Strausz-Clement, Judith
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Transcript
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Interviewer | Judy, first of all, | 0:02 |
thank you so much for agreeing | 0:03 | |
to be interviewed for this and if you could just | 0:05 | |
say your full name and maybe spell it too. | 0:07 | |
Judy | Judith, J-U-D-I-T-H | 0:12 |
(coughs) | 0:15 | |
Excuse me. | 0:16 | |
A. Middle initial is A. | 0:17 | |
Last name is a hyphenated name, Strausz-Clement. | 0:19 | |
S-T-R-A-U-S as in Sam, Z as in Zebra | 0:24 | |
hyphen, Clement, C-L-E-M-E-N-T. | 0:30 | |
Interviewer | Thank you very much. | 0:35 |
Are you lay or clergy? | 0:37 | |
Judy | I am clergy. | 0:40 |
I am a Presbyterian clergy woman. | 0:42 | |
Interviewer | Thank you very... | 0:44 |
Thank you very much. | 0:45 | |
And Judy, when and where were you born? | 0:46 | |
Judy | I was born in Yakima, Washington in 1940. | 0:49 |
Interviewer | Oh okay, so you're back in Washington again? | 0:55 |
Judy | Yes. | 0:58 |
Interviewer | And where did you go to school? | 0:59 |
Graduate or divinity school? | 1:00 | |
Judy | I went to Washington State University | 1:03 |
and Paul Min as an undergraduate | 1:06 | |
and I got my MDs from | 1:08 | |
United Theological Seminary next to the city. | 1:10 | |
Interviewer | Okay, great, and what worker ministry | 1:13 |
were you doing at the time of re-imagining? | 1:16 | |
Judy | Um...let me see... | 1:21 |
I was newly married to John. | 1:25 | |
Interviewer | Mhm. | 1:27 |
Judy | I had just finished being an inner-city... | 1:28 |
No that's not right. | 1:33 | |
I had just finished being an inner-city pastor | 1:34 | |
in Minneapolis. | 1:37 | |
Interviewer | Mhm. | 1:39 |
Judy | And was living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | 1:39 |
and looking for a job as an interim pastor. | 1:43 | |
I did have a job with Mt. Chestnut Presbyterian Church | 1:47 | |
in Butler, Pennsylvania. | 1:53 | |
Interviewer | Wonderful. Thank you. | 1:56 |
And what worker ministry did you do after re-imagining? | 1:59 | |
Judy | I continued to be an interim ministry specialist. | 2:02 |
Interviewer | Mmm... | 2:07 |
And was that always in Pennsylvania? That area still? | 2:09 | |
Judy | No, I had a... | 2:13 |
I had that church, I was in Silver Spring, | 2:17 | |
in Pennsylvania, and then I came to Milwaukee. | 2:20 | |
I had another interim there and my largest church | 2:25 | |
was in Geneva, Illinois, a 700 member church. | 2:29 | |
I was the pastor head of staff and then | 2:33 | |
I was there for a couple years | 2:37 | |
and then I went on my last confrontation | 2:39 | |
was in Willmette, Illinois which is | 2:41 | |
the north shore of Chicago. | 2:44 | |
I was there for a couple years and then I retired. | 2:46 | |
Interviewer | Oh, okay. | 2:49 |
Thank you, that's... | 2:50 | |
You've been several different places. | 2:52 | |
That's great. | 2:54 | |
Judy, do you remember how and when | 2:55 | |
you first became aware of feminist theology? | 2:56 | |
Judy | As a matter of fact, I do. | 3:00 |
I had started seminary | 3:03 | |
and I think one of the first or second days, | 3:06 | |
one of the professors decided that he would read, | 3:09 | |
I don't remember the passage or scripture, | 3:14 | |
but he changed all of the male pronouns to female pronouns | 3:17 | |
and he read the text with all female pronouns | 3:21 | |
and I thought woo, isn't that interesting? | 3:26 | |
I had never even thought of that before. | 3:30 | |
(Interviewer laughing) | 3:32 | |
So that was my first experience with it. | 3:33 | |
Interviewer | Interesting. | 3:36 |
So your first reaction was kind of, | 3:37 | |
this is interesting? | 3:38 | |
I mean it wasn't negative. | 3:40 | |
It was sort of just... | 3:42 | |
Judy | Oh, never. | 3:43 |
Interviewer | Yeah, yeah, okay. | 3:44 |
Well that's great. | 3:46 | |
I mean you can point to a specific moment. | 3:47 | |
That's pretty interesting. | 3:48 | |
That's great. | 3:49 | |
Um, and then I assume your knowledge and interest in it | 3:51 | |
kinda grew during your seminary period? | 3:54 | |
Judy | Wait now, I didn't understand that. | 3:58 |
Interviewer | Oh, I'm sorry. | 3:59 |
I assume your knowledge of and interest | 4:00 | |
in feminist theology grew during your seminary time. | 4:04 | |
Judy | Oh, very much so. Very much so, yeah. | 4:08 |
Interviewer | Good. | 4:11 |
Well, if we could move to re-imagining, | 4:13 | |
could you talk about what led | 4:15 | |
to your initial involvement in re-imagining? | 4:17 | |
Judy | I was a member of the Twin City Area of Presbytery | 4:22 |
and the executive, which was Bob Lucas, | 4:26 | |
asked me to specifically be the delegate, | 4:28 | |
the delegate from the Twin City Area of Presbytery | 4:33 | |
to this group who was planning this ecumenical conference. | 4:37 | |
So it was the ecumenical decade. | 4:45 | |
Churches in solidarity with women | 4:48 | |
and Sally Hill from the Metropolitan... | 4:51 | |
Twin Cities Metropolitan Church Commission | 4:56 | |
and she's deceased now, | 4:57 | |
but she was gathering a group and I was asked | 4:59 | |
to be the Presbytery representative to that. | 5:03 | |
Interviewer | So you were kinda | 5:06 |
in at the ground floor there. | 5:07 | |
Could you talk about some of your memories you might have? | 5:09 | |
I know it's been a long time, | 5:12 | |
but what the process was like and how it evolved | 5:14 | |
into the re-imagining conference? | 5:16 | |
Judy | I think the biggest one that I'm sure | 5:21 |
I think you probably have this from many, many people, | 5:22 | |
the biggest, the most intense memory | 5:26 | |
was when we named it. | 5:31 | |
Interviewer | Yes. | 5:33 |
Judy | We were all at a dinner meeting, dinner party | 5:34 |
and I don't remember where it was. | 5:37 | |
Mary Ann Lindy was there and, you know, | 5:40 | |
there were probably ten of us around the table | 5:42 | |
and we were trying to figure out | 5:44 | |
what we were gonna call this thing. | 5:45 | |
Interviewer | Mhm. | 5:48 |
Judy | And we came up with Timmy Gene and various words, | 5:49 |
but the scribe put the wrong name, | 5:55 | |
put the wrong spelling of what we were saying | 6:00 | |
on the whiteboard. | 6:04 | |
Interviewer | Mhm. | 6:05 |
Judy | And it turned out to "re-imagining" | 6:06 |
and we, so we looked at that and said, | 6:09 | |
"Oh, what do you think about that?" | 6:12 | |
And so we talked a lot about that | 6:14 | |
and decided that it was the Holy Spirit | 6:17 | |
moving us along. | 6:20 | |
(Interviewer laughing) | 6:21 | |
And here it was, re-imagining, and that's what it became. | 6:22 | |
Interviewer | I love it. | 6:26 |
That is great. | 6:27 | |
Judy | And then another one. | 6:29 |
I was part of the steering committee | 6:31 | |
as we struggled with a logo | 6:36 | |
and eventually the logo became a box | 6:41 | |
with flames of... | 6:45 | |
Except that they weren't red necessarily... | 6:48 | |
But flames coming out of this box. | 6:50 | |
Basically, you know, we had been in a box | 6:52 | |
and pretty soon the box had an opening | 6:55 | |
and everything, you know, poured out. | 6:58 | |
New ideas, new concepts, et cetera. | 7:01 | |
Interviewer | And I think I might know, | 7:05 |
but what did the flame represent? | 7:07 | |
Judy | Well, the flame was... | 7:11 |
It wasn't a flame because it wasn't red. | 7:14 | |
Interviewer | Oh, okay, mhm. | 7:17 |
Judy | But what was coming out of the box | 7:18 |
was all of this dodgy old, um... | 7:22 | |
This dodgy old grease that didn't work for us anymore. | 7:31 | |
Everything that was male, you know, | 7:37 | |
nothing female, | 7:41 | |
but here was this box with the open top | 7:41 | |
and all of this coming forth. | 7:45 | |
New ideas not locked up into a box anymore. | 7:48 | |
Interviewer | Yes. | 7:52 |
Judy | So we put that on letterhead | 7:53 |
and we put it on T-shirts and we put it on cups. | 7:56 | |
You know, we put it all over. | 7:59 | |
Interviewer | Mhm. | 8:02 |
And Judy, I'm wondering if you remember. | 8:05 | |
It sounds like there was an evolution process | 8:07 | |
to become kinda this theological colloquium | 8:10 | |
and it kinda grew. | 8:13 | |
Do you remember about how that process happened? | 8:14 | |
Judy | Uh, I'm not quite sure what you're asking. | 8:19 |
Interviewer | Oh, sure. | 8:22 |
Judy | It seems like the... | 8:24 |
Are you there? | 8:25 | |
Interviewer | I am there, sorry. | 8:27 |
Judy | It seems like um... | 8:29 |
That the initial participants were always there. | 8:33 | |
Interviewer | Okay. | 8:40 |
Judy | I don't think we added a whole lot. | 8:40 |
We might have added Randy. | 8:43 | |
Interviewer | Mhm. | 8:45 |
Judy | Later on. | 8:48 |
Interviewer | Randy Nelson? | 8:49 |
Judy | Randy Nelson, yes. | 8:52 |
Interviewer | Mhm. | 8:53 |
Judy | Manley was there at the beginning. | 8:54 |
I was there at the beginning. | 8:56 | |
I just... | 8:59 | |
Just a lot of people were there at the beginning. | 9:00 | |
I also left after I got married | 9:03 | |
and I got married end of May in '93 | 9:07 | |
and so I left. | 9:14 | |
I don't know if anybody else left, | 9:16 | |
but I was there through most of it | 9:17 | |
except for the, you know, the very end of it. | 9:19 | |
Interviewer | Mhm. | 9:22 |
Well looking at the minutes, | 9:25 | |
it looked like there were different ideas. | 9:27 | |
They were gonna celebrate the ecumenical decade, | 9:29 | |
but it looked like they weren't clear | 9:32 | |
about what exactly you were gonna do | 9:34 | |
and then it evolved into the global theological colloquium? | 9:37 | |
Judy | Yeah, that's true. | 9:41 |
I've written about this. | 9:45 | |
We thought initially that we would invite | 9:47 | |
women theologians along with a few hundred others | 9:51 | |
who would dialogue with each other about | 9:53 | |
issues that were important to women. | 9:55 | |
This was a good idea, but the funding wasn't out | 9:59 | |
and so we couldn't do that. | 10:02 | |
But after a while, Mary Anne somehow | 10:04 | |
got the funding straightened out | 10:07 | |
with the Presbyterian Church and we got the funding | 10:10 | |
and we decided that we would try to have this | 10:14 | |
big, big gathering. | 10:18 | |
Interviewer | Mhm. | 10:21 |
Judy | 2,000. | 10:23 |
We kept saying, "I think we'll invite the whole world". | 10:25 | |
(Interviewer laughing) | 10:28 | |
I said that many times. | 10:30 | |
"I think we'll invite the whole world". | 10:31 | |
Every single weekend, in the form of the speakers. | 10:34 | |
Because they were from the whole world. | 10:38 | |
Interviewer | Yes. | 10:41 |
The other really interesting thing about this re-imagining | 10:43 | |
was that it wasn't just a regular conference | 10:46 | |
where you invited in speakers | 10:49 | |
and I'm just wondering if you recall | 10:52 | |
about the worship and the art and how that developed | 10:53 | |
'cause that was so amazing that it involved | 10:57 | |
more than just speakers. | 10:59 | |
Judy | Right, right. | 11:02 |
The worship was phenomenal | 11:03 | |
and I credit Sue Side Martin. | 11:06 | |
You know, she is awfully busy, | 11:08 | |
but she was an extraordinarily creative musician | 11:10 | |
and artist, I guess, | 11:15 | |
and she would come to the meetings | 11:18 | |
with all of this, you know. | 11:20 | |
She created new songs. | 11:22 | |
You know, they got us into trouble too. | 11:26 | |
The songs did. | 11:28 | |
Interviewer | Mhm. | 11:29 |
Judy | She created new songs. | 11:31 |
She created new liturgy. | 11:32 | |
It was extraordinary. | 11:35 | |
I had never been to anything that was | 11:38 | |
quite as creative as that. | 11:40 | |
Interviewer | Mhm. | 11:41 |
Well I think that brings us to your experience | 11:44 | |
at the '93 conference...gathering. | 11:46 | |
Now, you mentioned you moved away | 11:48 | |
and then came back for the gathering | 11:51 | |
and I'm just curious what your experience | 11:53 | |
was like at that gathering that you had helped to plan. | 11:56 | |
Judy | Oh well, I remember walking in the door | 12:00 |
and tears... | 12:04 | |
I have to tell you this. | 12:06 | |
Even talking about it, I get a little weepy about this. | 12:07 | |
(Interviewer makes sympathetic sound) | 12:11 | |
I stood in the general area of the auditorium | 12:13 | |
and thought, "My gosh, we did it. We did it". | 12:19 | |
It was overwhelming and we never stopped that | 12:25 | |
and we walked into the gathering | 12:32 | |
with all of these thousand women and 83 men. | 12:34 | |
It was an overwhelming experience | 12:38 | |
and when we were all in the big room. | 12:41 | |
2,000 others in this big room, | 12:44 | |
that was pretty overwhelming too. | 12:46 | |
Interviewer | That is so moving to hear you say that. | 12:51 |
So powerful, after all these years, | 12:54 | |
and it was for so many people. | 12:56 | |
Judy | Yes, it was. | 12:59 |
It... | 13:01 | |
It freed up so many of us. | 13:03 | |
You know, I was preaching regularly | 13:07 | |
and, you know, many of us were | 13:09 | |
and this conference freed us up in many ways. | 13:11 | |
Although all the backlash that was happening | 13:18 | |
also put a damper on it considerably. | 13:22 | |
Especially those of us who were not in the Twin Cities | 13:25 | |
and I'm very aware that my experience in Pennsylvania, | 13:28 | |
Western Pennsylvania, | 13:35 | |
which is a very, very conservative area, | 13:36 | |
was very much different than the experience | 13:39 | |
of my steering committee friends in the Twin Cities. | 13:42 | |
The Presbytery that I was in in Western Pennsylvania | 13:51 | |
which is Beaver Butler Presbytery | 13:53 | |
they voted to condemn the conference | 13:56 | |
at the same time that the Presbytery | 13:59 | |
of the Twin Cities area was voting to affirm it. | 14:01 | |
Interviewer | Yes. | 14:04 |
Judy | So, I mean we were all | 14:05 |
called heretics in Pennsylvania about this | 14:07 | |
and so I, you know, | 14:11 | |
the experience was very much different, I think, | 14:13 | |
depending on where you were. | 14:18 | |
Interviewer | Mhm, which is why it's important | 14:20 |
to get your story. | 14:22 | |
Also, you wouldn't have had the same | 14:23 | |
kind of support as people would have had | 14:24 | |
in the Twin Cities, right? | 14:26 | |
Judy | True. Right. Correct. | 14:29 |
Interviewer | Yeah. | 14:31 |
I wanna hear so much about this. | 14:32 | |
I did wanna just ask when you said, | 14:34 | |
"It freed us up", | 14:35 | |
I just wonder if you could say | 14:37 | |
a little bit more about that. | 14:38 | |
Judy | Well, I think it freed us up eventually. | 14:42 |
Interviewer | Yeah. | 14:46 |
Judy | To be more... | 14:47 |
The conference freed us up eventually. | 14:50 | |
At least, I speak for myself. | 14:53 | |
I really did cower in a corner for a few weeks | 14:57 | |
in Pennsylvania. | 15:02 | |
I was afraid I was gonna lose my job. | 15:03 | |
I was afraid I was going to be | 15:06 | |
convicted of heresy. | 15:08 | |
Interviewer | Yeah. | 15:09 |
Judy | Oh, it was... | 15:12 |
Everywhere I went they spoke about re-imagining | 15:14 | |
it was cold. | 15:19 | |
Also the conference. | 15:20 | |
And so I was not in a place where | 15:23 | |
re-imagining was supported or affirmed | 15:26 | |
in any way, shape, or form. | 15:32 | |
Interviewer | Yeah. | 15:34 |
Judy | John was facing that too, | 15:35 |
but eventually I could, you know, | 15:37 | |
after a year went by | 15:41 | |
and because I was still preaching regularly. | 15:42 | |
Interviewer | Yeah. | 15:45 |
Judy | My preaching would take the form | 15:46 |
of more justice feminist issues. | 15:49 | |
I was thinking about this whole thing. | 15:55 | |
Do you remember the whole business | 15:57 | |
about the Clarence Thomas, Anita Hill? | 16:00 | |
Interviewer | Oh yes. | 16:02 |
Judy | Awful. | 16:03 |
Interviewer | Mhm. | 16:05 |
Judy | That happened before re-imagining | 16:06 |
and I preached on that in terms of justice issue. | 16:09 | |
That because of, you know, text that I could use | 16:15 | |
to deal with something like that, | 16:22 | |
I became more free to use the text | 16:25 | |
to talk about justice issues that I wouldn't have been | 16:34 | |
if re-imagining had not happened. | 16:39 | |
I mean that's kind of that... | 16:41 | |
The flames or the streamers coming out of the box. | 16:45 | |
I mean, we were not in the box anymore. | 16:49 | |
Thank goodness. | 16:51 | |
Interviewer | Yes. | 16:52 |
I have to ask, that is so fascinating, | 16:54 | |
do you remember what you said about | 16:56 | |
the Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas thing? | 16:59 | |
What biblical...? | 17:01 | |
That's fascinating. | 17:02 | |
Judy | I probably have the service somewhere, | 17:06 |
but I don't remember. | 17:08 | |
I do remember I was just aghast at the whole thing. | 17:09 | |
Interviewer | Yes, yes. | 17:14 |
Well, I was wondering, you know, | 17:17 | |
I do know that it affected you directly, | 17:19 | |
the backlash, | 17:22 | |
and you've already started talking some about that, | 17:22 | |
but could you say more about how you | 17:24 | |
were affected directly by it? | 17:27 | |
Especially given your context. | 17:29 | |
Judy | Uh, yeah... | 17:31 |
Let me see, how do I say this? | 17:35 | |
I can read you some of what I've written about this. | 17:40 | |
Interviewer | That would be great. | 17:45 |
Judy | One of the things that just, | 17:50 |
I didn't understand it. | 17:52 | |
Are you a Presbyterian? | 17:54 | |
Interviewer | No, United Methodist, actually. | 17:56 |
Judy | Okay, the Presbyterian Church | 17:59 |
is a church of the reformation | 18:00 | |
and our motto is "reformed, always reforming" | 18:02 | |
and in our service of ordination | 18:07 | |
in the installation of elders, speakers, | 18:10 | |
euchans, and ministers, | 18:12 | |
there is a sentence that is asked of every single person. | 18:14 | |
"Will you seek to serve the people | 18:18 | |
"with energy, intelligence, and" | 18:20 | |
here's the word, | 18:23 | |
"imagination and love?" | 18:23 | |
These words from our book of order. | 18:26 | |
The word "imagined", "imagination", and "re-imagining" | 18:30 | |
stunned many people and ignited a fire-storm | 18:34 | |
of words, condemnation. | 18:39 | |
Threats with charges of heresy. | 18:41 | |
Threats of withdrawal of funds. | 18:43 | |
Hate-mail and loss of jobs. | 18:45 | |
That word, that word is in our ordination. | 18:49 | |
Interviewer | Yes. | 18:53 |
Judy | Imagination. | 18:54 |
Interviewer | Yes. | 18:55 |
Judy | And yet, the word "re-imagining" | 18:56 |
for our conference just blew everything wide open | 18:58 | |
and the threats and the condemnation came from | 19:05 | |
the religious right, conservative and fundamental men | 19:08 | |
and a few women | 19:12 | |
and we were in... | 19:15 | |
John was in Pittsburgh Presbytery | 19:17 | |
and I was in Butler, Pennsylvania | 19:20 | |
which is, you know, close together. | 19:22 | |
They're strongholds of conservative theology | 19:24 | |
and vest any new possibilities | 19:29 | |
for the interpretation of the scripture. | 19:32 | |
Let me see, what else can I say about this? | 19:36 | |
I was... | 19:41 | |
Because I'd been on the steering committee | 19:43 | |
and part of that very supportive | 19:44 | |
group of men and women, | 19:46 | |
when I left and after the backlash started, | 19:48 | |
I was, I felt very alone in Pittsburgh | 19:52 | |
and I needed the support desperately of other members | 19:56 | |
of the steering committee and I had not made friends | 20:00 | |
yet in Pittsburgh | 20:03 | |
so I didn't have friends to talk about this with. | 20:05 | |
I was shocked over the hysteria | 20:12 | |
over the conference. | 20:17 | |
Even though I was in, you know, conservative | 20:19 | |
Western Pennsylvania, | 20:22 | |
I was still shocked about it. | 20:23 | |
Invoking this eminence for God | 20:27 | |
was just out of peoples' realm of possibility. | 20:29 | |
John and I were consumed daily | 20:35 | |
by what the negative press was saying | 20:38 | |
about re-imagining and every night | 20:40 | |
we would compare notes about what people | 20:42 | |
were saying about us and the conference | 20:45 | |
and I wrote in my journal at the time | 20:48 | |
that in order to survive, | 20:50 | |
I had to be someone I was not. | 20:52 | |
In order to survive with the put-down of women, | 20:55 | |
my mouth was taped shut, | 20:57 | |
my hands tied behind me, | 20:59 | |
and my feet were shackled. | 21:01 | |
That's what it felt like. | 21:02 | |
It was horrid. | 21:04 | |
And then Mary Anne Lindy was also being harangued | 21:07 | |
and you have interviewed her, have you not? | 21:10 | |
Interviewer | I have, yes. | 21:12 |
Judy | Good. | 21:14 |
She was harangued and verbally attacked | 21:15 | |
by those who had decided that re-imagining was heresy | 21:17 | |
and she was interviewed by Ted Koppel | 21:22 | |
and you know that, probably. | 21:25 | |
Interviewer | Mhm, mhm. | 21:27 |
Judy | Another... | 21:30 |
When I was voted into the Presbytery at Beaver Butler, | 21:31 | |
which is a requirement, | 21:34 | |
I got the nomination in order to work again at church. | 21:35 | |
Nobody asked me about the conference. | 21:42 | |
I mean, there wasn't a question entirely. | 21:44 | |
Nobody asked me about the conference, | 21:45 | |
but a woman got up to make a report | 21:47 | |
about the Presbyterian women and she said and I quote, | 21:50 | |
this is a quote, | 21:55 | |
"Like it or not, what they say about | 21:56 | |
"the re-imagining conference is true". | 21:58 | |
And the woman was getting her information | 22:02 | |
from the Layman. | 22:04 | |
Presbyterian Layman which is a conservative newspaper. | 22:05 | |
It's not connected with the church. | 22:08 | |
You know, it's an addendum here. | 22:11 | |
But it's very inflammatory. | 22:14 | |
Interviewer | Mhm. | 22:17 |
Judy | And what was interesting too | 22:18 |
that she did not go to the re-imagining conference. | 22:21 | |
She realistically knew absolutely nothing about it | 22:23 | |
and here she was criticizing it. | 22:26 | |
I finally came to my senses and thought, | 22:33 | |
"I cannot cower any longer", | 22:37 | |
so I, when people would ask me to talk about it, | 22:40 | |
I did | 22:43 | |
and I spoke at another large Presbyterian meeting | 22:45 | |
in the middle of the state | 22:49 | |
and they wanted me to discuss the issues | 22:51 | |
of re-imagining and I did | 22:55 | |
and one person came up to me and said later | 22:57 | |
that she was concerned about her daughter | 23:00 | |
and what would happen if she had questioned | 23:02 | |
the leadership of the church about | 23:04 | |
the issues of re-imagining. | 23:06 | |
She wouldn't be able to do that | 23:08 | |
because there was so much criticism about it. | 23:11 | |
At another Presbyterian meeting there were | 23:17 | |
more negative comments about Mary Anne Lindy | 23:19 | |
and a Presbytery member stood up and said | 23:24 | |
that Mary Anne Lindy was "out to destroy the church" | 23:28 | |
and I quote that. | 23:33 | |
Because of the re-imagining conference. | 23:35 | |
I was prepared to stand up and counter that statement, | 23:38 | |
but instead, the Reverend Jan Hall, | 23:41 | |
he's a former moderator of the General Assembly, | 23:44 | |
and he's a member of that Presbytery. | 23:48 | |
He stood up and said that he had | 23:50 | |
a different theology from Mary Anne Lindy, | 23:52 | |
but he respected her and her theology | 23:55 | |
and her faith stance and she was not | 23:58 | |
out to destroy the church and that kind of accusation | 24:01 | |
was just not appropriate on the floor of Presbytery | 24:05 | |
and he sat down. | 24:10 | |
And no more said. | 24:12 | |
So he was able to counter that. | 24:14 | |
Another thing, I had a governing body | 24:20 | |
called the session during that time | 24:24 | |
and every church has a session in our denomination | 24:27 | |
and I put together a package of information | 24:31 | |
supporting the conference and what the Layman was saying | 24:36 | |
and the conference, the session, | 24:42 | |
really didn't understand the lot of it. | 24:46 | |
I would say that the mindset would be | 24:48 | |
of the female and that I would really be | 24:51 | |
raked over the coals, | 24:54 | |
but I eventually, | 24:56 | |
it turned out that my ministry there | 24:57 | |
was a very positive ministry despite | 25:00 | |
the fact that the re-imagining had taken place | 25:03 | |
and that I was part of it. | 25:07 | |
Let's see here... | 25:11 | |
What else do I wanna say about this? | 25:14 | |
The issue of inclusive language | 25:20 | |
was such a big deal there at the re-imagining conference. | 25:23 | |
I do remember there was one point. | 25:28 | |
All of the women who are members | 25:31 | |
of the Church of the Brethren, | 25:33 | |
they stood up and got up on the rises | 25:35 | |
and decided that they were not | 25:40 | |
going to be members | 25:41 | |
of the Church of the Brethren anymore. | 25:42 | |
They were gonna rename them. | 25:44 | |
Rename that church. | 25:46 | |
(Judy laughing) | 25:48 | |
I don't know what... | 25:49 | |
Everybody just hooted and hollered about that | 25:51 | |
because it was to see these few women, | 25:53 | |
there were probably only six or eight of them, | 25:56 | |
they decided of being Church of the Brethren. | 25:59 | |
Interviewer | Mhm. | 26:02 |
Judy | I do have to say that the creative... | 26:09 |
The creative theology that came out of re-imagining | 26:12 | |
was just stunning. | 26:17 | |
It was just... | 26:19 | |
It was such a freeing for all of us, I think. | 26:21 | |
And this is why I also tried to impress | 26:28 | |
upon John Buchanan. | 26:32 | |
We had had dinner together. | 26:36 | |
I mean, he must have come to Pittsburgh Presbytery | 26:38 | |
and so John and I were invited to a dinner party | 26:42 | |
and I ended up sitting beside him | 26:46 | |
and so we began to talk about re-imagining | 26:51 | |
and I told him of my involvement in it | 26:57 | |
and of what it meant to me and | 27:00 | |
a whole lot of other women | 27:02 | |
and then he went on to General Assembly | 27:03 | |
and he was part of this task force | 27:06 | |
that reviewed it and I believe eventually | 27:09 | |
came out and they affirmed it. | 27:13 | |
Boy. | 27:15 | |
It was... | 27:19 | |
Our language was about my husband, John. | 27:21 | |
While I was dealing with the hysteria | 27:28 | |
at the small church level, | 27:30 | |
John was dealing with the fallout | 27:32 | |
and the backlash at the executive level. | 27:33 | |
He was under fire for just having | 27:37 | |
gone to the conference. | 27:38 | |
Generally, he was well-liked in the Presbytery, | 27:40 | |
but now a small group of disgruntled pastors | 27:42 | |
in the Presbytery were out to make waves for him | 27:46 | |
and cast him in a negative light | 27:49 | |
because of this conference. | 27:50 | |
The small group wanted to fire him, | 27:52 | |
even so his personnel evaluation was very high. | 27:55 | |
Was very good. | 27:59 | |
The stress that he was under was enormous, | 28:01 | |
as was I. | 28:03 | |
Eventually we decided that he would not be a victim | 28:05 | |
and he would resign and so he did. | 28:07 | |
He resigned from the Presbytery. | 28:11 | |
My statement after his resignation | 28:14 | |
was that if he had not resigned from his job, | 28:15 | |
he probably would be dead soon | 28:19 | |
and so in hind... | 28:22 | |
His choosing to leave that position | 28:23 | |
was a good decision for us | 28:25 | |
and we moved on with our lives, | 28:27 | |
but it's interesting too that we both | 28:29 | |
struggled with difficult issues. | 28:32 | |
We'd been married only for a year, | 28:35 | |
and the people and the stress at the time was immense. | 28:37 | |
John had intense back spasms for several weeks. | 28:41 | |
I had a stroke in my eye because | 28:45 | |
of high blood pressure that just | 28:49 | |
was higher than a kite and it was triggered, | 28:51 | |
all the stress on me. | 28:54 | |
It was amazing that our marriage | 28:56 | |
hung together during all of this time | 28:59 | |
and we're still together and very happy. | 29:01 | |
Interviewer | Yes. | 29:03 |
Judy | But it was awful. | 29:04 |
So, okay, that's enough of the backlash. | 29:07 | |
(Interviewer laughing) | 29:11 | |
Interviewer | Oh, well Judy, that was really important | 29:12 |
and thank you for that. | 29:15 | |
I did want to ask you one other thing | 29:16 | |
about in your essay you wrote about | 29:19 | |
how you also went to the clergywomen in the Presbytery, | 29:22 | |
but you weren't supported by them. | 29:26 | |
Judy | Oh they were not... | 29:29 |
Oh that's right, I did. | 29:31 | |
I went to... | 29:33 | |
I went to gathering and one woman did. | 29:34 | |
Oh no, don't give up. | 29:37 | |
We're really going to find out what happened. | 29:39 | |
That there was no... | 29:42 | |
There was no support for me at that... | 29:45 | |
At that gathering and, | 29:48 | |
as I remember it, the women of Beaver Butlery Presbytery | 29:52 | |
were afraid of me. | 29:57 | |
They were afraid of anything I said | 29:59 | |
might rub off on them, I think. | 30:02 | |
That I come from a different mindset. | 30:05 | |
I was a progressive as a theologian. | 30:08 | |
They were stuck in Beaver Butler Presbytery | 30:11 | |
and they could not be free themselves | 30:15 | |
and so they did not talk to me | 30:19 | |
and they didn't... | 30:22 | |
It was awful. | 30:26 | |
However, my one exception | 30:28 | |
was a former Salvation Army person | 30:32 | |
and she was so supportive and so... | 30:36 | |
She understood what I was saying. | 30:40 | |
She went with me to several of these gatherings | 30:42 | |
where I was asked to speak. | 30:45 | |
So, you know, I took her with me | 30:47 | |
because I knew she was supportive. | 30:49 | |
She didn't say anything. | 30:51 | |
I knew she was supportive of me, | 30:53 | |
so that was a very interesting situation | 30:55 | |
because here she was. | 31:00 | |
She used to be part of the Salvation Army. | 31:01 | |
Interviewer | That's amazing. | 31:06 |
And actually that brings me to the question, | 31:08 | |
given everything that you and John were facing, | 31:09 | |
how did you get through this? | 31:12 | |
That was one place you got support. | 31:15 | |
How else did you manage to get through this? | 31:17 | |
Judy | Well we talked a lot. | 31:23 |
I mean we were both going through it. | 31:25 | |
Interviewer | Yes. | 31:26 |
Judy | You know, they were after him. | 31:27 |
There would be things in the paper | 31:29 | |
about John Clements, executive Presbytery | 31:31 | |
and his wife, the Reverent Judith Strausz-Clement | 31:35 | |
who was on the steering committee of re-imagining. | 31:38 | |
So we were... | 31:42 | |
The key was that we were both going through it. | 31:43 | |
We exercised a lot during that time. | 31:46 | |
I mean, we still do, | 31:50 | |
but we were really doing a lot of exercising. | 31:51 | |
You know, we prayed together. | 31:55 | |
We just talked endlessly about this | 32:00 | |
until we finally got through it. | 32:04 | |
I think the fact that we did not stay in Pittsburgh. | 32:07 | |
I mean John had basically had enough of it | 32:14 | |
and although we didn't talk about this openly, | 32:19 | |
he started, you know, to look a little bit | 32:24 | |
for another job and, you know, not really | 32:27 | |
but just keep his options open, | 32:32 | |
but he... | 32:35 | |
The fact that he did resign | 32:39 | |
rather than take all of the stuff that was | 32:41 | |
being hurled at him, | 32:46 | |
that was good for him and me and us, | 32:49 | |
that we weren't victims anymore. | 32:53 | |
We were in charge. | 32:56 | |
We decided that we've had enough of this. | 32:58 | |
Interviewer | Where did he go from there? | 33:01 |
What position did he go to from there? | 33:03 | |
Judy | He went to Carlisle Presbytery | 33:06 |
as an interim executive and from there | 33:09 | |
he went, after Carlisle Presbytery | 33:15 | |
he came to Blackhawk Presbytery which is Northern Illinois | 33:20 | |
and he had an extraordinarily successful... | 33:25 | |
Job there. | 33:34 | |
We were there for, what, five or six years | 33:35 | |
in Milwaukee and Geneva, Illinois, and Wilmette, Illinois, | 33:37 | |
But his... | 33:46 | |
He had a very successful... | 33:47 | |
He was the executive presbytery for Blackhawk Presbytery. | 33:49 | |
Interviewer | I'm glad to hear that. | 33:55 |
Judy, how do you account for this backlash? | 33:56 | |
Judy | How do I account? | 34:05 |
Well, boy... | 34:07 | |
I think people grow up with... | 34:11 | |
You know, conservative notions, | 34:16 | |
conservative theology. | 34:19 | |
They've never been around anything else. | 34:20 | |
They've not been encouraged to question anything | 34:24 | |
and if you did question you were a heretic | 34:31 | |
and so you need to accept what was said, | 34:37 | |
whether you liked it or not, | 34:45 | |
or agreed with it or not, | 34:47 | |
or if you had, you were not able to offer | 34:49 | |
any other possibilities or suggestions. | 34:55 | |
You know, you asked originally | 34:58 | |
for my definition of re-imagining. | 35:00 | |
Interviewer | Yes, yes please. | 35:05 |
Judy | My definition | 35:07 |
(Judy clears throat) | 35:09 | |
I said a theological convocation | 35:10 | |
by women for women and men held in Minneapolis | 35:13 | |
in November of '93. | 35:17 | |
This event gave women and men the courage | 35:19 | |
to think new thoughts and discuss them | 35:23 | |
as well as voicing thoughts that had | 35:26 | |
long been in their hearts and minds, | 35:28 | |
but perhaps never voiced. | 35:31 | |
This was a convocation where all of us | 35:33 | |
looked through different and/or new lenses | 35:36 | |
which revealed new understandings | 35:40 | |
regarding scripture and beliefs. | 35:42 | |
Re-imagining was a life-giving history-making event. | 35:44 | |
A watershed for the Presbyterian Church | 35:49 | |
and other Christian denominations. | 35:51 | |
Interviewer | That's great. | 35:54 |
That is great. | 35:56 | |
Judy | John has always said, | 35:57 |
"We put on new lenses, new glasses | 36:01 | |
"and we have never looked out of | 36:05 | |
"these new glasses before | 36:06 | |
"and we saw and heard some new things | 36:09 | |
"and it was important to talk about them". | 36:13 | |
Interviewer | That's a good image. | 36:19 |
Before we move on, I did want to ask about, | 36:21 | |
you were at the 1994 General Assembly | 36:24 | |
of the Presbyterian Church | 36:26 | |
and re-imagining was a big issue there. | 36:28 | |
So I just wanted to know if you have any | 36:30 | |
recollections from that assembly | 36:32 | |
and from the report that was finally issued there. | 36:35 | |
Judy | I remember that we were on... | 36:40 |
Let me see... | 36:42 | |
I did not speak at the assembly, | 36:44 | |
but John did, my husband did, | 36:46 | |
and he only had about 90 seconds. | 36:50 | |
There were so many people who wanted to speak, | 36:53 | |
but John had, you know, better credentials than I did. | 36:57 | |
He was the executive for Pittsburgh. | 37:00 | |
So he got up and he spoke to it. | 37:02 | |
I remember sitting and being in prayer the whole time | 37:08 | |
as I sat there and listened to the haranguing again | 37:15 | |
and listened to people who were supporting it | 37:19 | |
and praying that my conversation with John Buchanan | 37:21 | |
would, he would recall that and he would | 37:28 | |
understand how important this whole conference was | 37:34 | |
to so many women and a few men. | 37:40 | |
I do remember I was just on pins and needles | 37:45 | |
about what in the world was gonna happen | 37:49 | |
and we were so relieved when word came out that | 37:53 | |
I think they affirmed the conference, | 38:00 | |
you know, they didn't deny it, | 38:02 | |
but we were so relieved when it happened. | 38:05 | |
Interviewer | Mhm, thank you, thank you. | 38:08 |
I wanted to ask you about now, | 38:14 | |
almost 25 years later, | 38:16 | |
what, when you look back on it, | 38:18 | |
what aspects of re-imagining were most | 38:20 | |
significant to you and why? | 38:22 | |
Judy | One of them was how important | 38:28 |
inclusive language was | 38:32 | |
and I, you know, back in seminary, | 38:34 | |
I made inclusive language a big deal for myself | 38:37 | |
and vowed that I would use inclusive language | 38:45 | |
in preaching and in my churches | 38:48 | |
and in my liturgies and I did that | 38:52 | |
and I didn't tell my congregation that I was doing it. | 38:54 | |
I just did it and I figured they | 38:58 | |
probably wouldn't know any different | 39:00 | |
and it wouldn't occur to them that | 39:03 | |
that's what I was doing. | 39:05 | |
I think it...anyway... | 39:07 | |
Interviewer | And I assume that | 39:11 |
there wasn't a reaction against it. | 39:12 | |
You didn't experience that. | 39:14 | |
Judy | No, no. | 39:15 |
Interviewer | And just to be clear, | 39:17 |
you're probably using "God", | 39:18 | |
you weren't using... | 39:20 | |
Were you using feminine language or not using...? | 39:21 | |
Judy | Neutral. I was trying to be neutral. | 39:24 |
Interviewer | Yes, right, yup. | 39:28 |
Judy | I think what re-imagining did for me, | 39:30 |
it certainly fired me up again. | 39:35 | |
(Interviewer laughing) | 39:37 | |
You know, I mean, to be creative | 39:39 | |
and it fired me up about my faith | 39:43 | |
and what my faith meant to me. | 39:46 | |
When I was in Butler, Pennsylvania | 39:51 | |
I could hardly believe it. | 39:53 | |
When I got there, | 39:55 | |
now Butler, Pennsylvania is Western Pennsylvania | 39:57 | |
and that was the church that I was in | 40:00 | |
when re-imagining, everything blew up, | 40:03 | |
but there was a woman there who had four little children | 40:05 | |
and when I got there she stood in the background | 40:10 | |
and watched me as I shook hands with all, | 40:14 | |
you know, people that I had met, et cetera, | 40:17 | |
and she finally came and introduced herself | 40:20 | |
with her four kids hangin' on her. | 40:23 | |
She just kept talking with me and talking | 40:25 | |
and talking and talking. | 40:28 | |
Came to my house and she was interested | 40:30 | |
in my library and so she read some of the books | 40:32 | |
and pretty soon, what do you know, | 40:35 | |
she decided she would go back to college. | 40:37 | |
So she went back to Westminster College | 40:40 | |
and got her degree and in the meantime | 40:43 | |
she took her four children to Northern Ireland | 40:47 | |
and they spent a year there. | 40:50 | |
She just wanted to have a religious experience | 40:53 | |
and her husband was the principal | 40:57 | |
and could afford to send her so she went. | 40:58 | |
And then after that, she said | 41:02 | |
okay I think I'm going to go to Pittsburgh because seminary. | 41:04 | |
I said "oh, Gosh", | 41:07 | |
but she did that too and she is now | 41:09 | |
an ordained coregent person | 41:12 | |
in Beaver Butler Presbytery which is, | 41:14 | |
you know, very conservative place | 41:17 | |
and she is not and she is also the moderator there. | 41:19 | |
Interviewer | Wow. | 41:22 |
Judy | So "wow" is right. | 41:23 |
So you think about re-imagining certainly changed, | 41:25 | |
changed me, I mean, changed her, | 41:33 | |
I mean she didn't go, but the effects of re-imagining | 41:35 | |
from me to her was immense. | 41:38 | |
Was just immense. | 41:41 | |
Re-imagining was, you know, something | 41:44 | |
of new ideas, it was inspiring, | 41:47 | |
it gave new possibilities for us. | 41:49 | |
There were more women in campus I think | 41:52 | |
because of re-imagining. | 41:54 | |
It was amazing | 41:58 | |
and for Connie to have done all of this | 42:00 | |
and then, you know, a few years later | 42:07 | |
I went back and I was part of her ordination. | 42:09 | |
Interviewer | Wow. | 42:13 |
Judy | Yep. | 42:15 |
Interviewer | That is great. | 42:15 |
So would you... | 42:19 | |
How did your involvement in re-imagining | 42:20 | |
change your perspective on feminist theology | 42:23 | |
or the church, would you say? | 42:25 | |
Judy | It just increased it. It just increased it. | 42:28 |
It was, you know, I was... | 42:30 | |
I was very open to it anyway. | 42:38 | |
To inclusive language particularly | 42:40 | |
and to hear about that | 42:44 | |
because I didn't know anything about that | 42:51 | |
and I didn't know about Sophia | 42:54 | |
and about standing on the street corner | 42:57 | |
and, you know, that was really important to me | 43:01 | |
although Sophia is...it's hard to understand | 43:10 | |
and you really need more instruction | 43:16 | |
and more ideas about that. | 43:19 | |
About her. | 43:22 | |
That re-imagining also gave us, you know, so many of us | 43:25 | |
new ideas about how to incorporate a text. | 43:28 | |
How to interpret a text. | 43:33 | |
Use scripture. | 43:36 | |
Another thing that re-imagining did | 43:40 | |
I think younger women tend to be sold on re-imagining | 43:43 | |
went back to church because they had new ideas | 43:49 | |
and they could counter all of this male hierarchical stuff. | 43:53 | |
They could counter that | 44:00 | |
and they were more clergywomen I think. | 44:02 | |
The seminary that I went to the year that I was there | 44:05 | |
was the first, I mean I started in 1982. | 44:09 | |
Graduated in '87. | 44:12 | |
When I started that was the first year | 44:15 | |
that the women were 50 percent of the student body, | 44:17 | |
but United Seminary in the Twin Cities | 44:22 | |
is one of the... | 44:26 | |
That was unusual for a seminary | 44:29 | |
to have that many women, | 44:31 | |
but we did. | 44:33 | |
Interviewer | Yeah. | 44:34 |
Judy | What else, let me see. | 44:36 |
More women in the church. | 44:38 | |
More women in leadership. | 44:40 | |
New insights. | 44:42 | |
I mean, in the churches that I went to, | 44:43 | |
I think none of them had had a female | 44:48 | |
as the senior pastor or the head of staff. | 44:52 | |
Interviewer | Wow. | 44:55 |
Judy | Until I got there. | 44:57 |
Interviewer | Yeah. | 44:59 |
Judy | I mean, the church in Wilmette, | 45:02 |
now I don't know if you know | 45:06 | |
Wilmette is the north shore of Chicago. | 45:07 | |
Very, very affluent. | 45:11 | |
And I went and it's about 450 member church | 45:13 | |
and I was the head of staff, the senior pastor, | 45:16 | |
so I was preaching all the time. | 45:21 | |
I did have an associate. | 45:23 | |
But when I left there was a big party for me | 45:25 | |
and there was a woman who came, | 45:30 | |
an old woman who came walking across the body room | 45:33 | |
to come to the microphone and I thought, | 45:37 | |
oh I wonder what's gonna happen here, | 45:40 | |
and what she did say was, | 45:43 | |
"I was one of those women who didn't want a female. | 45:46 | |
"Who did not want Judy as our pastor | 45:49 | |
"and I can tell you that whoever we get | 45:52 | |
"is as half as good as she is, | 45:55 | |
"I'll be satisfied". | 45:57 | |
(Interviewer laughing) | 45:58 | |
Because of re-imagining, you know, | 46:01 | |
women were more accepted. | 46:04 | |
I mean, I think. | 46:06 | |
We had a lot of difficulties because of the backlash, | 46:09 | |
but eventually there were younger women, | 46:13 | |
there were more women in churches' leadership. | 46:15 | |
It was an interesting sort of progression | 46:26 | |
which started out strongly with the backlash, | 46:30 | |
but you know we got through it. | 46:33 | |
Interviewer | I missed the last part of it. | 46:37 |
The backlash and then what was the end of that? | 46:39 | |
Judy | Well, I mean, the backlash was pretty bad, | 46:42 |
you know, at the beginning. | 46:45 | |
Interviewer | Yes. | 46:47 |
Judy | I said after we got through that, | 46:47 |
the result of re-imagining | 46:50 | |
and the leadership of women that happened | 46:52 | |
and more women in the pulpit and more women | 46:58 | |
in other kinds of leadership, | 47:01 | |
I mean it really did help us in terms of | 47:03 | |
the women who were preaching and teaching in churches | 47:08 | |
and the acceptance of... | 47:16 | |
Interviewer | That is great. | 47:19 |
I wanted to ask one follow-up question | 47:21 | |
about something you said. | 47:23 | |
That was all great. | 47:24 | |
You mentioned something about Sophia | 47:25 | |
and how language can be somewhat difficult. | 47:27 | |
Could you say a word about that? | 47:32 | |
What makes it somewhat difficult? | 47:34 | |
Judy | I don't know why it is. | 47:39 |
I mean, I got the book She Who Is | 47:41 | |
and it's about Sophia and I think that that | 47:45 | |
particular text is a really hard one. | 47:50 | |
Let me see here... | 47:57 | |
I can't say a lot about that. | 47:58 | |
Interviewer | That's fine. | 48:01 |
You've said a lot of good things. | 48:02 | |
I know you've talked about many of the, | 48:04 | |
a lot of the legacy of the re-imagining | 48:06 | |
conference and community. | 48:09 | |
Do you think, | 48:12 | |
what is the greatest legacy of it? | 48:12 | |
Judy | The greatest legacy probably is... | 48:18 |
More women in church leadership. | 48:27 | |
Interviewer | Mhm. | 48:29 |
Judy | Inclusive language. | 48:31 |
Interviewer | Yes. | 48:32 |
Judy | New... | 48:34 |
Looking at texts from new perspectives. | 48:36 | |
Interviewer | Yes. | 48:40 |
Judy | I think that's probably... | 48:43 |
Interviewer | Yeah. | 48:45 |
Do you think that inclusive language | 48:46 | |
is being used in churches today? | 48:48 | |
Presbyterian churches? | 48:51 | |
Judy | Yeah, we belong to a UTC church | 48:54 |
here in Seattle and they are very strong | 48:57 | |
on inclusive language. | 49:00 | |
Interviewer | Yes. | 49:02 |
Judy | So it's... | 49:04 |
I think the more progressive churches are. | 49:07 | |
They're very tuned in to inclusive language, | 49:12 | |
but now, you know, there are other churches | 49:16 | |
that are not. | 49:18 | |
I mean Seattle Presbytery | 49:19 | |
(Judy laughing) | 49:23 | |
Well, I will tell you this when the tape is off. | 49:24 | |
Interviewer | Sure, that's fine. | 49:28 |
We can have that conversation later. | 49:29 | |
That sounds good, yes. | 49:31 | |
So what does re-imagining mean today? | 49:33 | |
And by that I don't just mean re-imagining | 49:36 | |
in terms of the conference, | 49:39 | |
but what needs to be re-imagined today in the church? | 49:40 | |
Judy | I think continuing where we left off before. | 49:45 |
It's not a perfect world. | 49:48 | |
It's not a perfect Presbytery. | 49:52 | |
It's not a perfect other denominations. | 49:53 | |
I mean, we still have our issues. | 49:57 | |
I mean, there's a whole lot of, | 50:00 | |
you know, racial stuff, gay and lesbian | 50:01 | |
transgendered people are still not welcomed | 50:05 | |
in most churches | 50:08 | |
and I think my denomination is one of those. | 50:15 | |
It's not as good, | 50:17 | |
as inclusive with gay and lesbian people, | 50:19 | |
but the UTC church where we are now | 50:22 | |
is very, very inclusive. | 50:25 | |
It's just to me what it can be, | 50:29 | |
and that's why we're here in this particular church. | 50:32 | |
What else would I say about that? | 50:39 | |
I guess I don't have anymore to say about that. | 50:44 | |
Interviewer | Well that's great. | 50:46 |
That is really good. | 50:47 | |
I have one last very specific question | 50:49 | |
and that is we're developing a re-imagining website | 50:51 | |
and it's gonna be both archival, | 50:54 | |
collecting materials, | 50:57 | |
but also hopefully collecting resources | 50:58 | |
for today for people to use | 51:01 | |
and we're looking for ideas about | 51:03 | |
what should be included in it, | 51:04 | |
how to let people know about it. | 51:07 | |
Any ideas you have would be really helpful. | 51:08 | |
Judy | Well, I thought about that | 51:12 |
and I don't know. | 51:14 | |
I think it was disappointing to a lot of us | 51:17 | |
who realized that re-imagining was not | 51:20 | |
gonna last forever. | 51:29 | |
I mean, we couldn't keep it going forever | 51:31 | |
because it was such an inspiration | 51:35 | |
for us, you know, for a number of years, | 51:37 | |
but, you know, it finally did go by the wayside | 51:40 | |
in terms of being on the website, | 51:45 | |
on a website. | 51:50 | |
So what it needs now. | 51:52 | |
I don't know. | 51:53 | |
It needs money. | 51:54 | |
Interviewer | Yes. | 51:55 |
(Interviewer laughing) | 51:56 | |
True. | 51:57 | |
Judy | Needs money. | 51:58 |
That's always a big thing. | 51:59 | |
As broad as you could make it, you know. | 52:05 | |
Being careful not to limit it in terms | 52:09 | |
of just mainline denominations because | 52:13 | |
mainline denominations, you know, are struggling. | 52:15 | |
Interviewer | So when you say it's broad, | 52:21 |
would you mean broad in terms of Christianity? | 52:22 | |
Broad in terms of interfaith? | 52:25 | |
What are you thinking? | 52:27 | |
Judy | Both. Both. | 52:29 |
We have mainline denominations here in Seattle, | 52:33 | |
but we've got some offshoots here | 52:37 | |
that are really large churches | 52:39 | |
and my guess is that the inclusive language | 52:43 | |
is not pronounced in some of those churches | 52:45 | |
and how you get that, I don't know. | 52:50 | |
I think that's a toughie. | 52:52 | |
You know, people writing, I suppose, | 52:58 | |
some of these, | 53:01 | |
some feminist, the old feminist preachers, | 53:03 | |
I would think some of what they have written | 53:11 | |
would be helpful on our website. | 53:15 | |
Interviewer | Yeah. | 53:20 |
And it's fine if you can't think of anyone specific. | 53:22 | |
Is there anyone in particular you're thinking of? | 53:24 | |
Judy | Hmm...no. | 53:31 |
You know, I hadn't really thought of that. | 53:35 | |
Hadn't really thought of it. | 53:36 | |
Interviewer | That's fine. | 53:39 |
Well Judy, this had been incredibly helpful. | 53:40 | |
Is there anything we haven't discussed | 53:42 | |
that you would like to add? | 53:44 | |
Judy | Oh, one of the things | 53:47 |
that I remember was Dolores, | 53:49 | |
has anybody talked about Dolores Williams? | 53:52 | |
Interviewer | Little bit. | 53:54 |
Say some more about it. | 53:55 | |
Tell me. | 53:56 | |
Judy | Dolores Williams was one of the | 53:58 |
speakers for re-imagining and she | 54:02 | |
kept saying, you know, | 54:04 | |
I wanna talk about what Jesus lived for, | 54:10 | |
not what Jesus died for | 54:13 | |
and then she talked about all the blood and guts | 54:15 | |
that were hanging on the cross or something like that | 54:17 | |
and the whole re-imagining just erupted | 54:20 | |
with hoots and hollers and agreement with her. | 54:24 | |
She's an African American professor, I think. | 54:31 | |
Or was at that time at seminary, | 54:34 | |
but for her to say that was just incredibly real, | 54:37 | |
you know, for a lot of people. | 54:44 | |
Interviewer | Were you at that workshop, that session? | 54:47 |
Judy | That was part of re-imagining. | 54:50 |
I mean, that was part. | 54:52 | |
She was one of the speakers. | 54:53 | |
The main re-imagining conference in '93. | 54:55 | |
And when she said that, | 55:01 | |
boy, she got a lot of flack from that. | 55:02 | |
Interviewer | Yes, she did, yep. | 55:04 |
Is there anything else? | 55:11 | |
That was helpful too. | 55:12 | |
Judy | Um... | 55:14 |
Let me see, I gave you John Mild's name. | 55:18 | |
Interviewer | Yeah. | 55:21 |
And we're still recording now. | 55:22 | |
Judy | Yeah, okay. | 55:25 |
I don't think so. | 55:26 | |
(Judy laughing) | 55:30 | |
I've said a lot already. | 55:31 | |
Interviewer | You did, and it was wonderful. | 55:33 |
Thank you. | 55:35 | |
I'm gonna turn off the recording now | 55:36 | |
if that's okay with you? | 55:37 | |
Judy | Yes. | 55:40 |
Interviewer | Great, great, thank you. | 55:40 |