 | |
Then you say you cannot read The Bible | 11:24 | |
if you are menstruating, | 11:27 | |
you don't know God at all. | 11:28 | |
And we found that during this visit in Peru and Chile, | 11:33 | |
and there is a booklet. | 11:38 | |
Maybe you could look to that. | 11:40 | |
There is a booklet of these times. | 11:41 | |
The WCC published in Spanish, English, German, | 11:46 | |
and some other language. | 11:52 | |
Try to to look at that. | 11:53 | |
- | Do you know that the title of it is? | 11:54 |
- | It must be in the World Council of Churches. | 11:56 |
- | Yes, I will do that. | 11:58 |
- | Some of the stories are there. | 11:58 |
The living letters of the visitors | 12:00 | |
of the work comes from our church. | 12:02 | |
All kind of a stories. | 12:05 | |
Then we realized that how people | 12:08 | |
could take The Bible like that. | 12:11 | |
- | Yes, that's fascinating. | 12:13 |
- | It's not God desire it. | 12:16 |
To limit the life of people, it's not God desires. | 12:23 | |
- | And Ofelia, how did you first become aware | 12:29 |
of feminist theology? | 12:31 | |
- | Oh my goodness, this is a good question. | 12:33 |
You see, you know that theology of liberation | 12:36 | |
was going in Latin America in the '70s. | 12:41 | |
- | Oh yes. | 12:43 |
- | But the theologians of liberation, | 12:44 |
the men, men theologians, | 12:46 | |
you know the names, | 12:48 | |
they really were more or less focused in economic. | 12:51 | |
And they forgot women culture, the indigenous people, | 12:55 | |
black women too, black people, not only women | 13:03 | |
but black people, indigenous people, these things, | 13:06 | |
and it was only in 1979 that we met. | 13:08 | |
And it was a group of religious sisters | 13:16 | |
from the Catholic Church, that still they are in Mexico. | 13:20 | |
We met in Mexico. | 13:25 | |
It's a group of religious sisters, Catholics, | 13:27 | |
that they call Women for Dialogue. | 13:29 | |
Women for Dialogue. | 13:33 | |
They call us to meet. | 13:34 | |
- | Who's us, I'm sorry, who met with them? | 13:36 |
- | Well, we met for the first time, I met there in 1979, | 13:39 |
in St. Thomas, I met there Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz. | 13:44 | |
She had been working here in the States with Hispanic women. | 13:49 | |
She left Cuba when she was 18 years old. | 13:54 | |
And many other people from Latin America, | 13:58 | |
there were people too from different countries. | 14:01 | |
We have a kind of interdisciplinary meeting, | 14:06 | |
because we have women doing, | 14:10 | |
we have anthropologists, economic people, | 14:13 | |
but we have also then had people from the popular movement, | 14:16 | |
people that were cleaning ladies, | 14:21 | |
trade union cleaning ladies. | 14:24 | |
Then Women for Dialogue, | 14:26 | |
these religious sisters met us there. | 14:28 | |
It was the first meeting of women theologians | 14:31 | |
in Latin America. | 14:35 | |
1979, first time that we met. | 14:36 | |
First time. | 14:39 | |
It was a very particular meeting that, | 14:41 | |
tirst time, that we met for the first time. | 14:43 | |
Oh, you are, I'm part of a tribe from Colombia. | 14:45 | |
Oh, you are Elsa Tamez from Costa Rica. | 14:48 | |
Oh, you are Ada Maria from the United States. | 14:51 | |
Oh my goodness, what good combination. | 14:54 | |
And at the end of the meeting, | 14:58 | |
I was the only woman ordained in the whole group, | 15:01 | |
because I was ordained in 1967, and it was at 1979. | 15:06 | |
The religious sisters said we want to have | 15:10 | |
an eucharistic service, Ofelia. | 15:16 | |
I said, well, I do not have a proper dress. | 15:19 | |
They went out and they bought, I remember, | 15:25 | |
a kind of Mexican dress. | 15:28 | |
I was yellow, a lovely yellow. | 15:30 | |
It was a yellow dress. | 15:33 | |
And then I have this gown, yellow gown. | 15:35 | |
And then they said, we want that you have the communion | 15:39 | |
with a Catholic priest. | 15:42 | |
And it was a Catholic priest in Mexico that said, | 15:44 | |
yes, I will do the communion with you. | 15:47 | |
And it was the same day that the Pope said in New York | 15:50 | |
women never will be ordained. | 15:55 | |
Same day! | 15:58 | |
The same day, the Pope say in New York | 15:59 | |
women will not be ordained. | 16:02 | |
And then this same day we have a Catholic priest | 16:03 | |
together with a Protestant woman from Cuba | 16:06 | |
doing eucharistic service in the meeting there. | 16:09 | |
We met in Tepeyac that it was a very special place | 16:16 | |
because it was the place | 16:20 | |
of the Virgin, Guadalupe there. | 16:22 | |
It was very special there. | 16:25 | |
And then we had the eucharistic service, | 16:26 | |
a Catholic priest together with a Protestant woman. | 16:29 | |
- | Amazing. | 16:32 |
- | No woman ordination in New York! | 16:33 |
In Mexico, woman ordained, presenting eucharistic service. | 16:35 | |
This is the light, and I like to do it. | 16:39 | |
Breaking barriers, all the things that could really | 16:43 | |
stop the participation of women in everything, | 16:49 | |
even in eucharistic services, yes, the sacrament. | 16:53 | |
- | That is wonderful. | 16:56 |
- | It was 1979. | 16:57 |
Since then, of course, we continue working. | 16:59 | |
We have several meetings in Buenos Aires | 17:02 | |
and different places. | 17:04 | |
Then we went together now, after 1979. | 17:05 | |
And then we began to write. | 17:08 | |
I don't know if you know the booklet | 17:12 | |
that we published in Latin America, Ribla, R-I-B-L-A. | 17:15 | |
This is going to the Web. | 17:21 | |
I asked people, look for the magazine Ribla, | 17:23 | |
R-I-B-L-A, Ribla. | 17:28 | |
There you have more than, yes, probably more | 17:32 | |
than 500 writers, women writers there, | 17:39 | |
writing, doing Exodus of The Bible. | 17:44 | |
They have a lot of publications, | 17:48 | |
and now it's in the Web now. | 17:49 | |
Ribla is in Web. | 17:50 | |
- | Wonderful. | |
- | Go there and read that, what the women are writing | 17:52 |
in Ribla, in Latin America, yes. | 17:55 | |
- | Did that come out of the meeting of the women theologians. | 17:57 |
- | No, no, no, no, no, this was really two men | 18:00 |
that decided to organize that in Latin America | 18:05 | |
together with women. | 18:08 | |
Especially we have Carlos Mesters | 18:10 | |
from the Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church, | 18:14 | |
and Milton Schwantes. | 18:16 | |
Milton Schwantes die already. | 18:19 | |
Milton Schwantes, Lutheran. | 18:20 | |
One of the best biblical scholar | 18:23 | |
in the whole Latin America. | 18:26 | |
Carlos Mesters and Milton Schwantes | 18:27 | |
began at the beginning the whole process | 18:30 | |
of the base communities | 18:32 | |
and then they decided to organize all these meetings | 18:34 | |
of people doing research and writing as biblical scholars | 18:38 | |
in the whole Latin America. | 18:44 | |
And the magazine is Ribla. | 18:45 | |
Today, we are going to have in Cuba in July, | 18:48 | |
July this year, will be a meeting | 18:51 | |
of some of the biblical scholars, women and men, | 18:53 | |
that will come to have a meeting to continue | 18:57 | |
the work of Ribla. | 19:00 | |
This is wonderful, might I say. | 19:02 | |
And the person that is leader now of Ribla | 19:04 | |
is Nestor Miguez, that he's from Argentina, | 19:06 | |
one of our best biblical scholars in Latin America. | 19:11 | |
But we will have many women there to participate in there. | 19:15 | |
Yes, the movement is going on. | 19:18 | |
- | Yes, that is wonderful. | 19:21 |
- | For sure. | 19:23 |
- | Oh, that's wonderful. | 19:24 |
So, to move to Re-Imagining, you were one of the presenters | 19:26 | |
at the Re-Imagining, the 1993 gathering, | 19:30 | |
and you didn't participate in other ones, | 19:33 | |
but do you remember anything about the invitation | 19:37 | |
and how you were invited, or what that process was? | 19:39 | |
- | I received an invitation maybe because I was working | 19:43 |
and the work concerns churches and the problem | 19:46 | |
of theological education for Latin America | 19:49 | |
and the Caribbean. | 19:52 | |
And they assigned me to do Re-Imagining worship. | 19:53 | |
And I enjoyed to do that. | 19:56 | |
Because being a pastor, I say liturgy | 19:58 | |
is one of the ways that we can work | 20:02 | |
for the transformation of people, liturgy. | 20:04 | |
Then I say, okay, then I like that. | 20:07 | |
But surprisingly, it was what happened | 20:11 | |
after Re-Imagining. | 20:14 | |
You see, I said, I need to read on my papers again, I said. | 20:16 | |
What do I say? | 20:21 | |
Let me look at the paper to see what do I say. | 20:24 | |
Is this against the theology that we need to propose? | 20:26 | |
No, it's alright, | 20:32 | |
what I was telling you was alright. | 20:33 | |
And then what happened? | 20:35 | |
And then it was very interesting for me to see | 20:36 | |
the happiness after the Re-Imagining committee, | 20:40 | |
because it was such a good time. | 20:43 | |
Especially, we enjoyed the liturgy. | 20:46 | |
- | Yes, say some more about that. | 20:48 |
What do you remember about it? | 20:49 | |
- | I remember the liturgy. | 20:51 |
For the first time, I began to hear about wisdom | 20:53 | |
in The Bible. | 21:00 | |
Never before I have so many insights | 21:02 | |
of what wisdom means in The Bible. | 21:06 | |
And I said, okay, wisdom, my goodness, sophia. | 21:10 | |
And then we had the whole celebration, | 21:16 | |
call in Sofia to bless us. | 21:19 | |
And they said it was good. | 21:22 | |
We enjoyed, we laughed, we danced. | 21:24 | |
It was wonderful to see the inspiration, | 21:27 | |
to see, well, now we are relating | 21:30 | |
with this wisdom, with sophia. | 21:33 | |
And then I think this was a problem, one of the problems, | 21:37 | |
that the people, they didn't understand that. | 21:41 | |
But it was the first time that The Bible was opened to us, | 21:44 | |
to tell us, look, wisdom was there. | 21:48 | |
Old Testament and New Testament, wisdom was there. | 21:51 | |
And then to look at all the biblical passages | 21:56 | |
that speak our wisdom in the Old Testament, New Testament, | 21:59 | |
to say, my goodness, this is wonderful. | 22:02 | |
And at the same time to appreciate how Jesus Christ | 22:06 | |
take wisdom even with him in his ministry. | 22:12 | |
I think we have that in Re-Imagining. | 22:17 | |
Jesus taking this in his spirit. | 22:20 | |
You see, and afterwards, I was looking | 22:22 | |
at the ministry of Jesus in a different way. | 22:25 | |
For example, I said, afterwards I said, | 22:28 | |
oh my goodness, Jesus even could change words. | 22:30 | |
And I'm looking at the passage | 22:36 | |
when a woman give unction. | 22:38 | |
- | Yes, yes, yes, yes, oil, anoint. | 22:44 |
- | Oil, and then the Pharisees said, | 22:46 |
you don't look at this woman in the proper way. | 22:50 | |
And then they used the word, in Greek, (Greek word). | 22:54 | |
And then Jesus changed the word, and said, | 22:59 | |
well, you didn't see her in the proper way, | 23:02 | |
and he used the word, (foreign word). | 23:07 | |
How Jesus could change words. | 23:10 | |
And I think, this is what I want to do. | 23:12 | |
To have wisdom inside in a way that I could | 23:15 | |
even change words of the people, | 23:18 | |
and said, you cannot tell this women | 23:21 | |
that she cannot inspirational. | 23:22 | |
This means to be present in Re-Imagining | 23:25 | |
really orientate my life very much into biblical exegesis* | 23:31 | |
that will be really good for our people, | 23:39 | |
especially our poor people. | 23:44 | |
That sometimes we are so heretical | 23:46 | |
that they can't understand what The Bible says. | 23:49 | |
But telling these stories of wisdom to them, | 23:52 | |
they say, oh my goodness, this is wonderful. | 23:56 | |
We support by that. | 23:58 | |
Then Re-Imagining gave to me orientation for the future. | 23:59 | |
- | Say some more about that. | 24:04 |
- | Orientation for the future to read The Bible | 24:06 |
in a different way, | 24:09 | |
to enjoy liturgy in a way that we enjoy worship and liturgy, | 24:12 | |
and to know that we could work | 24:17 | |
for transformation and changes, | 24:20 | |
and this is what maybe the people didn't accept | 24:24 | |
at that time. | 24:27 | |
Some of the people that contested Re-Imagining, | 24:28 | |
they don't understand that to work as Christians | 24:32 | |
we always need to work for transformation and changes. | 24:37 | |
We cannot be paralyzed in the past, or in tradition, | 24:43 | |
or in codex, whatever, that all below. | 24:48 | |
I see we need really to be supported by grace, | 24:55 | |
by the grace of God, and by changing. | 24:59 | |
After Re-Imagining, I discovered one biblical passage | 25:05 | |
that it was for me the motor of my life. | 25:09 | |
Second of Corinthians eight and nine. | 25:14 | |
It was the passage that for the first time, | 25:17 | |
Paul speaks about economy. | 25:22 | |
I think people need to read these two passages, | 25:25 | |
because, you see, the Church of Macedonia, | 25:28 | |
a very poor church, is put an example by Paul | 25:33 | |
to the whole people in Corinthians. | 25:38 | |
And I said, oh my goodness, this is exactly | 25:41 | |
what we are doing in Cuba. | 25:43 | |
Being a poor country, like we are, | 25:45 | |
we are sharing what we have with all the people | 25:48 | |
all over the world. | 25:51 | |
Our medical service, to help people to read, to write, | 25:53 | |
and to read, this, we have been very poor country, | 25:59 | |
like the church of Macedonia, | 26:03 | |
but when we are moving to share what we have | 26:05 | |
with other countries all over the world. | 26:09 | |
And it was shown how, by the prize that our medical doctor | 26:11 | |
received from the United Nations, | 26:19 | |
because they went to Africa with the Ebola epidemic. | 26:23 | |
We were the first doctors that were there | 26:29 | |
with the Ebola epidemic. | 26:30 | |
I said, well, this is what Paul is saying | 26:33 | |
in second of Corinthians eight and nine. | 26:38 | |
And I seen people in the consume society | 26:41 | |
needs to read these two biblical passages, | 26:43 | |
because there Paul said that those that has many, | 26:45 | |
don't have too much, and those that have less, | 26:50 | |
don't have too less. | 26:54 | |
Those that have many don't have too much, | 26:56 | |
and those who have less don't have too less. | 26:57 | |
Them opened The Bible to me, | 27:00 | |
and I seen this was part of the Re-Imagining understanding. | 27:02 | |
- | Did you hear it, was that interpreted at Re-Imagining? | 27:07 |
- | No, I discovered this afterwards. | 27:13 |
- | You did, yes. | 27:15 |
- | But it was because of the tools that I received | 27:16 |
in Re-Imagining. | 27:18 | |
Because Re-Imagining was giving us tools, | 27:20 | |
tools to understand better the worship, | 27:23 | |
tools to understand better The Bible, | 27:25 | |
tools to understand better the relationship with people. | 27:27 | |
Very much indeed. | 27:32 | |
I feel I was inspired by reading that I received there, | 27:33 | |
for Letty Russell, readings from her, | 27:39 | |
speaking of the theology of relationships. | 27:43 | |
And since Re-Imagining, my theology | 27:46 | |
is theology of relationships. | 27:48 | |
No more than that. | 27:50 | |
Connecting and having relationships with all over. | 27:52 | |
- | How would you describe the tools that you received? | 27:56 |
- | The tools, I describe the tools from The Bible studies | 27:59 |
I would receive there, the worship that it was wonderful, | 28:04 | |
that I received there, conversations, | 28:08 | |
people that encouraged us to continue working. | 28:13 | |
It was a kind of momentum in life. | 28:17 | |
Re-Imagining was a particular momentum in life. | 28:21 | |
Then I'm glad that they speak today | 28:26 | |
about continuing of Re-Imagining, | 28:28 | |
because you would could continue Re-Imagining now, | 28:31 | |
at the different levels, north, south, east, west. | 28:35 | |
Then if we could have networks of Re-Imagining all over, | 28:40 | |
we could do a lot of transformation and changes | 28:46 | |
in our churches. | 28:48 | |
That our churches need these changes, | 28:51 | |
and in our societies too. | 28:53 | |
This means some of the tools were received | 28:55 | |
by biblical scholars there, excellent biblical scholars, | 28:59 | |
by the people that organized the program | 29:04 | |
and lead the worship, | 29:06 | |
and always I have been grateful, very grateful, | 29:08 | |
to Anna Maria Lundy, | 29:12 | |
because she was really a powerful source of sustaining us, | 29:14 | |
not even during Re-Imagining, and after Re-Imagining, | 29:22 | |
I feel, she continued working a lot | 29:26 | |
through the workings of our churches | 29:28 | |
to support women all over. | 29:30 | |
Then I see this as being, yes, a particular moment in life, | 29:32 | |
that really encouraged us that we could do more. | 29:39 | |
You could do more, I could do more. | 29:44 | |
- | I wonder if you could say a little bit more about, | 29:48 |
the worship was amazing, | 29:50 | |
do you remember what about the worship | 29:52 | |
you found particularly inspiring? | 29:54 | |
- | The joy. | 29:56 |
- | Joy, yes. | 29:57 |
- | Joy! | 29:58 |
Well, you see, some of our worships in our churches | 29:59 | |
our the funerals. | 30:02 | |
You go in there thinking, oh, I'm going to die. | 30:04 | |
Oh, I'm going to die. | 30:08 | |
But then the worship in Re-Imagining was joyful. | 30:10 | |
Even we dance, that now we know | 30:16 | |
that in African churches they dance. | 30:21 | |
But it's so difficult for the north to dance and worship. | 30:24 | |
But we were dancing. | 30:28 | |
- | We were. | 30:29 |
- | Round dancing, dancing, oh, it was wonderful. | 30:30 |
Laughing, dancing, joyful worship. | 30:34 | |
And I think the joy was the best. | 30:36 | |
The joy of finding a smiling God. | 30:39 | |
- | I like that. | 30:46 |
- | Finding a smiling God. | 30:47 |
And not only a God in the cross suffering, | 30:49 | |
but a resurrected God, | 30:54 | |
like the women find the resurrection at the end, | 30:56 | |
all the women that find him, | 31:05 | |
we found a resurrected God, | 31:06 | |
that could laugh, dance, and do a lot of things together, | 31:09 | |
and not this God that sometimes is so sad | 31:14 | |
that we cannot even imagine him. | 31:18 | |
Then imagining God with this joyful expression | 31:20 | |
gave some kind of tranquility. | 31:26 | |
I feel so nice inside. | 31:31 | |
After Re-Imagining, I said to myself, | 31:37 | |
okay, I could really be in front of any problem | 31:39 | |
that I know that I could resolve that. | 31:45 | |
- | It gave you strength and courage. | 31:48 |
- | Strength and courage, exactly, exactly. | 31:50 |
And still I want to confess to you | 31:54 | |
I am a little troublemaker, doesn't matter | 31:56 | |
Doesn't matter because being a troublemaker | 31:59 | |
you could do a lot of things. | 32:01 | |
And I am. | 32:03 | |
I would confess to you, I am. | 32:04 | |
I am because I was encouraged in Re-Imagining | 32:06 | |
to say, don't be paralyzed, | 32:09 | |
don't stop yourself. | 32:12 | |
You march, you go, you do. | 32:15 | |
And then this was Re-Imagining, the Re-Imagining conference. | 32:19 | |
I hope that all the women feel like that during that. | 32:22 | |
But I like the continuity, we could continue. | 32:26 | |
- | Absolutely, yes. | 32:30 |
Do you wanna talk some about the backlash? | 32:32 | |
- | Yes, yes. | 32:35 |
- | Did it affect you directly, first of all? | 32:36 |
- | No. | 32:39 |
- | Okay. | |
- | No, no, because, in the workings at our churches, | 32:40 |
of course, I was with the women task force, | 32:45 | |
and I was the moderator of the women task force. | 32:50 | |
We were very strong. | 32:53 | |
And the women task force, we include not only executive. | 32:55 | |
We have secretaries, we have people | 32:59 | |
that are not at the upper level, | 33:01 | |
but are at the middle or lower level, | 33:03 | |
and always we do this with our theology. | 33:06 | |
To be with people not only at the upper level, | 33:09 | |
and then to have to have to sit together, | 33:12 | |
and then at the same time to have people | 33:14 | |
from different religions, too. | 33:17 | |
One of the things that really encouraged me was to meet, | 33:19 | |
and it was the impetus to maintain, | 33:23 | |
Orthodox women, or Roman Catholic women, or Jewish women, | 33:25 | |
women from different religions, Muslims, Hindus, | 33:30 | |
women that, you sit down with them and then | 33:34 | |
you could talk with them about what is in your faith | 33:39 | |
that encourages you to go on. | 33:44 | |
And they will say, oh, this and this and this. | 33:46 | |
And there are many common things that united us. | 33:49 | |
- | What were some of those things, would you say? | 33:53 |
- | Well, prayer. | 33:54 |
Prayer united us. | 33:57 | |
Caring for others united us. | 34:00 | |
I like very much in Africa ubuntu, because ubuntu said, | 34:04 | |
you are because I am, and I am because you are. | 34:10 | |
This means community developed, community. | 34:15 | |
- | Relationships. | 34:18 |
- | Relationships. | 34:19 |
Theology of relationship that I learned from Letty Russell. | 34:20 | |
Theology of relationships. | 34:23 | |
And, yes, I think that in Re-Imagining, at the same time, | 34:25 | |
I bought many books. | 34:31 | |
This was another thing. | 34:33 | |
I could buy books. | 34:34 | |
It was a good library display, | 34:36 | |
and it was when I found Phyllis Trible | 34:39 | |
with the books that she has, | 34:43 | |
texts of terrors in the Old Testament. | 34:46 | |
And now I could teach my students in Matanzas. | 34:48 | |
Look, there are texts of terrors in the Old Testament, | 34:52 | |
Phyllis Trible is telling us. | 34:54 | |
And I bought books too. | 34:56 | |
At the same time I could return to the WCC | 34:58 | |
and then afterwards to Cuba with all these books | 35:02 | |
that I could buy in Re-Imagining conference | 35:05 | |
because there was a good exposition of good books there. | 35:10 | |
And it was not only the literature | 35:13 | |
but books, libraries, books that women wrote, | 35:14 | |
and it has been an inspiration for us. | 35:20 | |
There have been many things together, | 35:23 | |
and with Re-Imagining, it was a kind of, | 35:24 | |
we always said that it was like different, | 35:28 | |
we are telling in Latin America, different, how do you say, | 35:33 | |
when you do one of these things like that, | 35:36 | |
that have many, many patches? | 35:40 | |
- | Pieces. | 35:44 |
- | Pieces, many pieces. | 35:44 |
Then I said Re-Imagining broke towards many pieces. | 35:46 | |
And then you could have a big tablecloth | 35:50 | |
or a big mat or a big piece of material | 35:53 | |
with all these little pieces | 36:01 | |
that women brought to this meeting. | 36:04 | |
- | Like a quilt? | 36:05 |
- | Like a quilt, exactly. | 36:06 |
Re-Imagining was like a quilt. | 36:09 | |
(crosstalk) | 36:10 | |
With little pieces put together. | 36:12 | |
And I think this is the image that I have of Re-Imagining, | 36:15 | |
but at the same time, pieces of color. | 36:18 | |
- | Yes, exactly! | 36:21 |
- | A lot of color pieces! | 36:23 |
Black, white, yellow, red, whatever, all kind of pieces. | 36:25 | |
Because we have black people there, | 36:30 | |
we have yellow people there, | 36:32 | |
we have white people there, | 36:34 | |
we have people from different countries to there, | 36:35 | |
yes it was a kind of quilt full of colors, | 36:39 | |
colors of women from different part of the world too, yes. | 36:44 | |
- | Given how wonderful it was, and it was, | 36:47 |
how did you react to the backlash against it? | 36:51 | |
Did it surprise you? | 36:54 | |
What did you think of that? | 36:55 | |
- | Well, I will say at the beginning, it surprised me. | 36:57 |
I said, what happened to these men? | 37:01 | |
what happened to them, | 37:04 | |
that they react so strongly to that? | 37:06 | |
And finally I said, well, | 37:10 | |
I even didn't remember the name of the institution. | 37:16 | |
It was Lay, Layman something. | 37:19 | |
- | Presbyterian Layman. | 37:21 |
- | Presbyterian Layman, there is, yes | 37:22 |
and it was a question | 37:24 | |
why Mary Ann Lundy lost her job. | 37:25 | |
Presbyterian Layman, and then I said, | 37:29 | |
what happened to them? | 37:32 | |
Do they literally diminish of Jesus in a good way or not, | 37:34 | |
what happened to them? | 37:41 | |
And then at the same time, what do attack | 37:42 | |
a group of women so violent there, | 37:47 | |
was some arguments that really were not the right arguments. | 37:52 | |
Because at the same time, I believe in dialogue. | 37:57 | |
You could have dialogue, you could talk. | 38:01 | |
We could explain to them, we could have a meeting | 38:04 | |
of the minds and to explain to them | 38:08 | |
what is the meaning of wisdom, | 38:10 | |
what is the meaning of not to, | 38:12 | |
when we attack, when we try to destroy all the lives, | 38:14 | |
we are not doing what Jesus wants us to do. | 38:21 | |
We could sit down and talk. | 38:24 | |
And at the same time, I learn in life | 38:26 | |
that we cannot think the same, we are different. | 38:30 | |
We could have different opinions, | 38:35 | |
different feelings about things. | 38:38 | |
Some people like the funeral worship, I don't like them, | 38:41 | |
but maybe they like it. | 38:44 | |
I need to respect them. | 38:46 | |
Then it was in some way, I seemed, | 38:48 | |
we need to go more and more in dialogue. | 38:52 | |
And then they said, pity that they didn't want | 38:55 | |
to have a dialogue, to sit down with the organizers | 38:57 | |
of Re-Imagining and talk. | 39:00 | |
Let us see what you feel about wisdom, | 39:03 | |
it was not heretic, as they said, it was really | 39:07 | |
a different way of seeing wisdom in The Bible | 39:10 | |
and sophia and all this. | 39:14 | |
I mean, we could talk, and then it's not that | 39:15 | |
we could change them, but at least they could feel | 39:20 | |
that in life there are people | 39:24 | |
that think differently like you. | 39:26 | |
And when we said that, | 39:29 | |
we cannot sit down in the church, | 39:31 | |
because in the church we are totally different, all of us, | 39:33 | |
and thank God for that, that we are not similar, | 39:37 | |
we are different, but all of us, we have God's image. | 39:40 | |
When we have reminded him, we have God image in us, | 39:45 | |
and we have the holy spirit, too, in us. | 39:50 | |
Because it was clear the holy spirit was working there, | 39:53 | |
Re-Imagining things for the future. | 39:58 | |
I think that we believe in a subversive holy spirit, | 40:04 | |
subversive holy spirit. | 40:07 | |
A holy spirit that is working when you not imagine even | 40:09 | |
that it was working. | 40:13 | |
For example, when I've been in Cuba, | 40:15 | |
I said, we never could think that the churches in Cuba | 40:16 | |
could grow so much, | 40:21 | |
being in a Socialist country, | 40:24 | |
being with the Communist party, | 40:26 | |
but the churches are growing. | 40:29 | |
We have 3,000 to 5,000 house churches now, | 40:31 | |
it's thanks to all the missionary work, | 40:34 | |
and this is the subversive work of the holy spirit. | 40:36 | |
You don't believe that, | 40:39 | |
you don't believe in the holy spirit. | 40:42 | |
And I like when you mostly, I like Paul, | 40:45 | |
because Paul is using, I am professor of ethics, | 40:48 | |
and Paul is using ethical views in his ethics | 40:58 | |
that for me they are very valuable. | 41:04 | |
He use the indicative and the imperative, | 41:07 | |
the indicative is that you have the holy spirit, | 41:11 | |
but the imperative said, but you need to live | 41:15 | |
the holy spirit. | 41:20 | |
It's not only to have the holy spirit, | 41:21 | |
you need to live the holy spirit. | 41:23 | |
And then we have all the fruits of the holy spirit, | 41:25 | |
and we have the fruits. | 41:28 | |
And I think that it's a pity that we couldn't have | 41:30 | |
at that time a dialogue with them | 41:32 | |
to convince them that we were not heretic, | 41:35 | |
that we were doing the will of God | 41:39 | |
during the Re-Imagining conference, that's it. | 41:41 | |
Simple like that. | 41:44 | |
But it was hard for me to hear the Baptists side, | 41:46 | |
oh my goodness. | 41:50 | |
But you see today, we're not out of that | 41:52 | |
either in the world. | 41:55 | |
The backlash is going to women again. | 41:58 | |
For example, many of these women that we prepare | 42:01 | |
very well in Latin America, now many churches | 42:04 | |
they don't like the theology that they are teaching. | 42:07 | |
They said, nuh uh, we don't like very much, | 42:11 | |
but it's a good theology, you say, | 42:14 | |
what of the theology? | 42:15 | |
- | What don't they like about the theology? | 42:17 |
- | It's feminist theology. | 42:19 |
Of course it's feminist theology. | 42:21 | |
They are looking at The Bible with women eyes, | 42:22 | |
it's feminist theology, yes. | 42:26 | |
We are not, we always said in Latin America, | 42:27 | |
we are feminIst theologians of liberation, | 42:30 | |
feminist theologians of liberation. | 42:34 | |
Everything that free women is good. | 42:36 | |
Everything that really enslave people, | 42:39 | |
women, or men, or children, is bad. | 42:42 | |
It means we want to see in The Bible that liberation | 42:46 | |
is stronger there, all over from God, | 42:49 | |
from the beginning to the end. | 42:52 | |
I think we need to look at that. | 42:56 | |
- | What do you think is causing that backlash | 42:58 |
against Re-Imagining, even today? | 43:00 | |
- | We are becoming more conservative and traditional | 43:04 |
in many of the world churches now, | 43:07 | |
more conservative, more traditional. | 43:10 | |
I don't know if they want to respond to the people | 43:12 | |
that have power, that sometimes the people | 43:16 | |
that have power and rich, they are more conservative | 43:19 | |
than people that are more poor and have less. | 43:23 | |
They are more conservative, they want to keep the tradition. | 43:27 | |
They low, and they are not for the grace of God. | 43:30 | |
I think the people in United States need to read | 43:36 | |
the book of Elsa Tamez, it's in English, | 43:39 | |
The Amnesty of God. | 43:45 | |
That it's trying to insist there is | 43:48 | |
no condemnation of God. | 43:50 | |
In the Spanish, no hay condemnacion, the amnesty of God. | 43:52 | |
And this was her dissertation, and it was | 43:56 | |
on the book of Romans, too. | 43:59 | |
The Amnesty of God. | 44:02 | |
Then I think people, we today | 44:04 | |
believe that many people are living | 44:11 | |
what we call in English greed, | 44:14 | |
greed, avaricia, greed. | 44:21 | |
- | Yes, greed, avarice, yes. | 44:23 |
- | Avarice, to have more, and more, and more. | 44:25 |
It's not to be, but is to have. | 44:28 | |
And then we need to, I think what Re-Imagining | 44:31 | |
wants to tell us is to be less, | 44:36 | |
to be, and not just to have. | 44:40 | |
And then today greed is growing fast, very fast, | 44:43 | |
to have more, and more, and more, and more. | 44:51 | |
And then if you want to have more, | 44:53 | |
you need to be more conservative, | 44:55 | |
then you have to have less, then you would be more open | 44:57 | |
to the things, you need to lose things, | 45:01 | |
you need to lose things, and then people don't want | 45:04 | |
to lose, they want to only go up, and up, and up, | 45:07 | |
and this is the problem. | 45:11 | |
This is a problem. | 45:12 | |
That is the reason why I say today there is | 45:14 | |
a movement, and maybe we could contact Re-Imagining | 45:17 | |
with this movement. | 45:20 | |
The movement is called oikostri, oikostri. | 45:21 | |
Oikos means the house of God, | 45:28 | |
and tri means three, then the whole question | 45:31 | |
of theology of creation. | 45:34 | |
Because we emphasize very much theology of redemption, | 45:36 | |
and not theology of creation. | 45:41 | |
And I think in Re-Imagining, | 45:43 | |
we emphasize theology of creation. | 45:44 | |
Theology of creation, not theology of redemption. | 45:47 | |
Not only to save souls, but to save lives. | 45:50 | |
And one of the best documents that we have today, | 45:56 | |
we have two wonderful documents today, | 45:58 | |
one is the mission document of the workings of the churches. | 46:01 | |
That is called together for life, juntas por la vida, | 46:06 | |
together for life, if you are not for life, | 46:13 | |
you are anti-life and this is the question. | 46:17 | |
Together for life, how we could be together for life. | 46:21 | |
And I think this was Re-Imagining, | 46:24 | |
together for life, to have life for women, | 46:26 | |
for the people, theology of creation, for the environment, | 46:29 | |
this was Re-Imagining, theology for life, | 46:31 | |
not for redemption, not only to save souls. | 46:37 | |
And you go to the minister magicians, | 46:42 | |
it was not only to save souls, | 46:44 | |
it was really theology of creation to save humanity. | 46:46 | |
And creation, and life for everybody. | 46:50 | |
Anyway, I think that this was Re-Imagining, | 46:55 | |
and I hope that we could have it continue to remind, | 46:58 | |
and I don't know how we are going to do that. | 47:00 | |
- | And let's work on it, yes, yes. | 47:02 |
- | And no, I want to tell you about this movement, | 47:04 |
oikostri, and this women, oikostri have three elements | 47:07 | |
that are fundamental. | 47:10 | |
Ubuntu, that I mentioned to you in Africa. | 47:12 | |
But in Asia, it's (foreign term), another movement | 47:16 | |
very strong now in Asia. | 47:20 | |
Very similar to ubuntu. | 47:21 | |
And in Latin America, it's (foreign term) | 47:23 | |
(foreign term) means exactly that, life for everybody. | 47:27 | |
And then (foreign term) is coming | 47:32 | |
form the Quechua Indian language. | 47:33 | |
But the good thing is that the three elements, | 47:37 | |
one for Africa, one overin Asia, and one for Latin America | 47:41 | |
are feeling the same. | 47:44 | |
This means God is acting, God is acting. | 47:47 | |
That is the reason why I tell the people | 47:51 | |
when they are concerned about governments and so on, | 47:53 | |
I say, God is acting in history, | 47:56 | |
don't be down, always God is acting in history. | 47:59 | |
- | That subversive holy spirit. | 48:06 |
- | The subversive holy spirit, and we believe that. | 48:08 |
We the women, we believe that. | 48:11 | |
If we don't believe that, it's difficult. | 48:13 | |
That is the reason that next year, 2018, | 48:16 | |
will be a wonderful year for the celebration | 48:21 | |
of the 20 years that we have dedicated | 48:24 | |
the churches in solidarity with women. | 48:31 | |
But we have how many years of Re-Imagining? | 48:35 | |
- | It's the 25th anniversary of Re-Imagining | 48:38 |
- | 25th anniversary of Re-Imagining, | 48:41 |
then let us be together. | 48:43 | |
- | Absolutely. | 48:45 |
- | To celebrate in Mexico, | |
first week of October, 20 years of the church | 48:48 | |
in solidarity with women, and 23 years of Re-Imagining. | 48:52 | |
- | That is wonderful, yes. | 48:57 |
- | And we have Mary Ann Lundy there, | 48:58 |
who will take her free like that to be there. | 49:00 | |
So many people that participate in Re-Imagining | 49:05 | |
need to be there. | 49:07 | |
- | You brought up Mary Ann Lundy, | 49:09 |
could you, I want to hear more about how | 49:10 | |
the World Council of Churches, the women | 49:12 | |
of the World Council of Churches supported her | 49:14 | |
after she was fired. | 49:17 | |
- | We supported her very much. | 49:18 |
- | Tell me about that. | |
- | Well we really supported her, and I would say | 49:20 |
not only women, but men, too, | 49:24 | |
because the general secretary said no, she couldn't come. | 49:26 | |
Then we were happy that she could be named, | 49:30 | |
and she could name deputy and she could return, | 49:33 | |
and she could have a place of work. | 49:36 | |
And she was wonderful, working with women there, | 49:39 | |
and working in the programs | 49:42 | |
of the World Council of Churches. | 49:43 | |
Yes, I think we pushed the matter. | 49:44 | |
This means that we could do many things together | 49:48 | |
when we want. | 49:54 | |
I remember so many things that we did | 49:57 | |
in the World Council of Churches in the women task force | 49:59 | |
that it was wonderful, the women together, | 50:02 | |
and we have men supporting us, too, there. | 50:04 | |
From the very beginning, in the early process | 50:08 | |
it's not only women, it's to form | 50:10 | |
the community of women and men together. | 50:13 | |
This is the idea in our churches, together. | 50:15 | |
Not women in this side, and men on the other side, | 50:19 | |
women and men together, and maybe this is | 50:22 | |
what the Laymen, they did was through the door. | 50:24 | |
Women and men together, working for a community, | 50:27 | |
for theology for life, and so on. | 50:31 | |
Yeah, we support Mary Ann Lundy, | 50:33 | |
and she did wonderful work. | 50:36 | |
And you need to have some support to go through the work, | 50:37 | |
'cause if you're choosing to work | 50:40 | |
after you have this black-- | 50:41 | |
- | Abso-, yes. | 50:43 |
How would you evaluate the ecumenical decade | 50:46 | |
of churches in solidarity with women? | 50:49 | |
- | It was good, but at the end of the decade, | 50:52 |
we notice that there's a backlash, and there's still-- | 50:56 | |
- | Against the whole work? | 51:00 |
- | It still is not really what we would like to have. | 51:01 |
It still we have a lot of, yes, | 51:05 | |
a lot of things that we need to still get done | 51:08 | |
for mind change, even now. | 51:10 | |
- | I want to hear that. | 51:14 |
What still needs to be re-imagined, | 51:15 | |
what needs to be transformed now? | 51:17 | |
- | The Re-Imagining needs to be that the churches | 51:19 |
will accept the theology that women agree. | 51:25 | |
Simple as that. | 51:30 | |
They are wonderful women theologians all over | 51:32 | |
in United States, in Canada, in Germany, | 51:35 | |
in Africa, in Cuba, in Latin American and the Caribbean, | 51:38 | |
that the church will say, look, this is a gift from God. | 51:43 | |
God has given us all these wonderful biblical scholars, | 51:48 | |
women, but they are look in The Bible in a different way. | 51:53 | |
You see, reading about that, I realized, | 51:57 | |
and this will be my sermon, next sermon that I'm going | 52:01 | |
to preach over there, you see, | 52:03 | |
you go to Exodus one and two. | 52:05 | |
At the beginning of Exodus one, | 52:10 | |
you have 12 men there, named there, 12. | 52:12 | |
But look how wonderful is God, you look to the rest | 52:16 | |
of Exodus one and two, there are 12 women. | 52:21 | |
Look at God, what God is doing. | 52:26 | |
Put 12 men in Exodus one first, and put 12 women there. | 52:31 | |
And the 12 women were the women that liberate Moses. | 52:37 | |
It means the culture could not be liberated | 52:41 | |
if these 12 women were not there. | 52:43 | |
- | The midwives. | 52:45 |
- | Shipharh and Puah, | |
the midwives, then the three that were near Moses, | 52:48 | |
the daughter of Pharaoh, the mother, the daughter, | 52:54 | |
the sister of Moses. | 52:56 | |
Three, we are five. | 53:00 | |
And then seven at the end in Exodus two, | 53:02 | |
when Moses killed the Egypt, and then he found | 53:05 | |
the seven women around the well, | 53:08 | |
and then he helped them, and then they took him | 53:11 | |
to his father there, seven women taking him | 53:15 | |
to save his life over there. | 53:20 | |
And then he married Zipporah there, | 53:22 | |
one of the seven sisters. | 53:25 | |
12 women. | 53:32 | |
- | I never realized | |
it was 12. | 53:34 | |
- | 12, how God | |
could do that, only because women are reading | 53:38 | |
The Bible in this way, | 53:42 | |
and said, okay, 12 men there, they are nice people, | 53:44 | |
good people, they did a good job, | 53:47 | |
but who saved the life of Moses? | 53:50 | |
12 women. | 53:52 | |
Then women mostly want a liberator of the country | 53:54 | |
of the whole people. | 53:59 | |
Then what happened is these 12 women would be not there, | 54:02 | |
but God knew, and put the 12 men at the beginning | 54:07 | |
of Exodus one, they didn't do too much | 54:11 | |
to liberate Moses, and they put the 12 women, | 54:15 | |
one after the other, one after the, until the end. | 54:19 | |
This is the reading that women, of The Bible, | 54:24 | |
that women are doing today. | 54:26 | |
This is a threshold, it's a threshold, | 54:29 | |
not only to see what happened so many years ago, | 54:33 | |
but how to read The Bible in a way that we understand. | 54:38 | |
And then of course, we are very grateful | 54:42 | |
to Rosemary Radford Fuether, | 54:47 | |
to Phillys Trible, to Fiorenza, Elisabeth Fiorenza, | 54:50 | |
so many here, and there is De Sola in Germany, | 54:55 | |
and many others all over, | 54:59 | |
and many Latin American women like Elsa Tamez, | 55:01 | |
Ada Maria, to Padilla, the Tanimarez, | 55:05 | |
Maria Pilar Aquino from Mexico, | 55:09 | |
there's been many women reading The Bible | 55:14 | |
in a different way | 55:16 | |
Then why not accept that as a gift from God? | 55:18 | |
Why should they just say no? | 55:22 | |
No, we need to read The Bible with our own eyes. | 55:24 | |
Not only that, why not to change liturgy? | 55:28 | |
You see in Chile, there is a group of women | 55:32 | |
that they are the liberals of the group called Conspirando, | 55:34 | |
Conspiration, Conspiration. | 55:40 | |
And they renew the liturgy totally. | 55:43 | |
There is a house there, the liturgy that they are doing | 55:46 | |
is so beautiful, it's like a beautiful Re-Imagining. | 55:50 | |
Then you have a group in Brazil that is Mandragora. | 55:54 | |
Oh my, the liturgies in this group of Mandragora in Brazil. | 55:58 | |
Women are doing a lot of efforts in liturgy, | 56:03 | |
bible reading, preaching. | 56:06 | |
Preaching, too, liturgy, preaching, that is incredible. | 56:08 | |
Then we need to look at all this. | 56:13 | |
- | Oh, that is wonderful. | 56:18 |
(background talking off mic) | 56:20 | |
In the end, what would you say is the greatest legacy | 56:29 | |
of Re-Imagining, the greatest legacy? | 56:31 | |
- | The greatest legacy I think that, | 56:34 |
that we continue, that we have dreams of continuing. | 56:39 | |
And I think this is a great legacy. | 56:49 | |
Dreams to continue. | 56:51 | |
If you don't have dreams to continue, | 56:53 | |
the transformation and change, you are lost. | 56:56 | |
Those are the great legacies that we need to continue. | 56:59 | |
Then the best thing that we receive now | 57:03 | |
from Re-Imagining is what is the continuation. | 57:05 | |
This on me is a blessing. | 57:10 | |
And I think this is the legacy. | 57:12 | |
This is the great legacy, that they say, | 57:14 | |
we did something, that it was good, | 57:17 | |
and now we will continue doing, | 57:20 | |
and assume that all these women that participate | 57:21 | |
in Re-Imagining, they continue going good things. | 57:25 | |
Because I did, I did, I did, I did. | 57:28 | |
I was a principal of the seminary in Matanzas. | 57:32 | |
I changed to the model of leadership in Matanzas | 57:36 | |
when I arrived there in 1997, | 57:39 | |
after Re-Imagining, all this. | 57:41 | |
And then, it was a different model of liturgy.- | 57:43 | |
- | How did you change iT? | 57:47 |
- | Non-hierarchical, | |
not all in Italian. | 57:49 | |
A liturgy for consensus of being together | 57:51 | |
with the workers, with the professor. | 57:55 | |
The model of liturgy was changed totally. | 57:58 | |
And then at the same time, I bring to the seminary | 58:01 | |
ecological concerns. | 58:05 | |
- | You did. | |
- | We reforested the seminary with many trees. | 58:08 |
We organized an organic vegetable garden | 58:12 | |
that is serving the seminary, is serving the whole, | 58:16 | |
some hospitals and health care centers, too. | 58:20 | |
And we changed to the, not only, | 58:23 | |
well, tried to change the ecological concern, | 58:29 | |
but we would relate the theological education | 58:31 | |
with the civil society. | 58:34 | |
To put really theological education in the middle | 58:38 | |
of the civil society, that was the reason | 58:41 | |
that we built the seminary when I was the owner, | 58:43 | |
the chief of the process. | 58:50 | |
Then we built a theater, a cultural theater | 58:53 | |
one block from the seminary | 58:59 | |
that is called Abraham Lincoln Theater | 59:02 | |
and we gave this to the community. | 59:05 | |
And we have more than 200 children now doing worship, | 59:07 | |
no worship, what do you say? | 59:11 | |
- | Plays? | 59:13 |
- | Plays, choir, | |
all this kind of things there, | 59:16 | |
and we gave to the community. | 59:18 | |
It related theological education with the civil society. | 59:21 | |
- | This has been wonderful, is there anything else | 59:26 |
you would like to add before we end? | 59:29 | |
- | No, because what I want to tell is if you have | 59:31 |
any more questions, we could communicate, | 59:34 | |
I will give you my card. | 59:37 | |
- | Thank you. | |
- | And then maybe I could add more to your presentation. | 59:39 |
I don't know how much I could add, but anyway. | 59:44 | |
- | This was absolutely wonderful. | 59:46 |
Thank you so much. | 59:48 | |
- | You need to tell | |
that I am 81 years old. | 59:50 | |
- | Are you really? | 59:52 |
- | Yes, I will be 82 next year. | 59:53 |
- | That is hard to imagine. | 59:58 |
- | This means age is not a boundary not to do anything. | 1:00:00 |
I have 81 years old, I organize in 2004 | 1:00:04 | |
a christening to do for gender studies. | 1:00:09 | |
- | Did you? | 1:00:12 |
- | In Cuba. | |
And this a part of Re-Imagining. | 1:00:13 | |
Christening to do gender studies, | 1:00:16 | |
then we are doing worships all over the island. | 1:00:18 | |
In worship, ask people | 1:00:20 | |
how to preach, how to do Bible studies. | 1:00:27 | |
At the same time to work with women and men, | 1:00:30 | |
because we're working with men now | 1:00:33 | |
how to change masculinity concerns. | 1:00:36 | |
- | And where exactly is the Institute? | 1:00:39 |
- | The Institute is in Matanzas, where I am. | 1:00:41 |
But we have an office in Havana in the Council of Churches, | 1:00:46 | |
and we do worships along the island. | 1:00:49 | |
- | That is wonderful. | 1:00:52 |
- | And we have a lot of job people facilitators, | 1:00:52 |
speaking about power and leadership, | 1:00:56 | |
self esteem, liturgy, how to change liturgy | 1:01:01 | |
in the best way, liturgy, Bible studies, | 1:01:07 | |
how to read The Bible with our own eyes. | 1:01:11 | |
It's what we call popular reading of The Bible | 1:01:14 | |
that we learn from Pablo Fredi, a long time ago, | 1:01:18 | |
when he developed the popular reading of The Bible. | 1:01:21 | |
And all this, we are doing that to the Christening | 1:01:24 | |
to do those gender studies. | 1:01:28 | |
I'm still teaching in the seminary, ethics | 1:01:31 | |
and theology and gender. | 1:01:37 | |
And of course, I had the chance when I was | 1:01:40 | |
a principal of the seminary to include | 1:01:43 | |
theology and gender in the curriculum. | 1:01:45 | |
It's obliged in the curriculum, | 1:01:48 | |
it's not something that is option, it's obliged, | 1:01:50 | |
everybody needs to take theology and gender. | 1:01:52 | |
You would say this is a project of Re-Imagining, | 1:01:56 | |
things that I'm doing. | 1:01:59 | |
And I suppose that all the women that participated | 1:02:00 | |
in Re-Imagining, they are doing things like that. | 1:02:02 | |
That is, you have 65 interviews, | 1:02:04 | |
you got 65 lives telling you, why I'm doing that, | 1:02:07 | |
and I will continue doing that. | 1:02:11 | |
- | That is right. | 1:02:14 |
- | Thank you. | |
- | Thank you. | 1:02:15 |
- | But you could-- |
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