Wigger, Emily
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| - | Well, thank you so much for agreeing to do this, Emily. | 0:01 |
| We're now recording. | 0:03 | |
| Could you please say your full name? | 0:05 | |
| - | Emily S. Wiggers. | 0:08 |
| - | Okay, thank you, and are you lay or clergy? | 0:11 |
| - | I'm lay. | 0:15 |
| - | Good. | 0:16 |
| And what is your denominational affiliation, if any? | 0:17 | |
| - | Presbyterian Church USA. | 0:20 |
| - | Thank you. | 0:23 |
| And, Emily, where and when were you born? | 0:24 | |
| - | I was born Cape Girardeau, Missouri. | 0:29 |
| August the 12th, 1937. | 0:33 | |
| - | Oh, thank you very much. | 0:36 |
| And, Emily, where did you go to school? | 0:37 | |
| - | Well, I went all through elementary and high school | 0:42 |
| in the Cape Girardeau school district. | 0:48 | |
| I went to college at Southeast Missouri | 0:52 | |
| State University in Cape Girardeau. | 0:55 | |
| I graduated from there. | 0:59 | |
| Since then, I have done some graduate work | 1:03 | |
| at Lewis and Clark College in our area, | 1:09 | |
| and I was taking some classes at Eden Seminary. | 1:14 | |
| - | Oh, neat. | 1:19 |
| And what is your graduate work related to? | 1:20 | |
| - | My original graduate work was related | 1:24 |
| to Early Childhood Education. | 1:27 | |
| Of course what I did at, and actually, | 1:29 | |
| what I did at Eden was more Christian Education related. | 1:32 | |
| - | Okay. | 1:38 |
| - | And, interestingly, we have a son | 1:39 |
| who's a Christian Education | 1:42 | |
| PhD professor at a local seminary. | 1:45 | |
| - | Oh, really (laughs) oh, that's great. | 1:48 |
| - | Teaching tends to run in our family. | 1:51 |
| - | It sounds like the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. | 1:53 |
| Right? (laughs) | 1:56 | |
| - | Right. | |
| - | That's wonderful. | 1:58 |
| So, Emily, what work or ministry were you doing | 1:59 | |
| at the time of Re-Imagining? | 2:02 | |
| That was '93 through 2003. | 2:03 | |
| - | I think, no, I was, | 2:12 |
| I think I was still serving Presbyterian Women, | 2:17 | |
| but would have also been, | 2:22 | |
| all of this time runs together and it's been a while. | 2:26 | |
| I was serving Presbyterian Women at that time, | 2:29 | |
| and then I went on the Ecumenical Decade | 2:33 | |
| Churches in Solidarity with Women, | 2:37 | |
| joined with the Women's Ministry Unit. | 2:40 | |
| I got involved in the Women's Ministry Unit | 2:42 | |
| because of, that was part of my portfolio | 2:46 | |
| as vice moderator of Presbyterian Women. | 2:52 | |
| So I was serving with the Women's Ministry Unit, | 2:57 | |
| and also worked some with Women Employed by the Church. | 3:03 | |
| - | Okay, that's interesting. | 3:09 |
| Would you mind, just saying a little bit about | 3:11 | |
| what responsibilities were associated | 3:12 | |
| with those positions, what did they mean? | 3:15 | |
| - | Well, the biggest issue probably was | 3:19 |
| trying to have connections and cooperation | 3:24 | |
| between Presbyterian Women, which was a brand new | 3:30 | |
| organization at that point in time. | 3:34 | |
| I served when it first came about, | 3:36 | |
| when the Northern and the Southern branches merged. | 3:40 | |
| And, (sighs) there, | 3:46 | |
| there were tensions. | 3:50 | |
| Not always bad tension, but (laughs) tension. | 3:54 | |
| Partly because we were living into a new organization, | 4:00 | |
| and the PC USA was also living somewhat into | 4:07 | |
| a new organization with all of the various ministry units. | 4:12 | |
| And my responsibility was to carry the communication | 4:16 | |
| back and forth between Presbyterian Women | 4:22 | |
| and the Women's Ministry Unit, | 4:25 | |
| Women Employed by the Church, | 4:28 | |
| and to be very honest, in some respect, | 4:32 | |
| I found my relationship with the Women's Ministry | 4:37 | |
| almost stronger than with Presbyterian Women. | 4:46 | |
| At that point in time, we were trying to, | 4:51 | |
| Women's Ministry was trying to | 4:56 | |
| be broader than just the local church organizations. | 5:00 | |
| And there was some resistance to that. (laughs) | 5:08 | |
| - | Could you say more about what the resistance was about? | 5:14 |
| - | I think the resistance was, | 5:18 |
| it came, | 5:23 | |
| I'm not sure it's fair to say, | 5:25 | |
| it came primarily from the Southern stream. | 5:28 | |
| That's kind of the way it felt to me, | 5:34 | |
| but then, I came from the Northern stream. | 5:37 | |
| They wanted to be sure they continued to have control. | 5:42 | |
| The PW wanted to have control, | 5:49 | |
| and | 5:54 | |
| yet, be part of the larger church. | 5:55 | |
| - | I'm sorry, who wanted to have control? | 6:00 |
| - | The Women, the Presbyterian Women | 6:03 |
| wanted to be autonomous and have control, | 6:07 | |
| and yet at the same time, be part of the larger church. | 6:09 | |
| And sometimes what the larger church was recommending, | 6:13 | |
| or suggesting, or wanting to move in that direction, | 6:18 | |
| didn't sit well with all of the people | 6:27 | |
| in Presbyterian Women. | 6:29 | |
| They felt like they were losing some control. | 6:30 | |
| - | Okay. | 6:34 |
| - | It was just, it sounds kind of negative. | 6:35 |
| I want to counter by saying, | 6:41 | |
| I think some of it was just growing pains. | 6:43 | |
| It was a brand new organization. | 6:45 | |
| - | Sure, and trying to figure out how this is gonna work. | 6:47 |
| Yeah, okay, that's helpful. | 6:52 | |
| So you were kind of a liaison in a way, | 6:54 | |
| between Presbyterian Women, Women's Ministries, | 6:58 | |
| and Women Employed by the Church. | 7:00 | |
| Got it, okay, that's great. | 7:02 | |
| How did you first become aware of Feminist theology? | 7:05 | |
| Do you recall that? | 7:11 | |
| - | Well. (laughs) | 7:12 |
| (laughs) | ||
| I've been pondering that question. | 7:14 | |
| Feminist theology per se, probably in the early '80s. | 7:19 | |
| But looking back, | 7:27 | |
| I grew up in a very egalitarian home. | 7:30 | |
| Didn't know it at the time. (laughs) | 7:34 | |
| But interestingly enough, some of my friends knew it. | 7:40 | |
| No, they didn't know it was egalitarian. | 7:43 | |
| They knew it was different. | 7:45 | |
| - | Yeah. | |
| - | But, so, I had always | 7:49 |
| seen things a little bit more equal, | 7:55 | |
| probably, as far as the pastors were concerned. | 8:00 | |
| They had many people my age. | 8:04 | |
| - | Yes. | 8:06 |
| - | Which you know, I'm approaching 80. | 8:09 |
| (laughs) | 8:12 | |
| That was very unusual for that era. | 8:14 | |
| - | Yeah. | 8:18 |
| - | I didn't know it. | 8:19 |
| - | Of course. (laughs) | 8:21 |
| - | But then in the early '80s, | 8:24 |
| I began to hear things about, | 8:27 | |
| I wanna say the feminine thing. | 8:33 | |
| The feminine side of God. | 8:34 | |
| - | Yeah. | 8:37 |
| - | It didn't come as any shock to me at all. | 8:40 |
| I guess, in some respects, I had always | 8:45 | |
| kind of known that at a deeper level, | 8:50 | |
| but it had never been articulated. | 8:55 | |
| So it was really in the early '80s that I began to see. | 8:58 | |
| And it was the real language primarily. | 9:02 | |
| - | And where were you getting this language from? | 9:06 |
| These images? | 9:09 | |
| - | Probably first got it from, | 9:16 |
| the images from Johanna Bos. | 9:21 | |
| - | Yes? | 9:24 |
| - | Our son was a seminary student at the time, and, I, | 9:27 |
| Johanna spoke at a PW gathering, (laughs) | 9:35 | |
| I hope I'm coming up with the right course of time, | 9:40 | |
| you know, it's been a long time. | 9:45 | |
| - | Oh, of course. | 9:47 |
| - | She spoke at a Presbyterian Women's gathering, | 9:49 |
| an area one, | 9:55 | |
| that would be actually I think before we became, | 9:59 | |
| it was before we became Presbyterian Women, | 10:01 | |
| it would have been a PW gathering. | 10:04 | |
| And she talked about the various, | 10:07 | |
| the differences in language, | 10:12 | |
| and how it opened up the images, the image of God, | 10:14 | |
| or how it opened up how we viewed God. | 10:20 | |
| And that was probably my first exposure, | 10:23 | |
| and it was quite controversial, as you can imagine. | 10:26 | |
| And not for me. | 10:33 | |
| For me it was, | 10:35 | |
| a-ha, this is where I've always been, | 10:37 | |
| but that's not where everybody was. | 10:44 | |
| - | Everybody at that meeting. | 10:46 |
| Some people reacted against it at that meeting? | 10:48 | |
| - | Right, right. | 10:51 |
| - | Yeah, yeah. | |
| Great. | 10:54 | |
| - | So that was, does that answer your question | 10:55 |
| about the beginning? | 10:57 | |
| - | It did. | |
| - | And I would say from that point on, | 10:59 |
| it's grown in a variety of ways. | 11:01 | |
| And certainly when the two | 11:04 | |
| women's organizations became Presbyterian Women. | 11:09 | |
| The language was, I will have to say, | 11:13 | |
| they were really good about, | 11:16 | |
| well, the organization was, | 11:20 | |
| we were very conscious of using good inclusive language. | 11:24 | |
| And then of course there was Izzie's book. | 11:30 | |
| Izzie Rogers' book on, | 11:35 | |
| I can't remember the name of the book, | 11:39 | |
| but it was about inclusive language. | 11:41 | |
| I would say from the early '80s on, it just grew. | 11:45 | |
| And PW did try very hard to use inclusive language. | 11:49 | |
| There was still some resistance, | 11:54 | |
| I'm not gonna lie, to women, | 11:55 | |
| you know, God was Father, and, | 11:57 | |
| there were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. | 12:00 | |
| (laughs) | 12:03 | |
| - | That's very helpful, Emily. | 12:06 |
| That is great. | 12:08 | |
| I wonder if we can move to the Re-Imagining community, | 12:10 | |
| and if you could talk some about some about | 12:12 | |
| your relationship to the Re-Imagining community. | 12:13 | |
| How did you first get involved? | 12:16 | |
| - | Well, | 12:19 |
| at that point, I guess I was on the Ecumenical Decade, | 12:21 | |
| Churches in Solidarity with Women. | 12:25 | |
| And Mary Ann Lundy was I think | 12:30 | |
| part of the Minnesota committee. | 12:34 | |
| And so because of her involvement, | 12:40 | |
| the Churches in Solidarity, | 12:46 | |
| or the Ecumenical Decade committee, | 12:48 | |
| was invited to come to Minneapolis, | 12:51 | |
| at least once and I think twice, | 12:55 | |
| I just don't remember for sure, | 12:58 | |
| to help in the planning of the event. | 13:02 | |
| And then because of Mary Ann's involvement, | 13:10 | |
| and because of my involvement in the Ecumenical Decade, | 13:14 | |
| we became, for lack of another word, | 13:19 | |
| kind of a sounding board, an advisory group. | 13:27 | |
| Sometimes they would run ideas past us for our reactions, | 13:31 | |
| because we possibly represented the wider church. | 13:36 | |
| - | When you say they, just to clarify, | 13:41 |
| was that the planning group | 13:43 | |
| in Minneapolis that was doing this? | 13:44 | |
| - | Yes, yes. | 13:46 |
| - | Right, got it. | |
| And, Emily, this is an important part of the story, | 13:49 | |
| do you have, I know it's been a long time, | 13:51 | |
| do you have any memories of what that was like, | 13:53 | |
| working with this group, or what that process was like? | 13:55 | |
| - | Well, it was, I found it, | 14:03 |
| I'm looking for the right word. | 14:07 | |
| Exciting and encouraging. | 14:11 | |
| Mind-expanding. | 14:18 | |
| Theologically expanding. | 14:23 | |
| - | Could you say a little bit more | 14:26 |
| about what was exciting about it? | 14:28 | |
| - | Well, some of it was about just listing | 14:33 |
| so many aspects of women's gifts, | 14:39 | |
| and women in leadership, and, | 14:43 | |
| exploring theology from a Feminist perspective. | 14:48 | |
| Although I'd been into a lot of language issues, | 14:54 | |
| which certainly were Feminist, | 14:59 | |
| I hadn't really had the experience | 15:01 | |
| of looking deeper into the theological | 15:04 | |
| issues around women, and how, | 15:11 | |
| how biblical, | 15:20 | |
| how you could read biblical stories | 15:21 | |
| from a Feminist perspective. | 15:24 | |
| - | And just so I-- | 15:26 |
| - | I'm a woman. (laughs) | |
| - | Go 'head, this is great, Emily. | 15:29 |
| I was just, was this happening during the planning process, | 15:30 | |
| these issues were coming up? | 15:34 | |
| - | During what, I'm sorry. | |
| - | Oh, I'm sorry, sure. | 15:36 |
| During the planning process, were these issues coming up? | 15:38 | |
| - | Probably. (laughs) | 15:47 |
| (laughs) | ||
| Oh, you're testing my memory. | 15:50 | |
| - | I know, I know, I understand. | 15:52 |
| - | That's a good thing. | 15:55 |
| (laughs) | 15:56 | |
| Yeah, I'm sure they were. | 16:00 | |
| I don't have, | 16:02 | |
| I can't name specific instances, | 16:05 | |
| but the fact that this is what I'm remembering, | 16:09 | |
| tells me, yes, it had to have. | 16:13 | |
| - | That's exactly right. | 16:16 |
| And a lot of times I think, | 16:17 | |
| I can work out the details later, | 16:18 | |
| but your impressions and memories are really important, | 16:20 | |
| 'cause that's what's important. | 16:23 | |
| That's what you remember, right? (laughs) | 16:25 | |
| - | Right. | 16:28 |
| - | Yeah, yeah. | |
| So you went to the '93 conference. | 16:29 | |
| You mentioned you might have gone to one or two more, | 16:32 | |
| but let's focus on the '93 one. | 16:34 | |
| What was that like for you? | 16:37 | |
| - | Well, it was very exciting. | 16:43 |
| It was also very, | 16:49 | |
| mind-stretching, it was challenging. | 16:56 | |
| It stirred my thinking, | 17:05 | |
| in some very exciting and positive ways, | 17:11 | |
| and in some ways, | 17:16 | |
| hmm. | 17:20 | |
| (laughs) | 17:21 | |
| I wouldn't say negative, I'd just say, hmm. | 17:23 | |
| - | Yeah, now that's interesting. | 17:26 |
| Do you remember what were some of the exciting ways, | 17:29 | |
| and what were some of the hmm ways? (laughs) | 17:32 | |
| - | Well, I think the hmm ways, | 17:36 |
| I particularly remember around | 17:41 | |
| Delores Williams and the atonement, | 17:46 | |
| and of course that's one of the things that | 17:50 | |
| got blown way out of proportion. | 17:53 | |
| (laughs) | 17:56 | |
| - | Yes. | |
| - | But that piece | 17:57 |
| was very new to me, | 18:02 | |
| particularly, from the black theology perspective. | 18:06 | |
| - | Right. | 18:12 |
| - | Not, | 18:16 |
| I started to say not mind-blowing, | 18:21 | |
| yeah, in a way it was. (laughs) | 18:22 | |
| It was mind-blowing but it was the hmm, | 18:26 | |
| I'd never thought about that, and it took, | 18:31 | |
| because it was so nontraditional, | 18:36 | |
| it took some time to sort through, digest. | 18:39 | |
| - | Sure. | 18:46 |
| - | And I think to some degree, it still does. | 18:50 |
| I mean, that's not a bad thing. | 18:53 | |
| - | Right, mm-hm. | 18:56 |
| Are there are other things, | 18:58 | |
| memories you have of it, things that you found | 19:00 | |
| particularly exciting or striking in some way? | 19:03 | |
| - | I found it very exciting to be a part | 19:07 |
| of a group of women who were so on | 19:14 | |
| the cutting edge of, | 19:23 | |
| not just theology, but of society. | 19:27 | |
| It was the beginning to some degree of being, | 19:33 | |
| affirming the gay and lesbian community. | 19:42 | |
| And that was exciting to me. | 19:47 | |
| A little bit scary at times, | 19:49 | |
| but all of this was like. (gulps) | 19:51 | |
| (laughing) | 19:55 | |
| But I find, | 19:57 | |
| - | Yeah. | |
| - | you know, | 20:00 |
| all of these people that are different from me, | 20:03 | |
| have just as much faith as I do. | 20:11 | |
| They have gifts to give to the church, | 20:13 | |
| to the world, to the community, | 20:16 | |
| and I found that very exciting. | 20:20 | |
| - | That was really well-put, thank you, Emily. (laughs) | 20:23 |
| - | Contrary to (laughs) to other people. | 20:27 |
| - | Yes, yes. | 20:31 |
| I wanted to make sure I understood. | 20:33 | |
| Now, you were there, | 20:35 | |
| were you there in any official capacity? | 20:36 | |
| Or were you there just as a participant? | 20:38 | |
| What was your role there? | 20:39 | |
| - | I was there basically as a participant. | 20:41 |
| And a participant because of my involvement with, | 20:45 | |
| peripheral involvement with planning | 20:50 | |
| through the Decade committee. | 20:52 | |
| So it was not in official capacity. | 20:54 | |
| - | Sure, yeah. | 20:57 |
| - | Well... | 20:58 |
| No, it really wasn't official capacity, | 21:05 | |
| however, I was representing Presbyterian Women, | 21:08 | |
| now that I think about it. | 21:12 | |
| I was doing so many of these things kind of simultaneously, | 21:14 | |
| and it's hard to say for sure. | 21:18 | |
| - | That makes sense. | 21:22 |
| You were wearing many hats. | 21:23 | |
| - | I was wearing many hats, but most of those hats | 21:25 |
| had come about as a result of Presbyterian Women. | 21:28 | |
| - | Yes, that makes sense, okay, yeah. | 21:32 |
| Can we move to the backlash? | 21:36 | |
| - | Oh, yes. | 21:38 |
| - | I'm sure you were aware of it. | 21:39 |
| First of all. (laughs) | 21:41 | |
| - | Oh, yeah. | |
| - | Were you directly affected by it? | 21:43 |
| - | I was pondering that question too. | 21:47 |
| Yes, in two ways, I was. | 21:51 | |
| And not horribly, but. | 21:56 | |
| The conference was over, | 22:06 | |
| and there was a small group of Presbyterian Women, | 22:09 | |
| and I honestly don't remember, | 22:16 | |
| but we were piggybacking a meeting, | 22:19 | |
| regarding Presbyterian Women, | 22:26 | |
| and I really don't remember what that meeting was, | 22:28 | |
| on the back of the Re-Imagining conference. | 22:32 | |
| There were about four or five of us | 22:37 | |
| that had been there at the conference, | 22:42 | |
| and then we were meeting afterwards. | 22:46 | |
| Most of the other women, at least a couple of 'em, | 22:51 | |
| were very disturbed by the conference. | 22:56 | |
| It had just gone too far. | 23:02 | |
| And, | 23:07 | |
| I was listening to this, and, | 23:09 | |
| I mean, some of that is backlash, | 23:13 | |
| but then the one woman, I remember this so vividly, | 23:16 | |
| looked at me, I had just been listening, | 23:21 | |
| and she said, "You're not threatened by this, are you?" | 23:25 | |
| - | Wow. | 23:34 |
| - | And I said, | |
| "No. | 23:36 | |
| "Are you?" | 23:39 | |
| And she said, "Oh, yes." | 23:41 | |
| And I said, "How?" | 23:45 | |
| And she could not articulate it. | 23:47 | |
| So that was one, I mean, that's a form of backlash. | 23:51 | |
| - | Emily, before we move on, I'm sorry. | 23:57 |
| When you said they were disturbed by it, | 23:59 | |
| do you recall what specifically disturbed them? | 24:01 | |
| - | No, well, yes, yes, I do. | 24:04 |
| It was primarily over the gay and lesbian issue. | 24:07 | |
| - | Mm-hm, mm-hm. | 24:12 |
| - | I would say not totally but, | 24:14 |
| that was a big part of it. | 24:17 | |
| They were not ready, | 24:20 | |
| they didn't seem to want, | 24:24 | |
| they couldn't articulate, | 24:26 | |
| but it was related to the gay and lesbian issue. | 24:28 | |
| - | Okay, that's helpful. | 24:32 |
| And I interrupted you. | 24:35 | |
| What was the second thing you were gonna say? | 24:36 | |
| - | The second thing was, it had been two of us | 24:38 |
| from this Presbytery, a very good friend of mine and I. | 24:44 | |
| She was there in a totally different capacity. | 24:48 | |
| But we had been to this, and, | 24:51 | |
| I came back and primarily got good support from | 24:55 | |
| the folks that we dealt with within the Presbytery. | 25:02 | |
| But then, and that, | 25:06 | |
| I guess I wasn't. | 25:09 | |
| I can't remember whether if I was moderator | 25:10 | |
| of the Presbytery at the time, don't think I was. | 25:13 | |
| And both of us, the other woman and I, | 25:19 | |
| had been in a covenant prayer group | 25:22 | |
| that met about once a month. | 25:24 | |
| And, | 25:27 | |
| then a pastor of one of the churches here | 25:29 | |
| was also part of that covenant group. | 25:33 | |
| And I was at a Presbytery meeting, | 25:37 | |
| walking down the hall, caught totally off guard, | 25:41 | |
| and was basically attacked | 25:47 | |
| by this pastor, saying, | 25:52 | |
| "You went to that awful Re-Imagining conference didn't you?" | 25:56 | |
| And I said, yes, and I said it was very good. | 26:02 | |
| "It was not, it was heretical, it was," | 26:06 | |
| and he launched in, and I sorta interrupted him and said, | 26:10 | |
| "Well, you know, I was there." | 26:15 | |
| And he said, "I've listened to all of the tapes," | 26:19 | |
| and just went into a tirade. | 26:24 | |
| Well, it obvious that anything I said | 26:28 | |
| wasn't going to matter. | 26:34 | |
| So I just walked away. | 26:37 | |
| But I lost so much respect for a person that, | 26:41 | |
| and I think he probably lost respect for me too. | 26:45 | |
| - | Yes. (laughs) | 26:49 |
| - | That's his problem. (laughs) | 26:50 |
| I lost so much respect for somebody, that I had respected. | 26:54 | |
| He did not wish to hear anything I had to say. | 26:59 | |
| Now, I wasn't horribly offended by this, | 27:03 | |
| because I, | 27:10 | |
| a lot of other people got a lot worse backlash, | 27:12 | |
| like Mary Ann Lundy who lost her job. | 27:14 | |
| But I remembered it. | 27:19 | |
| And I lost respect. | 27:23 | |
| Those are the only instances where | 27:27 | |
| I personally experienced the backlash. | 27:29 | |
| Of course, I did within Women's Ministry, | 27:34 | |
| and it took a long time for Women's Ministry, | 27:38 | |
| in the PC USA, to recover from the backlash. | 27:45 | |
| - | What, your memories of the Women's Ministry Unit, | 27:53 |
| how did that affect them? | 27:56 | |
| - | Well, first and foremost, Mary Ann lost her job, | 28:00 |
| which I'm sure you're aware of. | 28:04 | |
| - | Yes, yeah. | 28:06 |
| I've actually interviewed Mary Ann too. | 28:06 | |
| - | Oh, okay, yeah, good. I figured that. | 28:09 |
| - | Yes. | 28:11 |
| But do you have memories of how, | 28:13 | |
| when you said it took a long time to recover, | 28:16 | |
| could you say a little bit more about that, | 28:17 | |
| 'cause I think that's really important. | 28:18 | |
| - | I think it's taken the church a long time to recover. | 28:24 |
| Women's Ministry no longer exists as it did in those days. | 28:27 | |
| I almost equated Re-Imagining to Angela Davis, | 28:34 | |
| (laughs) because | 28:38 | |
| the two shall never die. | 28:41 | |
| However, people would for years, | 28:44 | |
| refer to, oh, that Re-Imagining conference. | 28:48 | |
| But what I find interesting, | 28:54 | |
| and I've just become aware of this in the last, | 28:57 | |
| say year or two, is that the term, | 29:02 | |
| well, the term Re-Imagining was a dirty word. | 29:07 | |
| You know, oh, | 29:09 | |
| those uppity women. | 29:12 | |
| But now, Re-Imagining is a word that is surfacing | 29:17 | |
| in a lot of areas. | 29:21 | |
| - | Sure is. | 29:23 |
| - | You know, let's reimagine this. | 29:25 |
| Which means rethink, renew, look into deeper. | 29:27 | |
| But it has probably taken 20-plus years | 29:34 | |
| for the church, for that to not be a dirty word. | 29:41 | |
| - | So you're seeing that term being used | 29:47 |
| in the church as well, Re-Imagining? | 29:49 | |
| - | You know, I'm not sure about that. | 29:54 |
| I wanna say yes, but I'm not real sure that's the, | 29:57 | |
| if it is, it's not embedded in it. | 30:01 | |
| It's on the periphery. | 30:05 | |
| - | Yeah, yeah. | 30:07 |
| Emily, were you surprised by the backlash? | 30:09 | |
| - | Oh, yeah. | 30:14 |
| - | And why were you surprised? | 30:16 |
| - | I expected to | |
| create some | 30:24 | |
| conversation, | 30:28 | |
| discussion. | 30:31 | |
| Did I expect the kind of backlash within the church? | 30:34 | |
| No. | 30:40 | |
| I was both surprised, astonished, | 30:42 | |
| and disappointed and hurt by all of it, | 30:47 | |
| and I don't mean necessarily hurt personally, | 30:51 | |
| but just hurt that the church could be so vicious. | 30:53 | |
| - | And looking back on it, | 31:03 |
| how do you account for the backlash? | 31:05 | |
| What led to that? | 31:07 | |
| - | Change. | 31:14 |
| And, | 31:17 | |
| women beginning to gain some more power. | 31:20 | |
| Boy, I hate to say those things, about my church. | 31:27 | |
| - | Yeah, yeah. | 31:31 |
| - | It's painful. | 31:33 |
| - | Is it, I mean, I don't wanna put words in your mouth, | 31:39 |
| is it because you care about the church? | 31:41 | |
| Is that fair to say? | 31:44 | |
| - | Yes, that's fair to say. | 31:46 |
| - | Yeah, yeah. | 31:48 |
| - | And I have to say, not only do I care about it, | 31:52 |
| because the church, not always, the PC USA, | 31:55 | |
| but most of my life, | 31:58 | |
| has nurtured me, nourished me, supported me, | 32:03 | |
| challenged me, | 32:08 | |
| provided opportunities for me, | 32:12 | |
| so, yes, I care about the church. | 32:17 | |
| And in some respects, I think, | 32:23 | |
| and I haven't thought about it quite like this before, | 32:25 | |
| until I just said that, in some respects it was, | 32:28 | |
| the church was saying they didn't care about me. | 32:33 | |
| - | Say some more about that. | 32:39 |
| - | Well, it wasn't necessarily me personally, but, | 32:44 |
| they didn't care about women, | 32:49 | |
| they cared about women as long as they | 32:54 | |
| realized that it was a patriarchal society. | 32:59 | |
| - | Mm-hmm. | 33:04 |
| Yeah. | 33:08 | |
| And that kind of relates to, | 33:09 | |
| were you at the general assembly? | 33:12 | |
| Do you remember the report about Re-Imagining? | 33:14 | |
| Is any of that, do you have any reactions to that at all? | 33:16 | |
| - | I was not at that assembly. | 33:20 |
| I was astounded that, | 33:25 | |
| I wasn't surprised that there was some moderate backlash, | 33:30 | |
| because it was new, something new, | 33:35 | |
| but I was astounded by, | 33:38 | |
| the depth of the backlash, | 33:46 | |
| and the viciousness, and, these evil, | 33:48 | |
| I mean, that's the way it felt, these evil women, what? | 33:53 | |
| They don't know how to do theology. | 33:57 | |
| - | Yeah. | 34:01 |
| Mm-hm. | 34:02 | |
| Yeah. | 34:04 | |
| So, Emily, how would you define Re-Imagining? | 34:07 | |
| - | I think it was, hmm. | 34:18 |
| Life-changing for the church. | 34:22 | |
| But it certainly went through the birthing process. | 34:27 | |
| I still am sure we're fully born yet. | 34:31 | |
| (laughing) | 34:34 | |
| But we have come a long way. | 34:40 | |
| - | And what would you point to | 34:44 |
| that has developed over the years? | 34:45 | |
| Where we are now that's there. | 34:49 | |
| - | I think there is | 34:53 |
| a broader acceptance of Feminist theology, | 34:57 | |
| Womanist theology, Mujerista theology, | 35:03 | |
| and a recognition that there's validity in all of 'em. | 35:08 | |
| - | And you're saying that-- | 35:13 |
| - | And that-- | |
| - | Oh, go 'head. Sorry, go 'head. | 35:14 |
| - | That doesn't necessarily mean | 35:16 |
| you have to agree with every bit of it. | 35:18 | |
| But there's been a much broader | 35:22 | |
| acceptance of those theologies, | 35:24 | |
| and integrated into the life of the church. | 35:27 | |
| And there's been some real | 35:30 | |
| concentrated efforts in doing so, | 35:36 | |
| along with a little resistance here and there. | 35:40 | |
| - | That is really important. | 35:43 |
| How do you see it being integrated into the church? | 35:45 | |
| That's important. | 35:47 | |
| - | Well, for one thing, just trying to be very, | 35:54 |
| in every aspect of, and now I'm talking about | 36:01 | |
| the larger church now, not congregations. | 36:06 | |
| - | Okay, the larger Presbyterian USA Church? | 36:09 |
| - | Yes. | 36:12 |
| - | Yeah, mm-hm. | |
| - | And I think some other denominations too. | 36:13 |
| Really lifting up and | 36:18 | |
| affirming the different theologies from | 36:25 | |
| black theology, womanist, mujerista, whatever. | 36:33 | |
| And also, and whole committees and whatever, groups, | 36:41 | |
| trying to really make sure that | 36:50 | |
| these various groups, theologies, races, sexes, | 36:59 | |
| are being recognized and lifted up. | 37:06 | |
| And sometimes that creates some real difficult issues, | 37:13 | |
| and not necessarily in a bad way, | 37:16 | |
| but much like Re-Imagining did. | 37:19 | |
| It makes you think. | 37:23 | |
| It makes you understand our differences. | 37:25 | |
| - | Now, you made a distinction with the local church. | 37:33 |
| Do you feel as if that is happening | 37:35 | |
| at the local level in churches? | 37:37 | |
| (sighs) | 37:42 | |
| - | Well, some. | 37:45 |
| (laughs) | 37:47 | |
| Not in mine. | 37:49 | |
| - | Yeah. | |
| - | It kinda depends on the church, go 'head. | 37:54 |
| - | However, you may not realize this, | 37:56 |
| but I'm only 15 miles from Ferguson. | 37:58 | |
| - | Oh, I did not realize that, wow. | 38:01 |
| - | No, you wouldn't have any way of knowing, | 38:04 |
| 'cause I'm in Illinois. (laughs) | 38:06 | |
| And the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Ferguson | 38:09 | |
| happens to be one of my very best friends. | 38:13 | |
| - | Wow. | 38:16 |
| - | So, | 38:17 |
| yeah, some churches are, and that one certainly is. | 38:20 | |
| Is my church, no. | 38:25 | |
| Do they think it's an issue, no. | 38:28 | |
| And I'm sad about that, but. | 38:31 | |
| - | Well, that's a stark contrast, isn't it? | 38:36 |
| - | Yes, it is. | 38:38 |
| - | Yeah, yeah. | 38:40 |
| Wow, I'm just taken aback. | 38:44 | |
| That's powerful, Emily. | 38:45 | |
| What aspects of Re-Imagining were | 38:47 | |
| most significant to you and why? | 38:49 | |
| - | Well, I'd say, the most significant | 38:59 |
| was really just to see | 39:03 | |
| this wonderful gathering of faithful Christians, | 39:07 | |
| who were curious enough to want to | 39:16 | |
| come together, ecumenically, | 39:24 | |
| and experience, | 39:27 | |
| experience our differences. | 39:31 | |
| - | What differences are you thinking of? | 39:37 |
| - | As well as our connectedness. | 39:40 |
| - | Yes. | 39:43 |
| And what differences were you thinking of? | 39:47 | |
| - | In the beginning, primarily theological differences, | 39:53 |
| is what I was thinking of. | 39:57 | |
| But we also experienced the differences | 39:59 | |
| of sexuality, of race, and theology. | 40:03 | |
| - | I'm curious, did your involvement in Re-Imagining | 40:12 |
| change your perspective on Feminist theology, | 40:15 | |
| or the church at all? | 40:17 | |
| - | Well, probably to some degree, because it, | 40:24 |
| it changed, I wouldn't necessarily say it changed, | 40:29 | |
| but it expanded. | 40:35 | |
| Well, probably changed too. | 40:41 | |
| - | Changed or expanded in what way, would you say? | 40:45 |
| - | Well, more the, I think, | 40:55 |
| to say change is really probably not accurate, | 40:57 | |
| but expanded, a better understanding, | 41:03 | |
| I came out of it with a better understanding | 41:06 | |
| of different theological perspectives. | 41:09 | |
| And I probably also had a better | 41:14 | |
| understanding of sexuality differences. | 41:18 | |
| I can't say that I, | 41:22 | |
| it wasn't like, oh my, | 41:26 | |
| gay and lesbian people do not have a place in the church. | 41:32 | |
| I didn't feel that way at all. | 41:35 | |
| But I probably came out of it with a better understanding. | 41:36 | |
| - | And did that understanding come from that, | 41:41 |
| when they came forward, during part of the conference? | 41:43 | |
| - | I'm sorry, I missed that. | 41:49 |
| - | Oh, sure. | |
| Did that understanding come from | 41:50 | |
| when they came forward as part of the conference? | 41:52 | |
| Or was it one of the workshops, do you recall? | 41:55 | |
| - | No, I can't, I would say probably all of the above. | 42:00 |
| - | Yes, (laughs) yeah, yeah. | 42:04 |
| Do you think that Re-Imagining made specific | 42:08 | |
| contributions to Christian theology or liturgy? | 42:11 | |
| - | Oh, yeah. | 42:17 |
| Made what, better contributions? | 42:20 | |
| Is that what you said? | 42:22 | |
| - | Yean, what specific contributions. | 42:23 |
| What do you think-- | 42:26 | |
| - | Oh, specific. | |
| - | Yes. | 42:27 |
| - | Well, I think, | |
| I think it, | 42:31 | |
| in a backhanded way, forced the church | 42:35 | |
| to begin to look at the different | 42:39 | |
| theologies in a more serious way. | 42:43 | |
| The church had already, | 42:48 | |
| looked at... | 42:53 | |
| Oh, boy. (laughs) | 42:59 | |
| I was looking for the word. | 43:00 | |
| I couldn't remember it. | 43:01 | |
| - | Sure. | |
| - | Liberation stuff. (laughs) | 43:03 |
| - | Right. | |
| - | They had already begun to look at liberation theology, | 43:04 |
| but they really hadn't looked at the, | 43:07 | |
| at least from my perspective, | 43:11 | |
| they hadn't looked at the Feminist theology, | 43:13 | |
| other, or the black theology. | 43:16 | |
| - | Yes. | 43:18 |
| - | And I think it forced the church | 43:21 |
| to begin to deal with those. | 43:23 | |
| It was a backhanded blow. | 43:25 | |
| They resisted, obviously, but, | 43:28 | |
| when the dust finally settled, | 43:32 | |
| they began to (laughs) | 43:35 | |
| really look at, and advice. | 43:38 | |
| - | Yeah. | 43:41 |
| - | You know, I have a grandson | 43:44 |
| that just graduated from seminary last year | 43:48 | |
| with an emphasis in black theology, | 43:52 | |
| and listening to him talk about, | 43:58 | |
| not just black theology, | 44:03 | |
| but liberation theology, Feminist theology. | 44:05 | |
| His father who graduated some, what, | 44:12 | |
| 30 years or more ago, with his PhD, | 44:15 | |
| did not, I mean, he has come that far, but, | 44:18 | |
| he wasn't talking those things when he graduated. | 44:22 | |
| So the church has, | 44:28 | |
| we have moved forward. | 44:31 | |
| - | Yeah, yeah. | 44:32 |
| - | Some days, we still have aways to go. | 44:35 |
| (laughs) | 44:37 | |
| - | Well, Emily, looking back, it's been almost 25 years. | 44:41 |
| As you look back, what do you think is the greatest | 44:45 | |
| legacy of the Re-Imagining community? | 44:46 | |
| - | Probably the recognition of, | 44:56 |
| both Feminist theology and the gifts of women. | 45:04 | |
| - | Mm-hm. | 45:11 |
| Yeah. | 45:15 | |
| - | And by Feminist theology, I'm encompassing all women. | 45:16 |
| - | Womanist, Mujerista. | 45:27 |
| - | Yes. | 45:29 |
| - | Yeah, mm-hm. | |
| Yeah. | 45:31 | |
| So what do you think Re-Imagining should look like today? | 45:33 | |
| And I don't mean just the Re-Imagining conference, | 45:37 | |
| or the community, but what in the church needs, | 45:39 | |
| and/or society, needs to be re-imagined today? | 45:41 | |
| - | Well, it's probably more around | 45:48 |
| the African American community, and, | 45:54 | |
| part of that comes from my location here. | 45:58 | |
| - | Yes. | 46:01 |
| - | And how we can, | 46:05 |
| it's still the most segregated, | 46:08 | |
| Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour we have, | 46:11 | |
| and how we can move forward together and not separately. | 46:18 | |
| And still, you know, I'm still a woman. | 46:24 | |
| (laughing) | 46:28 | |
| How we can still be our own person. | 46:30 | |
| - | Right, yeah. | 46:33 |
| That's great. | 46:37 | |
| And, Emily, I have one final very specific question. | 46:38 | |
| The Re-Imagining community has reincorporated, | 46:41 | |
| and were involved in a website, | 46:44 | |
| and the website is going to be part archive, | 46:46 | |
| including for example, digitized versions-- | 46:50 | |
| - | Give me just a moment. | 46:51 |
| - | Oh, sure. | |
| - | What, we don't, okay. | 46:56 |
| Oh, I'm sorry. | 46:58 | |
| - | No, that's fine. | |
| That's fine. (laughs) | 47:00 | |
| - | Okay. | |
| - | Oh, I was talking about the website, | 47:02 |
| and it's gonna be part archival, | 47:03 | |
| but partly including resources for people, | 47:05 | |
| and I'm just wondering if you had ideas about | 47:09 | |
| what should be included in the website, | 47:12 | |
| who would benefit from it, | 47:14 | |
| how could they find out about it, | 47:16 | |
| just any thoughts you have. | 47:17 | |
| We're just collecting ideas for the website. | 47:18 | |
| - | Well, not really. | 47:21 |
| I pondered that question. | 47:22 | |
| (sighs) I, | 47:28 | |
| and I Google lots of stuff. | 47:30 | |
| I look up lots of things. | 47:33 | |
| But just maybe good resources for... | 47:37 | |
| No, I don't really. (laughs) | 47:45 | |
| - | Sure, that's fine too. | |
| (laughing) | 47:49 | |
| - | I'm sorry about that. | 47:51 |
| - | No, oh, this has been wonderful. | 47:52 |
| You had so many good things to say. | 47:53 | |
| And before we go, I just wanted to find out | 47:55 | |
| if there's anything we haven't discussed | 47:57 | |
| that you would like to add. | 47:59 | |
| - | Well, I really can't think of anything. | 48:03 |
| It was a wonderful, you know, | 48:07 | |
| the years that I worked with Presbyterian Women, | 48:10 | |
| and Women's Ministry, the general assembly council, | 48:15 | |
| were extremely enriching years for me in my life. | 48:20 | |
| I would like to see, I miss the community. | 48:30 | |
| I don't miss the work, but I miss the community. | 48:33 | |
| (laughing) | 48:35 | |
| Just, I'd like to see more people have that opportunity, | 48:40 | |
| particularly women, and some of the more younger women. | 48:45 | |
| - | Yes, yeah. | 48:49 |
| Well, Emily, this has been just delightful. | 48:51 | |
| I'm gonna turn off the recording now. | 48:54 | |
| Thank you so much. | 48:56 | |
| - | Okay. |
Item Info
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