Hunt, Mary

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Interviewer	Mary, thank you so much	0:01
	for being interviewed.	0:02
	If you could just say your name.	0:03
Mary	Sure, Mary,	0:05
	my middle name is Elizabeth,	0:06
	and Hunt, H-U-N-T.	0:08
Interviewer	Thank you.	0:09
	And are you lay or clergy?	0:10
Mary	Well since I'm a Catholic woman,	0:12
	I am like all Catholic women, lay.	0:15
Interviewer	Yes, yes.	0:18
Mary	Even those who are nuns are lay.	0:19
Interviewer	Yeah, exactly.	0:22
	Where did you go to school?	0:24
	Graduate or Divinity School?	0:25
Mary	Initially I went to Marquette University	0:27
	undergraduate,	0:29
	and then I went to Harvard Divinity School	0:30
	for a Masters in Theological Studies.	0:32
	I went to the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley	0:33
	for a doctorate,	0:36
	and I went to the Jesuit School of Theology	0:38
	at Berkeley for an MDiv.	0:40
Interviewer	Wonderful. Very good.	0:41
	What work or ministry were you doing at the time of	0:43
	Reimagining?	0:46
Mary	The same I'm doing now.	0:47
	I am the co-director of WATER,	0:49
	the Woman's Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual,	0:51
	which is a small non-profit inside the beltway	0:54
	in Washington D.C. area.	0:56
	We're actually in Silver Spring, Maryland.	0:58
	And we work on feminist issues in religion.	1:01
	And I started WATER along with Diann Neu	1:03
	in the early 80's,	1:08
	so by that time, perhaps the mid 80's.	1:10
	But we were at WATER at the time of	1:13
	the Reimagining Conference.	1:14
Interviewer	Yes, and still are.	1:15
	That's great.	1:15
	When and where were you born, Mary?	1:16
Mary	I was born in June 1951 in Syracuse, New York.	1:19
Interviewer	Okay, great.	1:25
	How and when did you first become aware	1:26
	of Feminist Theology?	1:29
Mary	Well I was a student in a Catholic school	1:31
	in high school in Syracuse,	1:35
	and I became aware not of Feminist Theology,	1:36
	but of feminist issues in religion then.	1:40
	I remember distinctly a priest telling me	1:42
	with great conviction	1:44
	that women couldn't be priests.	1:47
	And I think that sparked my interest in how wrong he was	1:48
	and so that was in the mid 60's.	1:52
	When I went to college at Marquette,	1:55
	there were,	1:58
	as far as I recall,	2:00
	no women faculty,	2:01
	maybe a couple of, there were women graduate students,	2:03
	maybe one of whom became a faculty member eventually,	2:05
	but, there were no women faculty in the Theology Department.	2:07
	And there was no talk of Feminist Theology,	2:10
	but I finished Marquette in 1972 and then went to	2:13
	Harvard Divinity School,	2:16
	and it was there in 1972	2:18
	that I met Rosemary Radford Ruether,	2:20
	who was the still then professor for a year at	2:22
	Harvard Divinity School	2:25
	and she was working on feminist issues in religion	2:26
	and so that was my entry.	2:28
Interviewer	Mm hmm.	2:30
	And from what you said it sounded like you resonated with it	2:31
	immediately?	2:33
	How did you react?	2:34
Mary	No, I didn't actually.	2:36
	I was, there were a number,	2:37
	my cohort at Harvard Divinity School in the early 70's	2:39
	was the first cohort of appreciable numbers of women	2:43
	and there had been women students of the Divinity School	2:48
	before that,	2:52
	but in terms of appreciable numbers together,	2:53
	kind of a critical mass,	2:55
	my group, my incoming class,	2:57
	maybe the following class,	2:58
	maybe the class behind us,	3:00
	that cohort formed the first critical mass of women	3:01
	at Harvard Divinity School.	3:04
	And so, I was initially skeptical.	3:05
	First of all, I was Catholic,	3:08
	so I hadn't really thought about ministry,	3:09
	as an option.	3:11
	I had always thought about the study of Theology as a	3:12
	kind of academic project that one did	3:14
	because it was interesting,	3:16
	not because it had any practical value,	3:17
	although I was very interested in social justice issues.	3:20
	But I just hadn't made the connection.	3:22
	And then, then at Harvard Divinity School,	3:24
	the women, including people like Emily Culpepper	3:26
	and Linda Barrett Fall,	3:29
	and some of the really wonderful pioneer women,	3:31
	and of course we had Mary Daly over at Boston College	3:34
	at that time,	3:36
	began to try to school the professors in how to	3:37
	use inclusive language.	3:40
	It was a famous,	3:42
	I think it was written up in Time Magazine,	3:44
	it was before my time,	3:45
	but, the year before,	3:46
	but I think there was a famous incident when they	3:48
	threw M&M's at Harvey Cox to get him to use	3:50
	inclusive language.	3:53
	If he got it right,	3:54
	he got an M&M,	3:55
	and if he didn't, he didn't get an M&M.	3:56
	So, there were these tactics, these guerrilla tactics,	3:57
	and I was rather put off by it initially.	3:59
	I thought it was all nonsense	4:02
	and went back to the dorm and put a dress on	4:04
	and went back to class.	4:05
	That lasted about a day	4:07
	and then I began to see how wrong I was	4:08
	and how right they were.	4:09
	And from then on,	4:11
	of course, I was quite a committed feminist.	4:14
	And that would've been 72, 73.	4:17
Interviewer	Yeah.	4:19
	Oh that's a great story.	4:20
Mary	Well before-	4:21
Interviewer	I missed the end of it,	4:22
	well before?	4:24
Mary	Well before Reimagining.	4:25
Interviewer	Well before Reimagining, yes.	4:25
	The internet connection seems to be a little bit iffy.	4:27
	Are you having any problems at your end?	4:29
Mary	I'm not, but I can imagine we are.	4:31
	If it turns out to be iffy, we can just go the phone.	4:35
Interviewer	Good. Good.	4:36
	I'll keep monitoring it.	4:38
	Thank you, Mary.	4:39
Mary	If it's not working, let's just go to the phone.	4:40
	It's not worth, you know,	4:42
	it's not worth,	4:43
	if you don't get what you need it's not worth it.	4:44
Interviewer	Yeah, yeah.	4:46
	Well you know, just to be safe,	4:47
	maybe we should do that.	4:49
	Do you mind if I,	4:51
	do I call you at your WATER number?	4:52
	Is that correct?	4:54
Mary	Sure.	4:55
Interviewer	Okay, good.	4:56
	Then I'll call you right back.	4:57
	Because I don't want to miss any of this.	4:58
	Thank you.	5:00
Interviewer	Alright, bye-bye.	5:01
Mary	Bye.	5:02

-	For calling, or for taking up the phone,	0:00
	sorry about that.	0:02
-	Sure, mhm.	0:03
-	Well, let's continue, we were talking about,	0:04
	we're trying to move probably to Reimagining,	0:06
	could you say something about your initial involvement	0:09
	in Reimagining, what led to it?	0:11
	Well, I had been, as I'd mentioned,	0:15
	let me go back a little bit, I finished up my graduate work	0:18
	and spent a couple of years in Argentina	0:21
	teaching and working on feminist issues in religion there,	0:23
	and then came to Washington area and started water	0:27
	in the early '80s, and so water has long been part	0:31
	of the women church convergence,	0:35
	which is a Catholic focused umbrella organization	0:37
	working on feminist issues among Catholics.	0:41
	And I was also involved with CLOUT,	0:44
	the Christian Lesbians Out, which became both	0:48
	a Catholic and Protestant kind of group,	0:51
	but primarily protestant.	0:54
	And I had had my own involvement with Protestant groups	0:55
	through my work in Argentina, which was sponsored by	0:58
	the Frontier Internship and Mission program,	1:01
	which is connected to the World Student	1:04
	Christian Federation, all of these are kind of Protestant	1:05
	connections that, and in those years, I think there was	1:09
	a greater separation between Catholic and Protestant women	1:12
	working on these issues because of	1:15
	the specific subordination in each	1:18
	of our respective denominations.	1:20
	All that is to say that when Reimagining came along,	1:22
	it was primarily, as I understood it,	1:24
	protestant women, and there were a few of us Catholic women	1:27
	who were invited to be part of it,	1:30
	and then there was a substantial,	1:33
	but not by any means large, decent number,	1:35
	but not a huge number of Catholic women	1:40
	who actually attended.	1:42
	So, I was invited as a speaker on issues of sexuality.	1:43
	I shared a panel with Susan Thistlethwaite,	1:48
	and Frances Wood.	1:50
-	Yes, thank you, and I wonder if you could say something	1:52
	about your memories of that conference.	1:56
	I have read your article in Water Wheel,	1:59
	and I'm wondering if you could talk some about.	2:01
	So, but, what do you recall about it now,	2:02
	what moments stand out for you?	2:04
-	Well, I actually was also looking at the article	2:07
	that I wrote in the Remembering and Reimagining book.	2:11
-	Yes.	2:13
-	And several things stand out for me,	2:15
	and one of the things that I, one of the points	2:17
	that I make in the article in the Remember	2:19
	and Reimagining was what I call the ordinariness	2:21
	of the conference.	2:23
	That is to say that in the 10 years between the time	2:24
	we founded Water and the time of the Reimagining conference,	2:27
	there were lots of these kinds of gatherings	2:31
	of different sorts.	2:33
	Women church had again gathered in '83, and then '87,	2:35
	and in '93, I believe, there were a number	2:40
	of women church conferences, the Women's Ordination	2:43
	Conference had a number of conferences	2:45
	starting in 1975, so I had been to a number of events.	2:47
	And this one, in some ways, was, and then there were	2:52
	groups of women meeting, it was a very fertile time,	2:56
	groups of women meeting locally in different parts	2:59
	of the country, and I had been invited as a speaker	3:01
	to a number of those.	3:04
	So, by the time I got to Reimagining,	3:05
	the two things that impressed me were, first,	3:07
	the planning and hospitality of the women	3:10
	of the Twin Cities, because I think they really	3:14
	distinguished themselves as no detail too small	3:16
	for making people welcome and comfortable,	3:20
	especially since it snowed that weekend.	3:23
	And they even had a little basket of mittens.	3:26
	So, I remember very well gloves and mittens,	3:29
	and I remember very well the depth and breath	3:31
	of their hospitality.	3:35
	The other thing I remember was that I came away	3:36
	from the experience feeling as if nothing terribly new	3:39
	had been said, but it was only because I was in	3:42
	those conversations as an academic, and as a scholar,	3:45
	so that I had, there was literally nothing that I heard	3:48
	at Reimagining that I hadn't heard elsewhere.	3:51
	What distinguished it was that the Reimagining conference,	3:53
	at least in my mind, was that the Reimagining conference	3:56
	was not your typical American Catholic religion session,	3:59
	it was bringing people, if you look at the list	4:02
	of the speakers, then you've probably memorized that by now,	4:04
	but if you look at those people, you know,	4:08
	people like Hyun Kyung, and Delores Williams,	4:10
	and Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, and Elizabeth Bettenhausen,	4:13
	and Susan Thistlethwaite, and Frances Wood,	4:17
	I've already mentioned among many others,	4:19
	they were people who were very well known to me,	4:21
	both in their work, and in most instances, personally,	4:24
	because we were, that was the work we were doing.	4:27
	What was different about doing it in Reimagining	4:30
	was that the people who were part	4:32
	of the participating group, I wouldn't say audience	4:33
	in that case, but the participants,	4:37
	were what I refer to at the time,	4:39
	and I think it's not the best way of saying, but it's,	4:43
	to them it's, they were both pastors wives, as it were,	4:46
	and women inside the pews.	4:50
	And so, just a second, what?	4:53
	(mumbling)	4:57
	Oh, I don't know what that is, I didn't see that.	4:58
	I'm on an interview, sorry.	5:02
	We're running into tech problems here.	5:05
	We, these, the people who were participants	5:08
	were not scholars who were talking about these things	5:12
	in a kind of disinterested or disembodied way,	5:14
	but they were people who actually lived the life	5:18
	of the church, and what was happening,	5:21
	and Reimagining, in my view, was that the people	5:23
	who were most, who were closest to the ground,	5:26
	and who were part of congregations were now taking	5:31
	what had become virtually normative ideas	5:34
	within academia to heart and to soul	5:38
	in the context of Reimagining.	5:41
	And I think that was why the challenge	5:44
	was considered so profound.	5:46
	That on the one hand, on the other hand,	5:49
	I think you had kind of sitting ducks for the right wing	5:50
	that, what issued later as the enormous backlash	5:54
	against the conference, was really a backlash,	6:00
	not just about a couple of days in the Twin Cities	6:03
	in the snow, but about all the work that had culminated,	6:05
	and, or, not even culminated, but that was reported,	6:09
	actually, at Reimagining.	6:12
-	Yeah.	6:14
-	So I had really saw
	Reimagining as a time when people	6:16
	who had been, respect for them if you take the same	6:18
	as Dolores Williams' statement.	6:20
-	Yes.	6:21
-	There was nothing that Dolores Williams said there	6:22
	that she hadn't said any place, that she hadn't said	6:24
	some place else before.	6:25
	The problems that were driven by the media	6:29
	in terms of response to her remarks about Jesus	6:32
	and so forth, were not things that were unknown to us,	6:35
	those were things that we had discussed and debated	6:38
	among ourselves as academics.	6:40
	What was new was the people who were involved	6:42
	in those conversations, or people who still lived	6:44
	in the pews and who said, yeah, that makes sense to me.	6:47
	Now, what do we do?	6:50
-	Mhm.	6:51
-	And I think that's really the heart	6:52
	of what was the problem.	6:53
	It wasn't that the ideas were new,	6:55
	it was that the audience was new.	6:57
-	Yes.	6:59
-	That the in-rows, what Reimagining showed was that	6:59
	feminist theology had made in-rows.	7:03
-	Mhm.	7:06
-	And the in-rows were right to the heart of the church	7:07
	because this was now being paid for, at least in part,	7:09
	by the Bicentennial Fund, and the Presbyterians,	7:12
	and the accommodative staff, and that sort of thing	7:14
	for other denominations, and so forth, so.	7:17
-	That's excellent.	7:20
	And I think you are already addressing the question	7:21
	of accounting for the backlash.	7:23
	Is there anything you would want to add to that	7:25
	about why the backlash was so huge against this?	7:27
-	Well, as I started to say, I think it was not a backlash	7:30
	against the conference alone, I think it was backlash	7:33
	that had been building.	7:35
	I think the issue for...	7:37
-	Religion and democracy.	7:40
-	Religion, democracy, yeah, I think they had been,	7:41
	they had set their sights on this long before,	7:43
	and not to forget that they were also involved	7:47
	with the contras in central America, so you know,	7:50
	they were a dubious prep to start with.	7:53
	The other thing was that the meeting was instrumental.	7:56
	I had a woman come to my office	7:57
	from one of the local radio stations,	7:59
	and one of the people who, there was a person here,	8:01
	and she interviewed the person who had been	8:04
	at the conference, and so forth, and when we heard	8:06
	the interview that was cobbled together,	8:08
	it hadn't been for no relationship to what the person	8:10
	had meant in the interview.	8:14
	So, there was a lot of that kind of cutting and pasting	8:16
	of materials to make a point.	8:18
	And there was also, I think, a lot of feeding of,	8:22
	or, embedding of journalists at a conference	8:28
	where they were able to take their own interpretation	8:31
	in the most extreme and rigid right wing interpretation	8:36
	of something, and that's what happened.	8:40
	So, I think there was a lot of, it became an easy target,	8:43
	in a very efficient way, to have all kind of in one place,	8:48
	and one set of tapes, a lot of materials	8:52
	that it would've taken a good deal of time	8:55
	to find elsewhere, 'cause this is, remember,	8:56
	pre-internet in terms of widespread use of the internet.	8:58
	We worked daily up at '93.	9:03
-	Yes, yeah, good point.	9:05
-	So, I think, but I think the backlash was,	9:07
	the important point was the backlash	9:09
	was not just about the conference,	9:11
	the backlash was about the fact that mainline Christianity	9:12
	was being challenged by women at its root,	9:15
	and that would have implications that had implications	9:18
	across the board.	9:21
	But the conference became a kind of focal point for that,	9:23
	but it wasn't the conference because when I had voiced	9:26
	for the conference, I must say, it was not my experience	9:28
	that it was the kind of, well, I'll put it this way,	9:34
	you didn't recognize the conference	9:39
	in some of the things that you read	9:40
	in terms of the backlash.	9:41
-	Mhm.	9:42
-	They weren't at the same event.	9:43
-	Yes.	9:44
-	Like the milk and honey, and the way in which the more	9:46
	graphic imagery of the text, with regard to the milk	9:52
	and honey, were played out, I mean, that was just read	9:56
	as a reading, it wasn't, there was nothing to it.	10:00
-	Yes.	10:04
-	So, I mean, that's the kind of instrumentalization	10:06
	that I'm talking about, that's just sensational,	10:07
	and they did a very good job.	10:09
	I mean, I can take, you know, that they made it	10:11
	to the mainline talk shows, and so forth.	10:13
	Do you have in front of you that article,	10:17
	and can you tell me what issue of the newsletter it was?	10:20
-	Yes.	10:23
	It was the Winter 1993, '94, and it was titled,	10:24
	Reimagining I Wish You Had Been There.	10:28
-	Okay, and then there's another one which is called,	10:32
	Reimagining Reimagining.	10:36
	Which you might wanna look up, it's the Summer of '94,	10:39
	it's a later one.	10:41
-	Thank you very much.	10:43
-	So, look that up, and if you can't find it, let me know.	10:44
-	I sure will, thank you, I really appreciate that.	10:46
	I was wondering what you think...	10:51
-	And by the way, it's there from, I mean,	10:53
	I'm not gonna, I'm assuming that you have those,	10:54
	but if you look for Reimagining Reimagining,	10:56
	it just starts off, it's official, in the New York Times,	11:00
	and McNeil, Lair, and Nightline have weighed in	11:03
	on the much valley Reimagining conference in Minneapolis,	11:05
	it really happened.	11:07
	Watching the aftermath, it is much a lesson	11:09
	in how the media creates reality,	11:11
	and it is a theological learning experience.	11:12
	So, I would recommend you read that,	11:14
	I'm not gonna repeat that, but go ahead and read that,	11:16
	and do that, okay?	11:18
-	Absolutely, I will, thank you very much.	11:20
	What do you think was the net effect of the backlash?	11:23
	I mean, did it really set back feminist theology	11:26
	in the churches, do you think?	11:28
-	Well, I don't think feminist theology has ever really	11:32
	had its primary focus in the churches.	11:35
	I think that the churches have been the starting point	11:38
	of feminist theology, but I think the impact	11:41
	of feminist theology has been far broader.	11:43
	I mean, there are three things that have happened,	11:46
	one is that Christian church membership in general	11:47
	has dropped precipitously in the last 20 years.	11:52
	And so, is that in some way due to this, yes,	11:56
	because I think the bogus nature of patriarchal Christianity	12:01
	has been called, I mean, people have simply called that out.	12:04
	But what the churches weren't smart enough to do	12:07
	was to support the creation of something new,	12:10
	which would have shorted them up, I think.	12:12
	So, that's one, and I think the second thing is that	12:15
	feminist theology is an international, inter-religious,	12:18
	and trans-religious conversation.	12:21
	In other words, people go beyond religion,	12:24
	who are interested in the kinds of things	12:26
	that feminist theology is about, if you think of,	12:28
	even the early work of Mary Daley to the current work	12:29
	of Carol Christen, I mean, these are people who would not	12:32
	be considered in the kind of mainstream	12:35
	of Christian believers, but there were,	12:37
	I have the deepest regards for both, by the way,	12:41
	is feminist theology in conversation	12:44
	with a much broader audience.	12:47
	And I think the third thing is that feminist theology,	12:49
	in the context of Reimagining, was still very gender focused	12:53
	and it has become much more intersectional in terms	12:57
	of anti-racism, post-colonialism, clear work, et cetera,	13:01
	and I think that has been enormously important	13:07
	in terms of what's next.	13:11
	So, if anything, I think Reimagining as,	13:13
	the backlash against Reimagining, was helpful for clarifying	13:17
	but I don't really think in the long run	13:20
	that the losers were on the feminist theology side,	13:23
	I think the institutional churches have,	13:25
	the numbers are clear, have lost membership	13:28
	and market share precipitously.	13:33
	So, I don't think that's a problem.	13:34
	Feminist theology has grown, you know, on the other side.	13:37
-	Yes, thank you, that's really helpful.	13:40
	In the end, how would you define Reimagining?	13:43
-	Well, I don't know that I would have anything insightful	13:47
	or different to say other than, you know,	13:51
	for your own understanding from the history	13:53
	of the organization that it was,	13:56
	that the term reimagining became a kind of brand for what,	13:59
	in my mind, was parallel to what Catholic women were doing	14:06
	in terms of women church and other forms	14:11
	of re-understanding Catholicism.	14:14
	Reimagining was, in many ways, largely Protestant,	14:19
	although what they say, with certain exceptions,	14:22
	Catholic, but largely Protestant brand for,	14:24
	or umbrella, if you will, for the many efforts	14:29
	that people had in mainline Christianity to rethink	14:32
	and to re-tool, and I think that to the extent of which	14:37
	the issues of sexuality, God language, ministry,	14:42
	polity, even, were brought under broad spectrum discussion.	14:47
	In other words, it wasn't simply denomination	14:53
	by denomination, people weren't vulcanized in that way,	14:55
	but they were really brought together in a broader coalition	14:58
	that made it much stronger and much,	15:01
	had a much bigger impact.	15:04
-	Mhm, great.	15:05
	Now, you mentioned that, you know, a lot of what was done	15:07
	at Reimagining wasn't new, do you think it made	15:09
	any specific contributions to Christian theology	15:11
	or liturgy?	15:14
-	Well, I think that what was new, I don't wanna,	15:16
	I don't want to link the impression that nothing was new,	15:20
	but the things that were new to me were, as I mentioned,	15:23
	the audience was new, the people from mainline church venues	15:27
	were the audience, it was not an academic,	15:33
	scholarly audience, or a radical feminist audience,	15:35
	it was, mining, but it was mostly people from	15:38
	what I would call inside the church,	15:41
	whether it was with the ministers, wives of pastors,	15:43
	there were a lot of wives of pastors,	15:46
	a lot of women ministers, and a lot of women seminarian	15:48
	students, at least as I understood it.	15:50
-	Yeah.	15:53
-	Or, women who had studied
	in seminary, but mostly, there were a lot	15:53
	of church women there, and I think that was what was new.	15:55
	Secondly, I think that many things we've talked about	15:58
	in the literature, and again, my articles,	16:01
	both of those, and the one in the book you can look at.	16:03
-	Yes.	16:05
-	We talked about the, you know, the way in which the,	16:06
	the tables moving in the room made a difference,	16:09
	the plexiglass podiums, those speakers were addressed,	16:12
	different people up at the front row,	16:15
	the way in which we sat at tables with the possibility	16:18
	of drawing or coloring, no one will forget	16:21
	those little eggs, the little black eggs with the,	16:26
	you know, with the rice or whatever was in them	16:29
	that made noise.	16:32
	And those kinds of things were very new,	16:33
	and very, very, very important because they pushed us	16:35
	to a kind of right brain activity	16:39
	as being equally important.	16:41
	They expanded the parameters of feminist theology	16:44
	from simply academic content and theory	16:46
	to personal experience and spiritual sharing.	16:49
	And then of course, liturgical ritual, arena which is	16:54
	probably where it was most innovative, you had, again,	16:57
	nothing new from those of us who were	17:01
	eating it for breakfast, but for people who had	17:03
	never had that experience before.	17:04
	You could have celebrated by women together,	17:07
	bread, and milk, and honey as liturgical elements,	17:10
	women from across the board sharing together,	17:16
	what you could call a eucharistic meal.	17:20
	The Catholic and Protestant women, much less Protestant	17:24
	women from a variety of traditions, sharing Eucharis,	17:26
	none of the kinds of, and again, this is 20 years ago,	17:28
	but none of the kinds of head scratching and hand ringing	17:31
	of the male ecumenical movement,	17:34
	but women simply sitting down and doing it,	17:36
	and I think just that fact of doing it, come what may,	17:38
	the use of the goddess chant,	17:43
	the blessing of all the speakers as each one began,	17:46
	and that kind of reverence and respect,	17:49
	just doing those things, I think,	17:52
	had a transformative effect on people,	17:54
	my life, and in other people's lives.	17:56
	We would not do conferences the old way again.	17:59
-	You know, in that article, you mentioned,	18:04
	made a comment I thought was very interesting,	18:06
	you described it as "an historic conference	18:07
	that future generations will study like Trent and Calceton."	18:10
	Almost 25 years later, do you think that is still true?	18:13
-	Well, you're the proof of it, aren't you?	18:17
-	Yes.	18:19
	(laughing)	18:20
	No wonder I like that sentence, right?	18:22
-	Yeah, no, no, I mean, I think I was right.	18:23
	I mean, not just that I was right,	18:26
	but I think it was like the women church conferences,	18:28
	and ordination conferences, and all of those events	18:31
	that we shared over in that period of time,	18:33
	were landmark experiences because of their results	18:37
	on the one hand, but mostly because of what happened	18:42
	to people who were there, who went on to do	18:44
	exciting and interesting things,	18:47
	and changed the defaulted functions about,	18:49
	for example, what does it mean to do theology?	18:53
	It doesn't mean to go to the AAR and give a paper,	18:56
	only, although, many of us do that,	18:58
	it also means to have the kind of exchange on the ground	18:59
	with people who really live this stuff out,	19:04
	which is what we naturally want,	19:06
	and that's exactly what threatened both the right wing	19:08
	and the media friend.	19:11
-	Yeah, yeah, that's great.	19:14
	What do you think Reimagining means today?	19:17
	And by that, I'm not talking about just the conference	19:18
	or the community, but what needs to be reimagined today?	19:20
-	Well, I think Reimagining, the genius of Reimagining	19:25
	is that it's, like reformation, it's an ongoing process,	19:28
	and I think that we certainly are,	19:31
	we proficiently take the same agenda.	19:34
	And say, well, 20 years later,	19:37
	how has this process continued on issues of sexuality,	19:38
	for example, we weren't thinking about trans people.	19:41
-	Right.	19:44
-	We weren't thinking about beyond gender essentialism	19:44
	in terms of what's a man and what's a woman,	19:47
	we weren't there, we just weren't there,	19:49
	we needed that, that needs to be reimagined.	19:51
	In terms of issue of race, we weren't there	19:54
	towards understanding the complex inter-structured nature,	19:56
	what relative adherence, the cause of kyriarchy,	20:01
	of the ways in which lordship is infrastructured	20:04
	in a variety of destructive and oppressive ways.	20:06
	We have much more information about that now,	20:09
	which means we can reimagine what some solutions	20:12
	or some next steps might be.	20:15
	The same thing with economics, that I think we didn't have	20:17
	at our disposal the same kind of information	20:20
	that we have now, and certainly, we didn't have,	20:23
	at least in the US, we didn't have the economic disparities	20:25
	that we now experience.	20:28
	So, I think that rather than looking for topics	20:29
	to reimagine, the thing to do is to see reimagining	20:32
	as a methodology that is an ongoing one.	20:36
-	That's great.	20:40
-	That each generation takes then on, like reformation,	20:40
	I mean, always in reformation, notion of Protestantism,	20:43
	I would say the feminist equivalent is always being	20:47
	reimagined, that there's this generation,	20:50
	and the next generation, it becomes a task	20:53
	of each generation to their own reimagining.	20:55
-	Exactly.	20:57
	That brings me to my final, very specific question,	20:58
	which is that we are working on a reimagining website,	21:01
	which should be ready at the end of the Summer,	21:04
	and part of that is to preserve this information	21:05
	and make it accessible for future generations,	21:09
	but I'm curious if you have specific ideas about	21:12
	what to include in it, what resources,	21:14
	who would benefit from it?	21:17
-	Yeah, I'm not sure if I understand what it is.	21:20
	Is it to be an archival website?	21:22
	Or is it to be a live kind of community?	21:24
	What are you imagining?	21:27
-	Actually both, it's starting as archival,	21:28
	but the idea is to add resources to it	21:30
	and to have it be ongoing.	21:33
-	Well, I would certainly urge you to link with	21:36
	both other archives of women's history.	21:41
	For example, the Water's archives are at	21:43
	the finest fit collection.	21:45
-	Yes.	21:46
-	The finest fit of collection, the finest collection	21:47
	has lots of women's archives in religion.	21:50
	You know, one has Margaret Sanger, it has Gloria Stein in it	21:53
	and it has Mary Daley, it has Judith Glasgow,	21:55
	and there's lots of stuff there.	21:59
-	Yeah.	22:00
-	Duke, I know has a women's history archive	22:01
	that would be important, and I that Schlesinger Radcliffe	22:03
	Harvard has a women's history archive,	22:06
	is having some renewed interest in women and religion.	22:09
	So, those are, and the Gannon Center	22:12
	for Women and Religion, for women's leadership	22:14
	at Loyola would be one Catholic equivalent.	22:16
	The Gannon, G A N N O N Center for Women and Leadership,	22:20
	their archives would be an excellent source.	22:23
	So, I would link archives.	22:25
	I would also link with contemporary groups like	22:27
	Jeanette Stokes' Center for Women and Ministry,	22:31
	and the sound, can be water, women church conversion.	22:33
	The problem is, and I know, Evangelical and Ecumenical	22:37
	women, too, but what to call, Christianity today,	22:40
	Evangelical and Ecumenical women's caucus.	22:45
-	Right.	22:47
-	I think those people
	are great.	22:48
-	Yup.
-	Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, who was one of the speakers	22:50
	at Reimagining, I actually talked to Lisa Scanzoni	22:52
	and make sure that you're connected to their stuff.	22:56
	I mean, I don't think there's any need	22:58
	to reinvent the wheel.	22:59
	What I worry about is that in the '90s,	23:00
	there were a whole lot more, at least in my perception,	23:04
	programs and projects focused explicitly on women	23:08
	than there are now.	23:11
-	Yeah.	23:12
-	So, if I were looking, for example,	23:13
	things like the Women's Theological Center is no more.	23:15
	Grailville, which has had, Grail, the Grail,	23:19
	Grail is still, but the Grailville is being sold.	23:21
	Or, there's a talk of selling Grailville.	23:25
	They're not doing programs there anymore.	23:28
	The, you know, the number of the, it's more I can take off	23:31
	the places that are on than the places	23:34
	that have risen anew.	23:36
	I think some of the specific work, for example,	23:38
	The Faith Trust Institute, that works,	23:41
	that's actually domestic file, it's Marie Fortune's work,	23:43
	that would be critical to include.	23:45
-	Yes.	23:47
-	But there really, and once that's said,	23:49
	I can't, oh, for example, the Center for Women	23:53
	and Religion in Berkeley, which is no longer,	23:56
	I can't point to centers connected to theological schools	23:58
	in a ways that I could before.	24:04
	Harvard still has a good program in terms of women	24:05
	and religion gender studies, and so forth,	24:08
	but I don't know that they have an office	24:11
	that deals with women's programs.	24:13
	The Boston Theological Institute had an office	24:15
	that dealt with women's programs, I don't know	24:17
	if that still exists, you'd have to find out.	24:18
	But those kind of things, but there are fewer	24:21
	of these resources now than there were then, even.	24:23
	At least in my perception, I could be wrong.	24:27
	I'd love to be proven wrong, but I just, you know,	24:29
	many of the groups that existed are no longer.	24:33
-	I appreciate that, those are great suggestions.	24:37
-	Including Reimagining, by the way.	24:40
	I mean, you were talking about revising Reimagining,	24:42
	but what would, you know, think about Church Women United,	24:43
	I mean, how vital are they at this point?	24:47
-	Right, right.	24:49
-	How, you know, where are the people in the bureaucracies	24:51
	of the UCC, the Lutherans, the disciples, you know,	24:55
	who are really working women's issues in a particular	24:59
	and portfolio way, I don't know.	25:01
-	Yeah, yeah, yup.	25:04
-	That's what I mean by different.	25:05
	People say, well, that's been folded into justice,	25:07
	or that, yeah, the fact of the matter is	25:09
	that having that presence, it's not there.	25:11
-	Right, right.	25:15
	Is there anything that we, this has been extremely helpful,	25:19
	Mary, is there anything we haven't discussed	25:21
	that you would like to add?	25:23
-	Oh, I'm sure there are lots of things,	25:26
	but like I said, this is plenty, I think this is plenty	25:28
	for now and certainly feel free to get back to me	25:30
	if you have further questions or, you know,	25:32
	this is just one person's view of this, what,	25:35
	20 plus years later, but I could still say	25:38
	that it was a very important event.	25:42
	I congratulate and thank the people who	25:43
	put it together, and who, some of whom paid fairly steeply	25:46
	for what they did.	25:50
	But certainly the overall...	25:52
	Result, I think, of the conference was wildly positive,	25:57
	and that the backlash in some ways only helped	26:01
	to focus tension on that, and now that the backlash	26:04
	has kind of faded into history, but the fact of the matter	26:07
	is that many of the contests that were discussed	26:11
	at Reimagining are now normative	26:14
	within mainstream Christianity,	26:17
	including things like inclusive language,	26:20
	although it's not, it's honored in the breech,	26:22
	but everyone knows that there's no,	26:24
	you can't get away from that.	26:27
	You can try, but everyone knows that the backlash	26:28
	only indicates how important that is,	26:32
	or women in ministry with denominations now approaching	26:34
	parity, if not more women ministers.	26:37
	Or issues of sexuality, I mean, look how far we've come on,	26:40
	on issues of sexuality in 20 years.	26:44
	So, I think there's no question that the,	26:47
	that Reimagining was moving in the right direction,	26:49
	I think that the backlash brought attention to that,	26:51
	but certainly didn't succeed in stopping it.	26:56
-	Thank you, I'm gonna turn off the recording now,	27:00
	this was excellent, really helped.	27:02

Item Info

Title:

Hunt, Mary

Date:

April 6, 2016

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Jordon, Sherry E. (Sherry Elaine)

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Hunt, Mary

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Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History & Culture