King, Annie Wu / Re-Imagining Collection / Duke Digital Repository

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Annie, thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed.

0:04

If we could start with some background information,

0:08

first could you say your full name?

0:10

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Yes, Annie Wu, W-U, King, K-I-N-G.

0:13

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Thank you very much and Annie, are you lay or clergy?

0:21

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I'm an elder.

0:26

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Okay, in the Presbyterian Church USA, right?

0:28

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Correct.

0:32

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Good, and could you say a little bit

0:34

about when and where you were born?

0:35

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I was born in 1933 in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China.

0:38

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Oh my goodness, that is really interesting.

0:47

Where did you go to school, graduate or divinity school,

0:51

college, any of those?

0:53

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I never completed high school because I was in the

0:59

Shanghai American School that closed during the change

1:02

in government, but I was accepted at

1:06

the University of Pennsylvania and I majored

1:09

in what was called Oriental Studies.

1:14

I took it as a B.A. but that was actually

1:17

a Master's course.

1:21

Then in the University of Louisville, in Kentucky,

1:23

I got my Master's in social work and went on

1:29

to become a licensed clinical social worker.

1:35

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Oh, fascinating, thank you so much.

1:40

Could you talk about what work or ministry you were doing

1:43

at the time of Re-Imagining, that was 1993.

1:46

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I had been invited by Mary Ann Lundy to apply

1:51

when she was the director of what was called

2:00

the Women's Ministry Unit.

2:02

I was asked to apply for the associate director

2:06

so I was holding that job, I was associate director

2:09

from 1989, and that meant coordinating staff

2:14

and the senates around the country

2:21

and also managing the budget, which had to do

2:26

with Re-Imagining, as you can imagine.

2:29

Then when Mary Ann Lundy left in July of 1993,

2:34

to take a different position in the building,

2:41

I became the interim.

2:44

The whole organization was changing names

2:48

and changing structure, so I was called

2:51

the Interim Associate Director, which was still the head

2:53

of the women's ministries.

3:02

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Okay, that is very helpful.

3:04

You were also coordinator of staff and senate,

3:07

is that correct?

3:10

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That's correct.

3:12

When I began, we had 14, 15, 16 staff all around

3:13

the country because we believed in getting the woman

3:21

in the pew involved in women's ministries

3:26

so we wanted staff close to them.

3:30

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Okay, well that's interesting, great.

3:34

And what work or ministry did you do

3:37

after Re-Imagining, Annie?

3:38

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I continued, we did hire another associate director,

3:42

but I continued as coordinator of staff and left there,

3:49

and I left the building, I was quote "downsized" in 2002,

3:55

when they had a shortfall of (mumbles) and money.

4:04

Lots of people were let go at that time.

4:08

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Okay, and Annie, how and when did you first

4:14

become aware of feminist theology?

4:17

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Ha ha, that's a funny question, I'm sorry, it's not funny.

4:21

After I finished my University of Pennsylvania work,

4:28

my husband, Doug King and I went to Indonesia

4:36

to teach in the university.

4:40

While we were there, a good friend of mine,

4:43

Polly Johnson, was sending me some books

4:46

on feminist theology.

4:49

I have to admit that I was so busy that I didn't read

4:52

much of them and at the time, my efforts were

4:55

in teaching at the university.

5:00

But that's when I first became aware of it.

5:03

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Oh, interesting.

5:06

How did your interest in it grow then eventually?

5:08

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When I came back to the states to work

5:13

and I was working in Louisville, Kentucky, I was working

5:18

with an assisted living place which is a program

5:22

for people with disabilities.

5:28

We worked with people who had disabilities and were trying

5:31

to become more independent and live on their own.

5:38

I was working there but had no pension,

5:45

I was past 50 years old, the salary at that time

5:49

was about $16,000.

5:58

One day, Mary Ann Lundy called me and said, "Do you know

6:01

"that I have a position open for an associate director?"

6:05

And I thought, what does that require?

6:12

She said, "You have to coordinate the staff and

6:16

"the senate and you have to do the budget."

6:20

And I said, "Budget, I don't know anything about a budget."

6:22

I never had any money.

6:24

(interviewer laughing)

6:26

She said, "Oh, that's the easy part."

6:29

So that's when I did apply and I did get the position

6:32

and was working at Presbyterian headquarters

6:40

from 1998 on until 2002.

6:45

Gradually Mary Ann, of course, was very much involved

6:55

in Re-Imagining and would talk with me about it,

7:00

but before that, our own women's ministry committees,

7:05

which was made up of people from around the country,

7:11

it was like a board.

7:14

They as well as some of the staff, we were talking

7:17

about having a conference of women from around

7:21

the country and maybe the world but we didn't have any money

7:26

for that sort of thing.

7:29

When the Interfaith group in Minneapolis started talking

7:32

about Re-Imagining, that was really exciting to us.

7:39

Of course Mary Ann was one of the prime movers of that.

7:44

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So how did you know Mary Ann Lundy?

7:49

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I had met her earlier, before I got the job,

7:52

in Justice for Women, that was a women's ministry,

8:00

but at a Justice for Women social gathering.

8:06

I had talked with her and met her just as a friend,

8:10

so she knew about me and that's the way I got to know her.

8:16

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Oh, nice, okay.

8:24

So you were involved in women's ministry at the time

8:25

that Re-Imagining was being planned.

8:29

Do you have any memories about how that evolved,

8:31

the planning involved and the idea?

8:35

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I don't have any memories of the ins and outs of all that,

8:39

but because Mary Ann would go to planning meetings

8:47

in Minneapolis and so on, she'd come back

8:51

and she would talk to me about what they were hoping to do.

8:54

What especially interested me was that they were planning

8:58

to have women theologians from around the world.

9:03

To me, that just struck home because my father was

9:09

Chinese, my mother was an American from Philadelphia,

9:15

she had gone in as a nurse, so the international part of it

9:21

was very exciting to me.

9:28

The other thing was that Mary Ann and I had discussed

9:31

did we have any money to contribute

9:35

to a Re-Imagining budget.

9:39

Of course, that's the issue that became such a hot issue

9:41

at Re-Imagining but Mary Ann was very knowledgeable

9:46

about her budget and, of course I had to be too,

9:52

so she said, "Well, such and such a fund,"

9:56

and I said, "Oh yeah, that's good,"

10:00

'cause that was for education and so on,

10:04

so that's where we got our, I think around $66,000.

10:09

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Exactly, yes, that's right.

10:15

Annie, did you have a chance to attend the

10:19

Re-Imagining conference?

10:21

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Oh yeah, in fact, of course Mary Ann left

10:23

the position in women's ministries like I said,

10:28

in July of 1993.

10:32

She and I were always in touch though because she

10:37

was still in the building and she was doing another job.

10:40

At that time, the Presbyterian church was

10:45

sort of restructuring and that was part of her job

10:48

under Jim Brown, and the top office, so we had to discuss

10:56

about how we were going to deal with the staff

11:03

and the senates and how could we still serve the women

11:06

in the pew but change job positions and so on.

11:09

We talked a lot about that and Re-Imagining.

11:15

My question to Mary Ann at that time, just to get her

11:20

advice, was, I said, "I believe this is the first time

11:25

"our staff can get to hear so many women

11:30

"from around the world, women theologians,

11:36

"and around the country in fact."

11:39

I said, "I would like to have all of our staff

11:42

"and all the associates and so on,

11:46

"go to the conference."

11:49

She said, "Of course."

11:50

We did decide that I would ask all the staff to go,

11:54

they could use their travel budget, they didn't have to pay

11:59

for the travel there because this would be

12:03

an educational thing and helpful to the women in the church

12:08

when they went back to their own homes.

12:13

So that's how we started working on that.

12:18

I did tell all the staff, all of the exempt staff,

12:21

that they could go and they all went.

12:26

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They all went and Annie, just to clarify,

12:29

was this staff in the women's division that went?

12:30

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Yeah, I'm talking about the staff in the women's unit

12:34

as the women's program area, yes.

12:38

I meant nothing to do with the rest of the staff.

12:42

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Sure and, Annie I know it's been a long time,

12:46

but what are your memories of the Re-Imagining Conference?

12:49

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Oh, you don't want to get in ... Well, actually,

12:55

I have many memories.

12:58

I don't know how much you want, but the thing that

13:03

I personally exhibit or felt, when I went into

13:09

the first session, went into the big room where

13:15

we had the (mumbles), I was overwhelmed.

13:19

Partly because I had not experienced a lot

13:25

of big conferences.

13:30

Coming back from China, not after the Cultural Revolution,

13:32

but coming from China to Hong Kong, I was a refuge

13:41

in Hong Kong and then from Hong Kong to the states,

13:47

I didn't have a lot of opportunity like some women did,

13:52

to go to this conference and that conference.

13:56

I was a little bit hesitant

13:58

and apprehensive that I wouldn't know

14:01

what to do or how to relate to all these women

14:03

so I was overwhelmed.

14:10

It was so different, when I walked into that first room,

14:13

here there were tables that we were assigned to

14:18

and I didn't know anybody.

14:23

I wasn't sitting with any of my friends and I didn't

14:24

even know the stage was.

14:30

The stage was, of course, in the center

14:34

of what's a circle and so, it was just

14:36

a little bit overwhelming.

14:40

I wasn't sure ... Are you there?

14:43

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Oh yes, I am, listening.

14:45

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Okay, I wasn't sure whether I would be able

14:47

to participate correctly in other words.

14:51

That was something that came to me at the beginning.

14:56

Then, when I heard the different speakers,

15:02

that was something that was important, the stage,

15:08

which was in the center of the circle,

15:12

the speakers would move around.

15:15

There were different presenters,

15:18

different song leaders

15:20

and no one seemed to be the big shot.

15:23

Everybody had a role and everybody

15:28

in that plenary room was equal.

15:32

That began to make a difference to me.

15:39

I'm getting off a little bit but part of

15:48

what happened to me, personally, when I was

15:51

rather apprehensive and things that I hadn't heard before

15:55

from different theologians.

16:01

Some things, I thought oh that's crazy, I can't be that,

16:05

and then I started questioning myself.

16:09

The thing that helped me, there were a couple of things

16:14

and very briefly, experiences.

16:21

One was when I went back to China to my family

16:24

after the Cultural Revolution.

16:29

My father died and I went back for the Easter service,

16:33

one of the first Easter services after the churches

16:40

were reopened and the church was packed.

16:43

I admitted that the churches had been closed,

16:48

so I asked a former pastor of mine, "Where did

16:51

"all these people come from?

16:55

"They don't know anything about Christianity.

16:57

"It's not like you had church members."

16:59

No, we weren't preaching, we weren't allowed to preach

17:03

but we had Christians and they learned and then

17:08

they were working in the factories and everywhere,

17:14

and this pastor said to me, "Other people,

17:18

"non-Christians, saw these people, and there

17:21

"in this Cultural Revolution especially, when people

17:25

"were afraid to do anything or say anything,

17:30

"these Christians would show concern about their

17:36

"colleagues, their coworkers.

17:41

"They had a different way of relating to others,

17:44

"a caring, a loving way so people would wonder,

17:47

"what is this, what's different with these people

17:53

"called Christians."

17:56

When the churches were opened, they started to go

18:00

with the Christians to the church to see what it

18:03

was all about.

18:08

To me, it was okay, Annie, you don't know

18:09

in your rigid, traditional way of seeing God,

18:15

you don't know how God works.

18:19

God works in all sorts of ways.

18:21

So when I was at Re-Imagining, I felt it all so some

18:26

of these theologies that I wasn't comfortable with,

18:30

I said, "I can't write them off, nor can I

18:36

"write myself off.

18:40

"I can listen, and learn, and take what I can."

18:42

So that experience in China, then the second experience

18:45

was in Indonesia when we were serving there.

18:50

We were there during the 1965 coup d'etat

18:56

and many thousands of people were killed.

19:01

Many people were accused of being communists.

19:07

Actually some were, some weren't,

19:11

but they were put in prison so there were thousands

19:14

of people in prison.

19:16

Then I heard that some of the churches,

19:19

the little churches in the villages felt sorry

19:22

for the people in prison because nobody

19:26

was really taking care of them, so they would walk

19:28

miles and miles and take food and clothing

19:32

to the prisoners at their own expense

19:35

and at the possibility that they would be accused

19:38

of being communists.

19:44

I thought, here, again, was a community where God

19:47

was working and I didn't understand it.

19:51

These things helped me to feel more at ease

19:57

with the different theologies and, especially

20:06

when the women would talk about the conditions

20:10

in their own countries and in their villages,

20:14

the poverty, the situations.

20:18

That just rang a bell and I felt so good about it.

20:23

Sorry, I keep babbling on.

20:30

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No, Annie, you have had an amazing life and those

20:33

were really important experiences

20:35

that related to Re-Imagining.

20:36

Thank you for sharing that.

20:39

I was wondering if you have memories of what particularly

20:41

bothered you at the presentations?

20:45

Let's start with that, do you remember

20:49

anything in particular?

20:51

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Well, partly, I'm not a theologian, that wasn't my field.

20:54

I did take some theology courses at

21:01

the University of Pennsylvania but that really wasn't

21:04

my strong point.

21:08

I just remember some of the statements of, I think

21:13

it was Delores Williams talking about we don't need

21:19

someone hanging on a cross leading sort of thing.

21:24

I thought, well what does that mean?

21:29

I was brought up believing that Christ

21:33

was crucified and it was just uncomfortable, I should say.

21:37

Some of the paintings, her drawings were just things

21:47

that I was not used to.

21:52

But, again, I gradually was able to say, "Okay, I do not

21:55

have to accept everything that I hear.

22:07

They weren't the same anyway, people were not

22:14

on the same page, which of course made that

22:18

a beautiful situation because they all

22:22

learned different things.

22:24

I also did not have to just throw out

22:27

all that I had believed before because when I

22:30

was a teenager in China, this was after

22:33

the government changed to the People's Republic,

22:38

I had wanted to become a pastor.

22:42

I walked with my Chinese pastor there,

22:45

and I said, "I want to study theology."

22:50

Of course, my Chinese really wasn't good enough

22:54

to do it in China and he suggested I go to Trinity College

22:57

or Seminary in Singapore I think it was, or (mumbles)

23:02

in New York.

23:07

I later found out he was a communist but he

23:11

was very knowledgeable with me and he was a good pastor.

23:13

There were things that I had really believed in strongly,

23:21

and some of these were being challenged.

23:26

Some of them I've let go.

23:32

I can't really remember just exactly how

23:37

to tell you about that.

23:40

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Annie, what made you not become a minister?

23:44

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A couple of things, one is that I didn't have any money.

23:51

My father was a top tuberculosis doctor in China

23:58

but he was on a regular salary so we had very little money.

24:02

I couldn't get out, I was a Chinese citizen

24:10

and leaving was difficult so I just never did.

24:15

Then when I finally did come out, I was a refuge,

24:21

I had no passport and I had to wait until

24:26

the U.S. government gave me a special passport

24:29

because I had friends who were trying to solicit

24:34

their senators to let me come into the states

24:40

because my mother was an American citizen.

24:44

You see, at that time, when I was born in 1933,

24:48

if the mother was an American citizen and living

24:54

and the child was born in a different country,

24:58

that child could not have dual citizenship.

25:01

If the father was American, then I could

25:04

have had dual citizenship.

25:08

When my brother was born two years later,

25:11

and, again, this is the woman thing, women don't count.

25:14

When my brother was born two years later,

25:19

he could have dual citizenship because the law

25:20

had changed in the states.

25:24

So coming out was not easy, coming out of China.

25:27

Then by the time I got my refuge and came to the states,

25:38

things had changed and I just didn't get it.

25:45

I didn't go forward with that.

25:52

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Oh Annie, that's amazing.

25:56

Before you move on to the backlash, I did want to ask

25:58

if you had anything, you mentioned that you

26:00

really appreciated the women from other countries

26:02

talking about the situation of women there.

26:05

Is there anything else that you recall about

26:08

the conference that you found inspiring or helpful?

26:10

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Yeah, I think that maybe for the first time,

26:14

I really can't say, but I felt affirmed.

26:21

I felt, I am all right as a woman.

26:26

I am all right as a disabled woman.

26:31

I had polio when I was eight months old.

26:36

Because there were people there, men and women,

26:39

who were disabled and that was affirmed.

26:43

It wasn't horrible, it wasn't a handicap.

26:47

As for my sexual orientation, I felt I was married,

26:55

I had been married for 23 years and then we were divorced

27:05

but we were still good friends.

27:12

So all of that was affirmed there at the conference.

27:17

For the first time, I felt safe and accepted

27:24

as a woman and who I was, which sort of ties

27:28

into the background, and maybe I shouldn't get into that,

27:36

you know the backlash afterwards?

27:43

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Oh yes, I did want to hear about that.

27:45

Please, tell me.

27:46

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When I was at the conference, we went

27:51

to the Presbyterian church, those of us

27:57

who were Presbyterian, went to the Presbyterian Church

27:58

first for something or other, and I had put my backpack

28:01

with all my cash and everything under a coat hanging

28:07

in the lobby or someplace.

28:13

It was stolen, so I had no cash, no credit cards,

28:17

no identity, no tickets, nothin'.

28:20

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Oh Annie.

28:24

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Of course, I had friends who helped me out.

28:29

When I got back to Louisville and started getting,

28:33

I had to field some of the calls.

28:40

The calls were really not very personal against me,

28:42

except I was in the top person in women's ministries,

28:46

and women's ministries was attacked and I was the person

28:51

who told the staff to go to the conference

28:55

and I was the person who was the budget person

28:58

who gave the money.

29:02

But I knew that they were really after Mary Ann Lundy.

29:05

I felt so demeaned and so put down and the loss

29:11

of what I had gained at the conference, so I

29:19

was just comparing this in a piece that I had given

29:23

in July of 1994, Presbyterian women had a gathering

29:28

every year or every few years and I was asked

29:36

to do a forum on the Imagining, so I had written a paper

29:40

which I happened to find, and some of what I've

29:45

been telling you reminded me of some of the things

29:49

that I had written there.

29:53

The loss of my money, the loss of my credit card,

29:57

the loss of everything else was nothing compared

29:58

to the attack that I felt upon women, and especially

30:03

women's ministries and part of it personally.

30:08

I had lost money, that didn't matter.

30:15

But losing what I had been feeling at the conference

30:19

and being demeaned because I believed and enjoyed

30:24

and appreciated the conference was a much greater loss.

30:29

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Oh, Annie.

30:34

Before I forget, if you do find a copy of that,

30:35

if you would be willing to send it to me,

30:39

I would really appreciate it.

30:42

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Sure, okay, I can do that.

30:45

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Yeah, it sounds very powerful.

30:48

When you said it demeaned, I don't know how much

30:55

you want to go into detail, but what was sort of

30:57

the tenor of the attacks against the women's division?

30:59

How would you describe it?

31:04

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It wasn't always from the laymen and if you

31:11

are familiar with it, it is the organization, the laymen,

31:17

and of course they attacked us.

31:20

And especially later on, attacked our young women.

31:24

-

You mean in the college group,

31:32

the network of Presbyterian women, college women?

31:34

-

The Presbyterian college women, not so much

31:38

the (mumbles) women, the older ... We had different parts

31:42

of the women and women's ministries.

31:50

We had one program with Presbyterian women,

31:53

that's the traditional women's group.

31:55

We had women employed by the church, those were the clergy,

31:57

women in the states and the secretaries

32:02

and anybody else.

32:04

We had women of color and that program, of course,

32:07

was for women of color especially and then we

32:10

had the advocacy program.

32:14

So we've got the four programs, but then we also help

32:18

support a young woman in the U.N. office,

32:24

and we also had a growing college women network

32:29

of amazing young women, some of who have gone on

32:36

to do great things.

32:40

Of course in the later years, when I was still there,

32:45

they attacked the young women especially,

32:49

and the young women's network was put under,

32:52

I can't remember how they said it,

32:58

but they were going to inspect or supervise

33:02

and see what was going on with them.

33:06

Of course, later on that was thrown out,

33:08

there was nothing there.

33:12

Of course, for women's ministries, the staff

33:14

there was, what was so demeaning was that they

33:18

discounted anything that we had heard or learned or felt

33:27

at the conference.

33:32

The detractors were never there themselves,

33:35

they never experience it.

33:37

But I think many of them, they were not all men.

33:39

Part of it is, maybe a threat

33:46

to the male dominance in the church all these years.

33:50

I think that's a part of it, but the other part was,

34:00

there were women too, and it's scary when your own

34:03

traditions or your own beliefs are challenged.

34:07

Re-Imagining challenged some of those beliefs

34:12

just as I challenged them myself.

34:15

Of course, the other issue which was personal for me,

34:23

was women's ministry gave $60-some thousand dollars

34:30

to this terrible conference.

34:34

It was one of the biggest gifts

34:37

and what sort of undermining of the church

34:40

were they doing by giving this money?

34:45

Although that was not my decision alone,

34:50

that was Mary Ann and I.

34:52

That also hurt because time and time again,

34:56

even the people in our own building

34:59

would say, "Oh, now we're losing our church members.

35:04

"Now we are losing our giving because the giving

35:07

"goes to such horrible conferences as Re-Imagining."

35:11

For all the things that were happening

35:18

in the Presbyterian church, it seemed to be all

35:21

caused by one of the (mumbles).

35:24

We're so powerful, you know.

35:28

(interviewer laughing)

35:30

-

Annie, earlier you mentioned they were really going after

35:34

Mary Ann Lundy, why was that?

35:36

Why were they going after her?

35:38

-

Partly, she and Sally Hill were good friends

35:42

and they were probably the strongest initiator

35:47

of the conference.

35:53

Mary Ann had always been very outspoken

35:58

about things and the church, but she worked well

36:00

in trying to help the Presbyterian church

36:06

but I don't know whether there were other reasons why.

36:12

But, because Mary Ann was one of the leaders

36:17

in the Re-Imagining conference, so they would go after her.

36:22

I mean, I was really a nobody, but I was an accomplice.

36:28

(ladies laughing)

36:33

It wasn't that they were going after Annie Wu

36:37

or anything like that, it was more just what

36:40

the women's ministry sat down and and I participated.

36:46

And, of course, I was the one.

36:50

When they made phone calls, I would have

36:52

to take the phone calls until we had a new director,

36:54

associate director.

37:00

The phone calls, I would have to listen to their,

37:03

"How could you do this, how can you use people to be

37:08

"the witch hunt and this sort of witch stuff."

37:12

It was just degrading and when they asked why did I send

37:16

the staff there, I said, "Because for the first time,

37:26

"we could all hear women from around the world."

37:30

When can you have that opportunity?

37:34

To me that was the biggest thing, not that we all agreed

37:37

with all the theology, but we could learn

37:44

and we could hear about women, how they've suffered

37:48

in some other countries and what the church should do

37:52

and what Christians should do.

37:54

-

Annie, you obviously stayed.

37:59

Did you ever feel as if your position was threatened,

38:01

that you were in danger of being fired

38:04

or losing your position?

38:06

-

Not for Re-Imagining.

38:09

-

Good, good, good.

38:12

Did your involvement in Re-Imagining change

38:18

your perspective on feminist theology and/or the church?

38:20

-

Oh yeah, sure, and in some of the local things,

38:25

like at the Louisville Seminary, we had a women's group.

38:34

They have a women's center but we had a women's group

38:39

made of other people more from the feminist perspective

38:43

and I was involved in that, just helping to plan and so on.

38:49

-

I'm sorry, was that before or after Re-Imagining?

38:57

-

Oh, after. After.

39:00

-

Did your experience at Re-Imagining lead you to do that?

39:02

Was it related to Re-Imagining?

39:06

-

Yeah, I think my whole perspective of women in the church

39:09

changed.

39:14

Women as women, what does it mean, created

39:16

in the image of God?

39:22

What does all that mean and what does that mean

39:24

as a person?

39:27

I think I grew up in a traditional but not conservative

39:32

church.

39:36

When I lived in China, because I was born there,

39:41

didn't last because the Japanese were coming

39:45

closer and closer to where my father and mother

39:49

were working.

39:54

When I was four in 1937, I was brought back to the states

39:58

for surgery and during the war, I was separated

40:03

from my father for seven years 'cause he stayed to help

40:07

the hospitals move inland.

40:13

Then he came to the states and had a couple of fellowships

40:17

and was working in the states.

40:23

As soon as the war was over in '46, we went back

40:25

to a devastated Shanghai, it was pretty bad.

40:29

I think the church there was an ecumenical church

40:37

that I attended and at first it was in English.

40:45

It was community church in Shanghai and I was very active

40:49

as a leader there.

40:55

Then it changed of course, after the revolution in 1949,

40:57

the church changed to a Chinese church in Chinese language,

41:05

but it was a very, what should I say, traditional church.

41:11

That's the way I grew up.

41:19

And then when I was back in the states,

41:21

that meant I had to find a church at that time

41:26

at the University of Pennsylvania.

41:33

I belonged to a Methodist church

41:36

which my grandfather helped build

41:40

as per a Methodist church in Philadelphia.

41:43

My mother was from Philadelphia.

41:46

In fact, I helped the pastor there.

41:52

Again, it wasn't really conservative,

41:56

but it was rather traditional

42:01

and so going to Re-Imagining later on,

42:05

and this was after being in Indonesia and all that,

42:10

things just sort of clicked for me as to what these women,

42:15

these feminist women theologians were talking about.

42:22

It resonated with some of my experiences

42:29

in the People's Republic of China, in Hong Kong

42:33

and the refuge situation and in Indonesia,

42:41

living in central Java and during the coup d'etat

42:45

so all of these things resonated with me,

42:52

which made me come to believe differently

42:56

about the church, and what the church was about,

43:00

and what the church should be doing

43:04

and, also, what my place in the church would be.

43:08

Some of that hasn't changed.

43:13

-

Annie, this is fascinating.

43:16

Could you just tell me briefly what resonated

43:17

with you and how did it change your view of the church?

43:21

This is really interesting.

43:24

-

I changed the whole concept

43:27

of what the church should be about.

43:34

Not just preaching, but the actions of the church,

43:39

and how the church should be serving the poor.

43:43

How the church should be accepting those

43:49

who were excluded before.

43:52

When I was at the University of Pennsylvania, no, no,

44:05

this was still in Shanghai.

44:10

A young man that I knew, because I was a leader

44:14

of the college people, the youth.

44:20

A young man came to my home, he was visiting me,

44:24

and I said, "Robert, you haven't been coming recently."

44:28

He said, "I can't."

44:33

I said, "Why can't you?"

44:36

He said, "I don't have good clothes."

44:37

That hurt, the fact that he thought he couldn't come

44:41

because he didn't have the right clothes.

44:51

-

Yes, yeah.

44:54

-

These things that the women talked about,

44:59

that people who are marginalized belong to the church.

45:05

We were preached about this, but to actually see them

45:14

doing things, again, the actions,

45:19

the living of the Word is more powerful.

45:24

That's what I saw in communist China after

45:28

the Cultural Revolution, that's what I saw

45:34

in Indonesia after the coup d'etat

45:36

and what I heard from these women theologians.

45:41

-

Oh Annie, that's really powerful.

45:46

I just have a couple more questions.

45:49

This has been wonderful.

45:52

When you look back on it, Annie, what do you think

45:54

is the greatest legacy of Re-Imagining?

45:56

-

What was what?

45:59

-

Oh, the greatest legacy, yes.

46:01

-

Hopefully, just what it meant to me, hopefully

46:07

it's true for a lot of women.

46:16

However, I must say like with the Presbyterian church,

46:20

we have lost that.

46:25

I stayed until 2002, when I was downsized.

46:29

I knew I was going to be downsized

46:34

because actually I was older, I could get a pension,

46:36

I had a higher salary because I'd been there longer

46:42

in various positions.

46:46

I saw the change starting and then, when I heard

46:53

from my friends they eliminated the staff

46:57

in the synods, they did this, they did that

47:01

and the people in charge were not speaking

47:06

with the love and the compassion and the concern

47:11

for women, "Oh, we've been through that, that's nothing,

47:16

"we don't need to worry about that."

47:19

That just hurts.

47:24

I have, quite honestly, disconnected from a lot of that.

47:25

I do not know what's going on except for a few things

47:31

in the Presbyterian church.

47:36

My friends that I knew have disconnected,

47:42

and I think the legacy is in the hearts of some

47:48

of the people who continue.

47:53

I did not go to any of the other conferences afterwards,

47:54

partly because I didn't have the money or the time,

48:02

and traveling was more difficult for me

48:05

because of my disability.

48:10

So I never did go, but we're (mumbles) now

48:13

and maybe in some communities, maybe in Minneapolis,

48:21

there are still groups of people who hold on to that.

48:27

Hopefully, in the hearts of many of the participants,

48:33

it did make a difference, hopefully.

48:36

-

Annie, I just want to make sure I understand.

48:40

Would you say you've disconnected from the church,

48:41

would it be largely because of a lack of attention to women

48:44

and women's issues, is that a fair statement

48:49

or is that not correct?

48:51

-

Yeah, I think that's pretty fair, for me anyway.

48:54

You know, there's a Presbyterian women, but they're

49:02

a separate group now, they, themselves

49:06

are not under the church structure.

49:09

I mean, they're related, but they're not part

49:12

of what we used to have as the unit.

49:16

There's no real women's ministry unit,

49:23

partly it's because of financial things

49:26

and partly it's because of the leadership

49:30

in the last 10 years.

49:32

I don't think women's issues have gone away.

49:39

(laughter)

49:44

I still think in our society, although women

49:47

have different positions in many situations,

49:53

we still have problems and the church, the theology

49:58

of the church and some of what I've heard

50:05

or what I heard before,

50:10

it's just not quite sitting well with me always.

50:11

Social justice issues, we were working really hard

50:18

on such things.

50:25

I was helping, I was staffing the church on

50:30

Violence Against Women seminars and preaching.

50:35

How do you preach about violence against women?

50:42

I don't hear that now.

50:50

I may just be so far out that it doesn't, you know.

50:53

It's not that I've lost my faith, it's, I don't know.

50:59

The institution has really disappointed me.

51:05

-

Yes, yeah, so where do you think Re-Imagining,

51:11

and I mean that in the broadest sense,

51:15

Re-Imagining is happening?

51:16

Do you think that kind of thing is happening?

51:18

If it's not happening in the institutional church,

51:21

do you think it's happening anywhere else or not?

51:23

-

I don't have any facts but I suspect it has.

51:27

Since it's here in southern California, we have

51:34

what we call the feminists network,

51:41

Feminists Agenda Network.

51:45

This was a small group, leaders, I mean leaders

51:48

and many planners, for women in this area.

51:55

We have programs every year or so about

52:04

the conditions of women, the trafficking

52:09

and other such things.

52:16

For instance that group was inspired by feminist theology.

52:20

We have finally given up having programs.

52:29

Since the last two years, we didn't have

52:33

but I was very active in helping support that

52:36

and arrange that and so on.

52:40

It turned out that most of the women that came,

52:45

and they would probably be about 40, 50, maybe 60

52:48

at the best, it turned out that these women

52:52

were coming together because they were coming together

52:56

with their sisters, if you know what I mean.

53:00

They needed that nourishment.

53:04

They were already knowledgeable about the programs.

53:08

We had one on sexuality, we had one on trafficking,

53:14

we had, I can't remember them all, but we needed

53:18

to get together.

53:24

I think that's where you see probably the Re-Imagining

53:25

communities around the country.

53:30

Probably, you look up a place, there are other

53:33

such groups.

53:36

-

Yes, yeah. I have one last very specific question

53:39

that you may or may not be able to answer.

53:42

As you know, Re-Imagining has reincorporated

53:45

and we're developing a website.

53:48

I'm wondering if you had ideas about what

53:50

would be helpful to have on the website,

53:52

or who might be interested in it.

53:55

-

Is the website up?

54:00

-

No, it's not up, it'll be up probably,

54:01

we're aiming for the end of the summer.

54:04

We're working on developing it.

54:06

-

Well, I don't know, speaking for myself,

54:11

in fact, when there was something mentioned about a website

54:16

so I went into my computer to look at the Re-Imagining

54:21

things, and just reading something from a layman

54:27

that we do still have resources about Re-Imagining,

54:35

also some things even in Wikipedia, who was there,

54:42

or what, I just felt renewed again looking at that.

54:48

I think what would be helpful to somebody like me

54:55

is to know about what's going on around the country,

55:00

what's happening and what does this mean to women.

55:07

I don't know but whether people have any faith

55:16

in the institutional churches.

55:20

I know that some churches are very supportive and good.

55:24

I'm not talking about the individual congregations,

55:28

but the institution.

55:33

Maybe there are things like that, that could be helpful.

55:38

-

That sounds really good, great.

55:43

Annie, is there anything else that you'd want to add

55:46

that we haven't discussed?

55:49

(ladies laugh)

55:51

-

I think I'd better just shut up.

55:53

-

Annie, this was wonderful, really, really helpful

55:55

and interesting.

55:59

You've had an amazing life and your reflections

55:59

were really, really interesting.

56:02

-

Well, thank you, okay.

56:05

-

Good, I'm going to turn off the recording now,

56:07

so if you'll just give me one second to do that.

56:10

King, Annie Wu

Transcript

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Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History & Culture