Bos, Johanna / Re-Imagining Collection / Duke Digital Repository

Sherry

Johanna, we are now recording.

0:01

Thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed.

0:02

It would be helpful to get some background,

0:05

so if you could just say your full name and perhaps

0:07

spell it as well.

0:10

(Johanna chuckles)

0:11

Johanna

My full name is Johanna Wilhelmina

0:14

Hendrika van Wijk-bos, so the shortest version of the

0:17

formal version if Johanna W.H. van Wijk-bos,

0:22

and the last names are spelled v-a-n, small letters,

0:27

capital W, I-J-K dash B-O-S, one S only.

0:31

(chuckling)

0:37

Sherry

Thank you, that's great.

0:39

Johanna

It bears just a small comment.

0:41

I dropped my family name even though in Holland,

0:45

I'm originally from Holland, it's customary for women to

0:50

have both their family name and their married name.

0:56

But the van Wijk of course was so cumbersome that I felt

1:00

I couldn't really bear to explain it all the time,

1:04

so I did drop it for a number of years.

1:08

And then when I wrote my first book that I really had

1:10

devised, which Reformed and Feminist, that was not

1:16

an assignment, I dedicated it to my parents who were both

1:19

deceased at the time, and I wanted to use my family name.

1:24

And so after that I have for official purposes always

1:29

used my family name.

1:32

These days I don't ask people to say it.

1:34

I just have it on documents and stuff like that because

1:36

to honor them because they were such supportive people

1:40

in my career and for my person.

1:45

Sherry

Oh, I'm glad you told that.

1:48

Names really do matter actually as you said in your book

1:51

Reimagining God, and that just proved it again.

1:53

Thank you so much.

1:56

Johanna

Exactly.

1:57

Sherry

Now are you lay or clergy?

1:58

Johanna

I'm clergy.

2:01

I'm ordained to the Presbyterian clergy.

2:02

So as we now say again teaching elder, and I was ordained

2:05

in 1977 at the Downtown United Presbyterian Church

2:12

in Rochester, New York.

2:22

And my husband was on the staff at the time.

2:25

That church of course also bears mentioning because it was

2:28

a church that not so,

2:33

well let's see, 12 years later maybe called Jamie Sparr

2:39

to be on the staff, out of which the whole hullabaloo

2:44

happened in interdenomination in the early '90s.

2:50

So Jamie was of course the one that kind of became the

2:55

burning point for that whole controversy,

2:58

and we were very much in touch with that church.

3:01

We've loved the church there, and so we were very

3:05

aware of that.

3:08

We were, I'm close friends with Jamie.

3:09

It's a great honor I think because (mumbling)

3:12

of course was also the Presbytery that overtured the General

3:17

Assembly for ordination of women to the ordained ministry.

3:22

So you know this is a great history.

3:25

Sherry

It is.

3:28

Johanna

And we forget our history so often,

3:29

so I'm trying to stay aware of that.

3:31

It's in the Burntover District, and very close actually

3:33

to the Seneca Falls Conference where Elizabeth Katie Stanton

3:38

and Susan B. Anthony held force, and I have visited that

3:42

museum a number of times.

3:48

So in any case that gives you a little bit of depths

3:50

to that particular background.

3:52

I was ordained to teach at the seminary.

3:55

I never had a position as a minister, parish minister,

3:57

not for want of trying, but the days were still

4:02

a little bit I think closed off to women unless they

4:06

really were hard up.

4:10

(laughing)

4:12

So I did a lot of preaching in the Rochester area,

4:15

and I had contacts with a number of congregations,

4:18

but then when, my husband's and my decision was that

4:24

if I got an offer to teach at a place where the position

4:30

was a tenure track position that he would follow me.

4:34

So he followed me to Louisville, Kentucky,

4:38

together with our three-year-old son who had very little

4:40

choice but to follow us.

4:44

Sherry

And when would that have been, Johanna,

4:47

that you moved to Louisville?

4:50

Johanna

In '77, so I was ordained as soon as I

4:51

got the call.

4:54

I had been ordained, I'm kind of forgetting what the

4:56

title of that was.

5:03

There was something you could do if you, at the time,

5:04

this has completely disappeared, but you could be all

5:10

but ordained, which is what I was.

5:15

It was like an ABD (mumbling).

5:19

(laughing)

5:22

I had everything.

5:24

I had everything in place.

5:25

I had done all my exams.

5:26

All I was waiting for was the call, and once the call came

5:28

the process went just boom boom boom.

5:31

And there was no restriction on where the call came from.

5:33

So the call came from Louisville.

5:36

I was ordained in the Tennessee Valley Presbytery,

5:38

and then I became a member of what was then the Louisville

5:41

Presbytery, neighbor to mid-Kentucky Presbytery,

5:45

and now the mid-Kentucky Presbytery.

5:49

And I think I was maybe one of four women in

5:51

the Presbytery in '77, not a lot of us, just very few.

5:53

Sherry

Wow, oh that's fascinating.

5:57

And Johanna, when and where were you born?

5:59

Johanna

I was born on the eighth of August,

6:02

about four, five months into the second World War

6:06

in Holland or The Netherlands.

6:09

The Netherlands is really the official name,

6:11

but it's kind of a mouthful so I often say Holland,

6:13

except that my husband was born in Holland, Michigan

6:17

and raised there, so we usually made the distinction

6:20

between Holland the The Netherlands,

6:24

but I often will also use Holland.

6:27

So I was born in a small town, and the first five years

6:30

of my life were spent during the second World War.

6:33

I have described that in detail in Reformed and Feminist,

6:37

which is really a very personal record also about my

6:39

early years, the way I became a feminist and all of that.

6:43

Sherry

Yes, oh wow.

6:47

And you've already kind of talked about this, but actually

6:49

where did you go to graduate school or seminary?

6:53

Johanna

I went to a preparatory school in Holland.

6:56

There was a classical school where we had to do classical

7:02

languages as well as three modern languages,

7:06

and I also did Hebrew there because I was attracted to go

7:09

and study theology.

7:13

So that from that preparatory school which had six

7:14

grades in it, you went directly to your field of choice.

7:18

So if I had done medicine, I would have gone directly

7:23

into medicine.

7:25

There was no more, it was sort of a college and a

7:26

high school in one, and so I went into theology.

7:29

And I had already done two years of Hebrew,

7:34

so that was sometimes recommended if students were

7:36

interested in theology, and I was interested in studying

7:40

theology from a very young age.

7:46

Don't ask me why.

7:47

It was just what I wanted to do.

7:49

I thought there was a lot of interesting stuff there,

7:51

and I've not been disappointed.

7:54

I have to say that.

7:55

So I went to Langdon University, which is one of (mumbling)

7:56

mercy state schools.

8:01

It's an old school, 16th century.

8:03

Sherry

Wonderful.

8:08

Johanna

And I lived there, and then I went to Scotland

8:10

for a year to study, and then I met my husband which was

8:13

fortuitous because his Dutch was not so good,

8:17

and my English had gotten to be pretty good, so.

8:20

(laughing)

8:22

Sherry

So you met in Scotland.

8:24

Johanna

He was a Presbyterian pastor, and he was

8:25

on his Fulbright, and I met him in Laydon, and we got,

8:28

we met in '65, and we were married in,

8:32

that's not possible, we must have met in the fall of '64,

8:41

but in any case we got married in '66.

8:44

Sherry

Ah, that's wonderful.

8:49

Well, I knew you were teaching at Louisville at the time of

8:51

Reimagining and after, and I know you've written a whole

8:54

book about this, but could you give a short description

8:57

of when and how you became interested in feminist theology?

9:00

Johanna

Yeah, I should mention that I did my PhD

9:04

at Union (mumbling).

9:07

(laughing)

9:09

So I was kind of ABD when I left Holland and went back to

9:14

do one more exam there, and then had to choose whether

9:19

I would just write a dissertation or whether I would get

9:23

a degree in the states.

9:26

And I thought it'd be more, it'd be smarter, it'd be more

9:27

useful to do it in the States.

9:31

And so we lived on Long Island, and my husband was a

9:33

community minister there.

9:37

And I went in and out of the city for years to get my

9:38

PhD in Old Testament.

9:42

I switched from medieval Dutch history into Old Testament.

9:44

So I was very busy.

9:49

I mean, we are all busy, and I'm still busy,

9:51

but at that point I was an immigrant.

9:53

I'd been cut off from my roots.

9:56

I was busy I think coping with a pretty deep trauma

9:58

from that, and I think the move was more traumatic

10:01

than I wanted to acknowledge at the time.

10:04

I've gone back into my journals lately and seen how

10:07

homesick I really was.

10:10

So I think there was a lot to digest for me,

10:12

and also a lot to digest in terms of doing my doctorate,

10:15

and what I really wanted to do with my life because

10:20

that had until that point not been very clear.

10:23

So I went to Union in my late 20, well when I was 28

10:25

I think I started, so not old, but I was an adult

10:29

and married.

10:34

And then a few years later we had our son, so marriage,

10:36

family, questions of identity, vocation and everything

10:41

bore down on me, which is my way of saying that I

10:46

came to feminist theology in my own estimation when I

10:51

look back somewhat later as a full adult.

10:54

So feminism and feminist theology were for me approach

10:58

to the door of liberation theology.

11:06

There was no liberation theology.

11:09

There were no courses in it at Louisville

11:11

Presbyterian Seminary.

11:13

And one of my students said we have to, don't you think

11:15

we should have a course in liberation theology?

11:18

And what I knew about liberation theology you could put

11:21

in a thimble really.

11:24

My husband was the one who had read (mumbling)

11:26

and who had read (mumbling) on liberation theology.

11:30

And so we talked it over, and my husband was also a

11:35

great advocate and person that stimulated me in all

11:38

my endeavors.

11:43

And he said yeah, that sounds like a great idea,

11:44

you should do that.

11:46

And liberation, so in the second year in Louisville,

11:48

that would have been in '70, probably the winter of '79

11:51

I started that course, liberation theology.

11:57

And I took it from three perspectives, Latin America,

12:00

African American, Black theology.

12:06

James Cohn was really pretty hot at the time.

12:11

And also feminist theology, so I considered that to be

12:14

a liberation theology.

12:18

And that was really for me I would say intellectually

12:20

the door through which I came to feminist theology

12:24

was liberation theology.

12:27

And I still feel the most attracted to feminist theology

12:29

most broadly conceived in terms of the fact ...

12:36

Sherry

Johanna?

12:42

Johanna

Short end of the stick and not getting

12:44

educated, that violence can swim--

12:45

Sherry

Johanna, I'm sorry to interrupt.

12:48

There was a break there, and I missed some of what you said.

12:50

You said intellectually you came to feminist theology,

12:52

and then I lost you.

12:55

Johanna

Oh, I'm so sorry.

12:57

Through liberation theology, so I still think I think today

12:58

there's never really left me that feminist theology

13:02

has to be very broadly conceived.

13:07

So it's always about not just the middle class women,

13:10

not just the white women, but it's about poor women,

13:14

women across the globe who are today, you know,

13:16

just not really our situation is not good.

13:20

And I think that's very important.

13:25

I try to teach my students that because sometimes in the

13:28

United States the temptation for young women is to think

13:32

oh, we've made it.

13:35

Well, we have not made it at all, even in the States,

13:36

but we need to look at the whole, in a very broad spectrum.

13:39

I think like early the writers that I was influenced by

13:44

were Rosemary Rousser, of course, and she has such a broad

13:49

conception of the lack of really what women are

13:54

deprived of, historically and also globally.

14:00

Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza came a little bit later for me.

14:05

Mary Daley was actually hugely influential on me.

14:09

I'm not, I was never counted myself completely in

14:13

accord with her, but when I heard her maybe four times

14:20

in my life.

14:24

I mean, actually heard her, and then read most of the

14:26

early books especially.

14:31

(mumbling) was very influential.

14:34

And I always felt that she propelled me a little bit further

14:38

down the road.

14:42

I mean, she was the one who was out there being the most

14:44

radical of us.

14:48

You know, she never offended me.

14:49

My husband found her very empowering because he thought

14:51

it was empowering to listen to a woman who wouldn't

14:54

let men speak.

14:57

So she was very influential in a very kind of broad

14:59

way also, and then so I've always tried to stay up,

15:04

I've had to stay up with my field, but I'm also compelled

15:08

to stay up with feminist thinking, not just theology,

15:13

but also in the secular world.

15:17

Dale Spender, the Australian author, rates very high.

15:21

Robin Morgan, you know, all the sort of classical.

15:31

So I began to, I had to really expand my reading list

15:34

pretty widely.

15:38

(mumbling) was of course already, you know, was already

15:40

way up there, and so all of that I tried to incorporate

15:44

in my teaching.

15:49

So that's a little bit I think about how I came to

15:52

feminist theology.

15:55

And then, of course, there's the Bible, right?

15:57

There's the Bible.

16:00

So in my book of Reformed and Feminist, which was a book

16:01

I wrote in the early '90s.

16:05

Yes, I wrote it for a big partner, and I was teaching

16:10

in France in '89, '90.

16:13

And (mumbling) John Knox published that.

16:16

And that's pretty much I think a record.

16:20

I should say something else here.

16:23

So what I just described was the intellectual development,

16:26

but I also was emotionally and I think maybe emotionally

16:31

is not the right word.

16:36

My sentiments as a grown up person were ready,

16:40

I was ready to put all kinds of things together.

16:46

And what I put together was the experiences that

16:49

I'd had in the war, which I was very young of course,

16:53

I was five when it ended, but in Reformed and Feminist

16:56

I was able to articulate what I think happened in

17:00

my consciousness, consciousness is maybe the best word,

17:05

that what I had experienced was a victimization on account

17:08

of not bad behavior or committing crimes,

17:15

but simply on who you were.

17:22

So if you were Dutch in my context, you were a victim

17:24

because you were in an occupied country.

17:29

And then of course, the Jews among us experienced that

17:32

10 times more in every country.

17:37

It wasn't even a matter of national identity.

17:39

And I think this had a deep influence in my psyche,

17:42

that I was finally able to understand what oppression

17:47

really is and what it's really after.

17:52

That it's really a destroying force because of what

17:55

I experienced as a young person.

18:00

And even though I was only five, of course my whole

18:02

formative years were after war years.

18:05

And then after war years was when all the news came out

18:08

about what had actually happened in the second World War

18:11

to the Jewish people and other groups of people like

18:16

Gypsies and other people that simply were who they were.

18:20

And I think it's just, it marked me for life,

18:25

both in the sense of a kind of trauma, but that's kind of

18:31

just the personal part of it.

18:37

I think also in terms of how I see gender oppression,

18:38

heterosexism, all of those ought to be destroying forces,

18:44

and they're out to destroy, so none of them are benign.

18:50

I think they're not all thought out.

18:56

I don't think, you know, all men sit there wanting to

18:58

destroy women.

19:01

That's not what I mean, but I think the ideology is

19:02

extremely deep seated.

19:05

(mumbling), whom you probably know, who wrote her

19:06

story on the creation of patriarchy was a Jewish immigrant

19:11

actually from Austria, and also had an influence on me.

19:16

I don't agree particularly on what where she traces

19:23

patriarchy from, but she has this great definition

19:27

in the back of the Creation of Patriarchy.

19:31

She defines a lot of terms that she says that

19:34

sexism is the ideology of patriarchy, so even where

19:38

patriarchy has been modified, or as we live,

19:45

and I think we live in a modified patriarchy in the States

19:49

with a lot of progress made by women.

19:52

That the ideology of patriarchy has to be tackled because

19:56

if it isn't, then things can revert like nothing.

20:01

And I think we saw that in the States exactly in

20:05

the debates about reproduction and in the debates

20:09

about the pill.

20:12

I mean, I thought what?

20:13

But then I thought yes because all we've had is access.

20:14

We've had access, and we've not really changed ideologies.

20:18

And not that I'm saying that I'm blaming us or anything.

20:22

I think this is a huge task.

20:26

It will take a long time before we make progress

20:28

on ideologies.

20:32

They're very ingrained I think still in all our contexts,

20:34

the church, the society, the classroom, the way we teach,

20:39

you know, everything.

20:44

Anyway, so that's an earful, but you get a bit of a sense.

20:46

I have described a lot of that in Reformed and Feminist.

20:51

If you wanna take a quick look at that, I'm sure they

20:53

have it in some library there.

20:57

It's still in print, so it's still, it was surprising to me.

20:58

Reformed and Feminist, you know, I may not today,

21:03

if I wrote it today I might say some things a little

21:07

differently, but it is a book I'm pretty proud of.

21:10

And I was amazed at how many people hooked into it.

21:12

I thought this would be so personal because I described

21:19

the war years, how I became a Calvinist, my whole adoption

21:22

of the paradigm where the Bible is in the center.

21:27

And I thought this is gonna sound so alien.

21:32

And then I found out in the mid '90s that there were

21:35

college kids that were reading it and liking it,

21:39

and it was just stunning to me.

21:42

But I think it sort of managed to be both personal

21:44

and also universal in the sense that it describes

21:48

experiences lots of people can have if they wake up

21:54

to what's going on in the world.

21:59

Anyway, that's a lot about that, but it has a lot to do.

22:01

I think Reformed and Feminist was for me the expression of

22:04

my formative years of actually embracing feminism,

22:09

articulating it where it came from.

22:16

I give a lot of credit in the book to the women students

22:18

who put pressure on the administration to hire

22:23

woman faculty.

22:27

I was the only woman on the faculty for a while.

22:28

And also too United Presbyterian Wwomen.

22:31

UPW gave me my first platform, and I love speaking.

22:35

I love presenting, I'm sort of a ham, you know,

22:39

it's kind of good.

22:42

Some people in my professional are, some are not.

22:44

I'm not saying it's bad or good, but it's just the way I am.

22:46

And so I did a lot of speaking for UPW, and they gave me

22:49

also a writing assignment.

22:56

I wrote Weaving the Fabric of Faith, which was the biblical

22:58

background for the Apostle's Creed.

23:02

So you know, and then when you do that,

23:04

they invite you to speak everywhere.

23:09

So they did that, and then when I really became a feminist,

23:11

and I felt then in the late, let's say the late '80s,

23:17

mid to late '80s when I would go out to speak somewhere

23:22

that I would have to say that.

23:25

I would introduce myself and say I'm a Christian feminist.

23:27

You know we all, that became such a big thing that we

23:30

locate ourselves, right?

23:33

And today I would say even more, I'm White,

23:35

and blah blah blah.

23:38

So they took some distance from me.

23:39

I've always regretted that.

23:43

I felt that that was too bad.

23:44

It may also just be that when I came through there were

23:46

very few women, and that they had plenty of women

23:51

to choose from, but I think there was some real

23:53

distance taking.

23:57

And then also I joined so fociferously in the struggle

23:59

for the ordination of gays and lesbians.

24:04

And I think that there was a bit of a cost there

24:06

in terms of, I still got to speak in places, but you know,

24:09

I think it was a little bit too edgy.

24:13

I became a little too edgy for them, which is fine.

24:18

You know, I have no feelings of hardship at all,

24:20

and I think it's a great organization.

24:24

Sherry

Thank you, Johanna.

24:26

Boy, that is fascinating.

24:28

It's so helpful, thank you.

24:29

If we could move to Reimagining, this was an important

24:31

context for it for sure.

24:35

You spoke at the '93 gathering, and you talked about

24:37

Reimagining language, and I'm wonder if you could say

24:41

a little bit about how you initially got involved.

24:43

Maybe we could start there.

24:47

Johanna

Yeah, they invited me to speak there,

24:49

so I was one of the afternoon speakers.

24:50

I still have the booklet with my picture in it

24:52

and all the songs and everything.

24:54

I didn't bring it with me because I have to watch out

24:56

toting too many books, you know, when you go on a

24:59

long trip like I am.

25:03

But I have it still, and I remember they invited me

25:04

I think, you know, conferences like that, people must have

25:09

told you, but they were years in the planning of course,

25:13

as they should be.

25:15

And they invited me early on, and I was so excited

25:17

about being invited.

25:21

Now I must have heard something about it, but I accepted,

25:22

and I had it a year earlier than it was gonna take place.

25:27

I was gonna turn up a year early.

25:31

(laughing)

25:33

Gives you a sense of the eagerness with which

25:35

I did participate.

25:38

Sherry

Wow.

25:40

Johanna

I loved being a part of it.

25:41

Maryann Lundy was a good friend of my husband and me

25:42

at the time because she worked at the offices, of course.

25:47

And I don't know whether she was the one who proposed

25:52

my name, but that's how I got involved.

25:57

That how I got invited to, somebody sent me a letter

26:01

asking whether I would be willing to speak,

26:05

and I jumped at the chance.

26:08

I can only tell you that.

26:09

Sherry

Yes, and what do you remember about

26:11

that experience at the '93 gathering, Johanna?

26:13

Johanna

I thought it was extraordinary.

26:18

We went with, and invigorating, we went with seven people

26:20

from Louisville I think.

26:27

And there were two men, my husband went also,

26:29

and one male student, and then there were five women,

26:32

four students and myself.

26:35

And I'm trying to think of whether we rented a van

26:38

or something or how we did this because we wanted to

26:44

always keep the cost down for the students.

26:47

I thought the whole set up was fabulous.

26:51

I loved being seated around the round tables.

26:53

I loved the idea of doing art.

26:59

I still have the picture that I made on the table

27:02

up on my office wall.

27:05

Sherry

Really?

27:07

Johanna

Yeah, I never done any of that.

27:08

I had never done anything with crayon, and they had these

27:11

wonderful oil-based creypas, and ever since then I've

27:13

used that in my teaching.

27:18

In my smaller seminars we do, we make pictures,

27:19

we do the same thing.

27:25

People draw, not taking time out, but just sitting there

27:27

while we're talking and drawing and making pictures.

27:32

Sherry

And that's because of Reimagining.

27:35

That's great.

27:37

Johanna

Because I think, well of course that became

27:39

something really well known, drawing of the different

27:42

intelligences, right?

27:45

Sherry

Yes.

27:46

Johanna

And so that's what that was.

27:48

And of course it loosens something in your brain,

27:49

so I think people do better in discussions when they

27:54

have something to do with their hands, as long as they know

27:57

this is not going to be graded.

27:59

Some are very good at it, some are not too good at it,

28:02

it doesn't matter, so we do that.

28:05

I loved all the singing.

28:08

I'm a singer and love singing, and singing I have probably

28:10

always done in my classes, but I was more encouraged,

28:14

so we do a lot of that also.

28:17

And kind of shocking you out of a rigidity I think

28:20

of presenting.

28:27

I liked the way people were in the center,

28:29

and the platform moved around.

28:31

I think physical space is so important, and I thought the

28:34

physical set up was very enlivening and promoted

28:37

good discussion, and so we had good discussions around

28:47

that table.

28:50

There were some presentations of the main presenters

28:52

that I remember better than others, but that's just

28:56

my memory.

28:59

Bernice Reagan Johnson, who sang part of it.

29:00

It was just absolutely great.

29:03

And there were some others.

29:06

There's a young person, well she's not young anymore,

29:09

Christine.

29:14

I think she's in Minneapolis, she's in (mumbling),

29:15

and she did a really good job on the title Phoenician Woman.

29:18

I remember that.

29:22

Sherry

Yeah, Christine Smith probably.

29:23

Johanna

Pardon.

29:25

Sherry

Christine Smith, I think?

29:26

Johanna

Yeah, that may have been.

29:27

She had been at Princeton, and moved to St. Paul.

29:29

She was at, yeah, so she was wonderful.

29:32

There were lots of them.

29:36

I can't remember a speech, but I really hooked off and said

29:40

you know, this is lousy.

29:43

So the speeches were great.

29:44

The art was great.

29:47

I liked all that.

29:48

I like weaving the music in doing, really honestly I mean

29:49

you'll think I'm just crazy because there wasn't anything

29:53

that I found negative.

29:56

I can't remember anything that I really didn't like.

29:58

And my students loved it.

30:02

Sherry

Did they?

30:05

Johanna

I know my students became radicalized.

30:06

I know that (mumbling) of course was very stimulated.

30:07

And I had a Korean woman student with me, and she,

30:11

her life just changed I think after that.

30:16

And then saying at the end (mumbling) I'm singing

30:19

we're marching in the light of god, which had been one

30:24

of the songs I've loved, I had loved for a bit.

30:28

And doing that in such a large group was so great.

30:31

I thought I'd gone to heaven, I mean, it was great.

30:33

Sherry

Oh, I love it.

30:36

That's so many great memories, Johanna.

30:37

You mentioned you took students back to the other

30:39

gatherings, and I'm just wondering if there are specific

30:42

moments from those that particularly struck you

30:44

or were important.

30:47

Johanna

It's a little harder I think because I was

30:51

so involved with Voices of Sophia at the time too,

30:53

so that probably does stand out a little more in my memory.

30:56

But the one that I remember the best was when Mary Daley

31:00

spoke, and there was a bit of an altercation between

31:05

her and Alice Walker's daughter.

31:13

Sherry

Rebecca Walker.

31:17

Johanna

It was a kind of gen, were you there?

31:18

Sherry

I was there, yes, yep.

31:20

Johanna

And there was a sort of generational conflict,

31:22

and Mary Daley felt that she was spoken about as if

31:25

she were dead, and she said that actually,

31:29

don't talk to me as if I am dead.

31:32

And I thought that was interesting.

31:34

I mean, was that second, third rate feminism thing

31:35

going on, and I think it may also, how many of those

31:39

were there?

31:43

Were then two of them, or how many of them?

31:45

Sherry

There were six more after the '93,

31:47

a total of seven.

31:50

Johanna

Seven, so I probably went to three of those,

31:51

but that's the one I remember the best because that was

31:54

pretty lively, I thought.

31:57

(laughing)

But students were, or the students, they weren't all

32:00

my students, but there were students there that I knew

32:04

were somewhat taken aback by Mary Daley.

32:08

She could have that influence on people.

32:12

I never had that.

32:14

I always thought she was a kick in the pants.

32:15

She was just something else.

32:17

(laughing)

32:19

so I talked to her there.

32:21

I will not recall when she amused me the most

32:23

because you do not want that on your tape.

32:28

It was on the opening of the, when she opened,

32:30

gave the major speech at the Society of (mumbling)

32:34

Literature Conference in San Francisco.

32:38

That was something else, and you know, I spoke with her

32:39

a couple of times.

32:43

She came to Lexington once for a women writers conference,

32:44

and students and I went there, and she was just so nice

32:50

and ordinary.

32:55

We talked to her, we carried her backpack for her.

32:57

She was, I thought she was an extraordinary person.

32:59

I truly do.

33:02

I'm sure that she was not the easiest person to have

33:03

in your surroundings, you know, somebody who was so odd,

33:06

but she always had thoughts that were, she was so much

33:11

her own person, and would think about things that you had

33:16

maybe not thought about before.

33:21

The last time I heard her it was cloning that was

33:24

on her mind, and she had some very, very I think

33:28

some words of warning against all of that.

33:34

She was the one who pointed me in the direction of

33:38

the military, the phallic expressions of the military.

33:41

I think she was very good about that, how much of the

33:50

military is really an expression of what she would

33:54

call philocracy, you know, that was her word.

33:58

Yeah, an amazing person.

34:03

So that's what I remember the best about the (mumbling)

34:08

communities, but that's not really a good comment on

34:11

how good they were, how bad they were because I'm,

34:14

I was more involved I think in trying to be supportive

34:16

and helpful in the Voices of Sophia movement in the

34:23

Presbyterian church, which also directly came out of that,

34:26

Reimagining.

34:31

Sherry

And I wanna get to that.

34:32

Before we do, could we talk about the backlash

34:34

and how it affected you personally?

34:36

Johanna

Yeah, so the backlash came pretty much

34:40

hard and fast.

34:43

I had backlash at my seminary.

34:46

I received correspondence from, there was one church

34:48

in Texas that sent me copious letters, I think urged on

34:53

by maybe their pastor.

34:59

I was accused of heresy in the letters.

35:01

They wanted to burn my books.

35:04

There was total madness actually that went on.

35:05

I stopped opening them because it became so depressing.

35:10

They wanted to, they wrote to my president, to the president

35:14

of the seminary, John Mulder at the time, wanting action

35:20

against this heretic.

35:24

And actually he was in public pretty good.

35:26

He was not so good in private, but he was pretty good

35:31

in public because he defended my right as academic freedom.

35:33

He felt as an academic I had the right to speak

35:39

the way I wanted to, so he was pretty good about it.

35:41

So where I was fairly safe is that I was a

35:46

tenured professor.

35:50

And so that of course was unfortunately not true

35:52

for Maryann Lundy.

35:55

We were close to that situation, and you know one of my

35:57

colleagues was actually quite instrumental in getting

36:01

her fired, so it was a very difficult time, yeah,

36:04

in terms of that.

36:09

I wouldn't say that personally I suffered.

36:10

I just got mad because, you know, people said these

36:13

idiotic things.

36:18

I just couldn't believe them.

36:19

And I wrote a letter to our president telling him that

36:21

if the seminary had lost money on my account,

36:26

then I would be happy to refund whatever they had lost.

36:28

And so he sent me a note saying that they lost $130

36:33

to his knowledge, and thought yeah, well then I think

36:38

you're just fine

36:41

(laughing)

with your millions of dollars in endowment.

36:44

I don't think that I'm gonna refund $130,

36:46

so it was funny.

36:50

My board, the board at the seminary, a couple of

36:52

members got mad.

36:55

They listened to my speech, and they didn't like the fact

36:57

that I had called patriarchy a pissing contest.

37:00

I think I already told you that, and I thought of all the

37:03

things to get mad about, what is wrong with you,

37:05

you got mad about that?

37:10

But you know, Presbyterians, they like to be nice and ...

37:13

Yeah, they like to be respectable, and that's not

37:16

respectable, and so that kind of got up their nose,

37:21

but that's as far as it went.

37:26

There was an extensive correspondence.

37:28

There was also something interesting happening.

37:31

One of my more conservative colleagues wrote a letter

37:34

to the layman.

37:38

You know, the layman also took us all to task.

37:39

You know all that.

37:41

I'm sure you have in the archives of that.

37:43

Sherry

Yes.

37:47

Johanna

And he wrote a letter taking up for me

37:48

even though he did not agree with me on the content

37:52

of what I said he felt that I had the right.

37:56

Again, it was that principal of academic freedom that

38:00

I had the right to speak the way I wanted to speak.

38:03

I have to say that the president also said some positive

38:07

words actually about my speech before he caught on that

38:10

the board didn't like the words because they got that

38:15

(mumbling),

38:17

he took a couple of steps back.

38:20

But yes, so I think what I experienced was psychological

38:23

pressure.

38:27

I got some letters from former students who were

38:28

disappointed.

38:32

I got into kind of an extended discussion with one of them

38:34

whom I had liked and whom I respected.

38:38

I thought a lot of them, they haven't been there,

38:41

so they all were talking about what they didn't

38:44

know about really.

38:45

(laughing)

38:47

But they became very mad.

38:49

He was very angry also.

38:52

I just sort of in the end just hooked off and thought well,

38:54

there's not much I can do here.

38:57

You know, I can't make much progress here.

39:00

I think, I'll tell you what I've always said what part of

39:02

what made people mad was that we had such a good time.

39:07

Sherry

Say some more about that.

39:12

Johanna

Feminists are not supposed to have a good time.

39:15

They're not supposed to be laughing together.

39:17

They're supposed to be dower and have a bad sense of humor

39:20

and be real battle ax's, and we had just such a good time.

39:24

And that I think really got up people's nose.

39:29

I mean psychologically, you know, not in their heads

39:33

not thinking and so, but I truly think it did.

39:36

And I think the other thing I think in the questions

39:40

that you have here you ask how I would account for it?

39:45

Sherry

Yeah.

39:54

Johanna

I think what had happened, or what still is

39:56

perhaps the case is that what was pretty commonplace

39:59

for people up to date on feminist theology,

40:05

in fact none of us were all that radical in some ways,

40:09

not like Mary Daley, that this had not filtered through

40:14

to the pew, and I do feel that the clergy is responsible

40:19

in terms of educating our people.

40:24

We are teaching elders, so that needs to be done,

40:27

and I don't think that happened enough, and so it came

40:30

as a big surprise.

40:33

That's one part I think how I account for it.

40:34

And the other is that really we had not made as much

40:39

headway ideologically as perhaps some of us thought we had.

40:42

And so the church is still back there somewhere,

40:47

and I think unfortunately, whether I don't know,

40:52

I'm not holding the Reimagining conference responsible,

40:57

but now I feel that we have taken 10 steps backward

41:02

in terms of the language for god in the church,

41:08

and we're losing people.

41:12

We're now losing people because they no longer can

41:14

reconcile the either neutral language or totally

41:20

partriarchal language with their view of god, and we're

41:25

losing really good people, and in concerns me deeply.

41:29

I think many of my students are just hanging on by

41:35

their fingernails.

41:38

Many don't want to go into ministry because they don't,

41:41

they see this as an abusive environment or just too

41:44

tricky to enter into, and it's not a good,

41:47

I don't think we're in a good place as it,

41:52

not so much the Presbyterian, you know, I think we're just

41:54

part of the mainline denominations.

41:57

And it has sorted itself out a little bit since

41:59

Presbyterians at least came on board in terms of lesbian

42:06

and gay ordination, but I think we're sort of trundling

42:11

behind the culture, you know.

42:14

The Supreme Court passed it first.

42:17

Same sex marriage came first there,

42:20

so I think what are we doing?

42:22

So we're just sort of keeping up with the culture,

42:24

and some of the mainline denominations aren't even

42:28

doing that, and not thinking things through in terms of

42:32

making progress on our, on the image we have of god.

42:38

It's depressing.

42:43

Sherry

You know, you said you weren't blaming

42:45

Reimagining.

42:47

Do you think however that the backlash of Reimagining

42:48

is in part what caused this regression in terms of

42:51

inclusive or expansive language in the churches?

42:57

Johanna

Maybe.

43:00

The cause and effect thing is a little hard for me.

43:02

It could be also that it's this wave, this ebbing and

43:05

flowing just like at the end of the 19th century and

43:10

the opening of the 20th century, you know,

43:15

the vote for the franchise was stalled, right?

43:18

It was totally stalled until Alice Ball took everything

43:23

in hand and started to rouse the old guard again.

43:26

So maybe we're looking for new leadership.

43:30

I'll be there, I'll be onboard, I'm telling you,

43:33

(laughing)

43:36

for a totally, you know, an awakening, new awakening

43:38

I would say.

43:42

And I think the new awakening, if it happens,

43:43

will take a different form.

43:48

The Reimagining conference was after all under the

43:51

auspices of the World Council of Churches.

43:54

It was a Christian conference.

43:56

I think that we need to move more in the direction of

43:58

interfaith relations and movements and thinking with

44:01

Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, because we may have more

44:10

in common with one another than we have in common with

44:16

our own, people in our own faith community.

44:19

Sherry

Yeah, yeah.

44:24

Johanna

So I'm looking, so I think we need to be

44:25

looking for something new actually in that direction.

44:28

I don't know whether you agree, but with the Louisville

44:30

group we are deliberate about making this an interfaith

44:35

effort, whatever anniversary we're going to have,

44:39

because we don't want to make compromises on language.

44:43

We want to be sort of past that.

44:50

I don't wanna be mired in that struggle again

44:53

about language.

44:56

It's time to move, and we haven't moved.

44:57

We've moved backward if anything, don't you think?

45:02

Sherry

Yeah, oh that's been a common reaction.

45:04

Yes, I agree.

45:06

I just wanna clarify something which is really

45:07

interesting here.

45:10

In moving the interfaith direction, did you say that

45:11

that's getting away from the language issue,

45:14

moving beyond it?

45:17

Johanna

I think that would be with people who all have,

45:19

I meant moving past in the sense that we're all on board,

45:23

that we cannot live with a totally masculine language,

45:28

not with a totally masculine product in our heads.

45:31

It's just not going to move us forward.

45:35

And there are people in Judaism and people in Islam

45:39

I think that are completely on board with that.

45:42

That's where we need to go.

45:46

We need to move forward together, and just you know,

45:49

I'm still a Christian, and I'm still part of a faith

45:51

community you know, but that's not where things are

45:54

going to happen I think.

45:59

Sherry

Yeah yeah.

46:01

Johanna

And maybe that's okay.

46:02

Maybe something new will be born out of all of this.

46:05

So that's kind of what I was, that's what I meant.

46:09

Sherry

So we're not still gonna fight that battle,

46:12

just move beyond it.

46:14

Johanna

Right, in the sense that the battle,

46:15

that battle is past.

46:17

I mean, Reimagining God was published in '95.

46:19

Elizabeth Johnson wrote the phenomenal book She Who Is,

46:24

a phenomenal book in the '90s, that reimagining god

46:28

also begins with that, also the (mumbling).

46:33

I mean, this has all been done.

46:36

We're not gonna go over all that ground again,

46:38

and so we should just wake up and smell the coffee,

46:41

you know, that's what I think.

46:44

(laughing)

46:47

Just get on with it.

46:49

I'm not gonna talk about, I think what's gonna be

46:51

fascinating is looking at contributions of women in the

46:56

different faith communities and how we learn from

47:01

one another, how we are not just victimized but

47:05

contributors, how we can construct theology together.

47:10

That's exciting to me.

47:15

So anyway, that may all just sound totally utopian, sorry,

47:18

but whatever.

47:21

I'll live into the utopia, that's what I'll do.

47:23

(laughing)

47:26

Sherry

I love it.

And it sounds as if you're saying that the way forward

47:31

is not to continue this discussion within the Christian

47:35

community, but to link up with feminists,

47:39

interfaith feminists, and that's where the movement

47:42

forward is gonna happen.

47:44

Johanna

That's what I think.

47:46

If there is forward movement in the denomination,

47:48

I'll be the first on board with that, of course you know,

47:51

but I don't see it happening.

47:54

I mean, even in the most progressive, I mean part of a

47:56

more light congregation, even in the most progressive

47:58

of our congregations, certainly in what I am,

48:02

which is the Bible Belt, it could be that things are

48:06

different in some other parts, and I'll totally allow

48:09

for that, but as a denomination I think we're not,

48:11

we're not really ...

48:16

We're not really joining the battle where it should

48:19

be joined.

48:26

I'm saying all the arguments have been made.

48:27

We've done all that.

48:29

We don't need to go over that ground again.

48:31

I don't wanna make the arguments again.

48:33

It's like making the argument over and over again

48:36

that women ought be ordained.

48:38

Who want to do that, right?

48:40

Sherry

Yes.

48:43

Johanna

So you can't stay stuck there, but I don't mean

48:44

to say that it's not important also for the denomination

48:47

to move forward.

48:51

Whether that will happen or not, I don't know.

48:52

I think the new hymnal in the Presbyterian church is

48:56

an out and out disaster.

49:01

I hope that's on my tape that I said this because it's--

49:04

Sherry

Tell me why, Johanna.

49:09

Johanna

Because of the language.

49:10

It has maintained all the lord language, all the king

49:12

language, all the strong patriarchal images that are also

49:15

images of power.

49:19

It isn't just that they're masculine images.

49:21

It's also images of power.

49:23

And if you're coming those two, it think it's ...

49:25

a total regression.

49:30

I think the new hymnal, The Praise, whatever it's called,

49:34

Praise the Lord I think.

49:37

(laughing)

49:39

I can't remember what it's called.

49:40

(laughing)

49:42

Sherry

A mental block.

49:43

Johanna

I had a block on board.

49:44

I was actually because my dear husband died five years ago,

49:47

and he was such a wonderful feminist and such an activist,

49:50

and I was gonna dedicate a hymnal in my congregation

49:55

to him, you know, you could do that, and put his name in

49:59

one of the front.

50:02

And I've been there a couple of times singing from it,

50:04

and I thought oh my god, I'm not gonna do that.

50:06

My poor David would turn around in his grave

50:08

if I did that, so I'm not doing that.

50:11

And I'm either, so I think I should say this.

50:15

I don't think that language in itself will

50:19

save us and will create total equality for women,

50:26

but it is a given that I think we do need to do this.

50:30

It's one of the things that you have to do without

50:34

which you're not gonna make the progress you need to make.

50:40

And I think an Reimagining conference was a breath

50:43

of fresh air.

50:47

It was not beholden to this old images,

50:48

and maybe when there are more new images,

50:54

when there is more freshness in the reimagining,

50:59

the old images don't have to die.

51:03

It's just that we keep hanging onto them.

51:07

(laughing)

51:09

Well, I think in Reimagining I actually am, I'm usually

51:12

pretty surprised when I read that myself when it says that

51:16

we have crucified god on the cross of patriarchy,

51:20

and that it's an actual violent deed against god.

51:25

I think I say that at the end, and I'm always kind of

51:31

surprised.

51:34

It's a pretty radical thing to say, but I totally believe

51:35

in that, so why are people at my institution, for example,

51:38

even asking me to join in a debate about this?

51:42

(laughing)

51:46

I mean, I thought we had got

beyond that more than 20 years ago.

51:48

I'm 75 bloody years old.

51:51

I still need to make the arguments?

51:53

Sherry

Yeah, yeah.

51:56

Johanna

Well, in a teaching institution of course

51:57

you do, you need to educate students.

51:59

I try to educate, you know, as gently as I can,

52:01

and I model a different way of speaking.

52:05

I'm hoping that sometimes pays off, and maybe it does.

52:10

Sherry

But you haven't progressed in

52:15

all those years.

52:17

We've even gone backwards from where we were.

52:19

Johanna

Exactly, yeah.

52:21

Sherry

I did wanna ask you briefly about your

52:22

wonderful book, Reimagining God, and if you can say

52:24

a little bit about, you write about it in the book actually,

52:29

the connection to Elizabeth Johnson and your publisher,

52:31

and then you do mention the Reimagining conference, too.

52:33

And I wondered if you could say a little bit about the

52:36

connection to the gathering, to Reimagining in that book?

52:38

Johanna

I think that the publishers, David and

52:42

Agnitovich, that they actually had the idea that because of

52:47

the Reimagining conference it would be great to do a book

52:51

by a biblical scholar on images, especially from the

52:54

Hebrew Bible, which is so often in the Christian imagination

52:58

supposed to be less loving, blah blah blah,

53:02

than the New Testament.

53:06

So they knew me, I had done Reformed and Feminist with them,

53:09

and so they met with me and actually commissioned it.

53:14

And I do think that the conference, I have a feeling

53:18

that probably Stephanie was certainly at the conference.

53:21

I don't know whether you ever heard of her or knew her.

53:24

She died untimely early of cancer,

53:27

but it was very exciting for me that they wanted to do this.

53:31

And it was a good project for me to be in.

53:35

I really enjoyed mining what was there in the Hebrew Bible.

53:37

I have since done more on the name of god, the holy name

53:43

that the Jews don't say, and I don't say either.

53:47

And I've made more progress with that, so in that next book

53:50

I did more, there's an article out on that,

53:54

which is actually the reason I'm in Sweden because

53:57

my colleague here read my article on,

53:59

it's called Writing on the Water, the Inevitable Name of God

54:04

and it was published in a book called

54:10

Theology of Jews and Christians, and it's Jewish and

54:15

Christian scholars on the Hebrew Bible.

54:22

Sherry

Oh, that's wonderful.

54:25

Johanna

It's called Writing on the Water,

54:27

and I think I made more progress with my thinking about

54:29

how to name god.

54:32

So it's been more going on in my thinking about it,

54:34

and more settling I think on a particular way.

54:37

I think I use Adonai in Reimagining for a holy name.

54:43

Sherry

You do, yes.

54:47

Johanna

So anyway, so I was very excited to do it.

54:48

It was a good project.

54:52

I'm still happy with it.

54:53

I got to know Brian Wren a little bit, and he let me use

54:54

two of his poems for free, which was very kind of him.

54:58

And of course, he's a phenomenal hymn writer,

55:02

and wrote a great book called What Language Shall I Borrow?

55:05

It's a male about language, about god.

55:10

I mean, this is all way back now, right?

55:13

We're all talking 25 years ago.

55:14

Sherry

I know, and it is amazing that Westminster

55:17

John Knox approached you this.

55:20

This was '95 the book came out, and there was so much

55:22

controversy in the Presbyterian church about this.

55:24

Johanna

Right, so they approached, they must have

55:28

approached me right after the conference.

55:30

Sherry

Yeah yeah.

55:32

Johanna

Yeah.

Oh, they probably thought it would sell, Sherry, you know.

55:34

Sherry

True, good point.

55:37

Johanna

Because publishers are interested in

55:39

selling books.

55:41

I have no objection to that.

55:42

I understand all that.

55:44

So it's not a very long book.

55:46

I think it's accessible.

55:49

It's still, I would stay it's still, it's something I'm,

55:51

I'm not ashamed of it at all.

55:56

I think I did a solid job with it, and I'm glad that

55:59

the press did that.

56:02

So I have since started to write with some, with Eerdmans,

56:03

so my book making life is simple.

56:08

I fled to Eerdmans,

56:14

(laughing)

56:16

because Eerdmans has ...

56:18

They let you do footnotes on the page, so.

56:22

Sherry

Ah, yes.

56:25

Johanna

That was not the reason, but in any case,

56:27

they have been a good publisher for me, and I'm currently

56:29

writing for them so.

56:31

So here in Sweden I was originally invited to a conference

56:33

in 2011 called Stereotyping the Other.

56:38

And I kind of fell in love with, learned with the place,

56:44

and I met my colleague that invited me a couple

56:49

of times more.

56:51

And then I asked whether I could be here and teach

56:53

with him in his course, so this has been exciting.

56:57

And he's a lovely man.

57:00

He's very, very forward looking and inclusive,

57:02

and we're taking, the students here are almost all young,

57:06

so we're taking this group of young people to Jerusalem.

57:10

And the Swedes have an institute there, the Lutheran

57:13

Church does, called the Swedish Theological Institute.

57:16

And they will be inundated there with stuff about Islam

57:20

and Judaism and Christianity.

57:26

The course is called The Children of Abraham,

57:28

and I'll be very much a part of that, and also give a

57:31

public lecture in Jerusalem, so I'm in heaven.

57:35

I think it's great.

57:40

I am a personal high point here.

57:41

Sherry

Oh Johanna, it sounds wonderful.

57:44

Oh, I'm so happy for you, and happy for your students too

57:47

that they get to experience this.

57:50

Johanna

Yeah, these are all Swedes, but everything is,

57:54

well they're not all Swedes.

57:57

There's also a Dutch student and an Italian student,

57:58

so everything is in English, thank god because my

58:01

Swedish is extremely weak.

58:04

So I'm lecturing tomorrow on Rahab.

58:07

I can't wait.

58:09

Sherry

Oh wow, I wish I could be there.

58:10

I bet it's gonna be great.

58:12

(laughing)

58:13

Johanna

I'm hoping that they're gonna be entertained

58:15

as well as enlightened.

58:17

Sherry

I can tell they are.

58:18

Johanna

I had fun doing it.

58:19

I mean, I had fun preparing.

58:21

I haven't done the thing yet.

58:22

Sherry

You know, Johanna, I also wanted to ask you

58:24

about Voices of Sophia and your involvement in that.

58:27

Johanna

Right, so I was pretty much, after they

58:31

organized, because one of the organizers was Virginia

58:34

Coppenheffer, who was the local person.

58:37

She and her husband, then her husband Jack, who died also

58:43

after that, were very involved in the founding of

58:46

Voices of Sophia.

58:50

And it seemed to me a really good logical follow up.

58:53

It was very feminist.

58:56

I needed I think something else, you know, and there were

58:57

local people involved in the organizing.

59:02

That was good.

59:04

I went to all the conferences except I think the very

59:07

last one or maybe the last two.

59:11

I think it ...

59:15

I'm not sure why it didn't continue.

59:19

I don't know whether someone else gave you a bead on that,

59:22

whether someone else had insight in it.

59:26

It was very white, it was too white.

59:28

Sherry

Yeah.

59:31

Johanna

That may have been an issue,

59:33

but our church is white.

59:36

That's another thing about breaking out of the denomination.

59:37

I think we need to break out of our color barriers,

59:41

and we're not gonna do that by just, most of what you

59:45

try to do feels artificial.

59:50

I think one conference we did try to address racism,

59:52

so we worked very hard on that, but ...

59:56

I think it was great.

1:00:02

I loved voices of Sophia.

1:00:03

We had these, what did we call them?

1:00:05

Not the hundred theses because--

1:00:09

Sherry

Ninety-five illuminations.

1:00:12

Johanna

The illuminations, yes, I talked to those.

1:00:14

And we proclaimed them at the general assembly,

1:00:17

and we sang our songs in the booth and we carried on,

1:00:21

and it all tapped into my zeal for making noise and ruckus

1:00:27

and stuff like that, and really kind of putting

1:00:35

the denomination on notice.

1:00:39

And being honest, I don't know, our denomination became

1:00:41

so stuck I think in the struggle over gay-lesbian

1:00:45

ordination, it was just awful.

1:00:50

I went to general assemblies and spoke and testified

1:00:54

in the '90s, I think maybe the whole decade,

1:00:58

and I just had to stop.

1:01:02

It felt like they were torturing my friends, you know.

1:01:04

I couldn't do it anymore.

1:01:08

Sherry

Yeah.

1:01:10

Johanna

And so I think the denomination suffered,

1:01:11

we suffered,

1:01:14

and Voices had a great role to play at the time.

1:01:17

I think it was a fine organization.

1:01:20

I'm not sure either though that annual conferences

1:01:22

are the way to go.

1:01:25

They do have an elitist aspect because it's expensive.

1:01:27

It's expensive to go, to travel, and so when we're dreaming

1:01:33

about anniversary celebrations of the Reimagining conference

1:01:39

we were dreaming about different locations.

1:01:44

I think I told you that because one annual conference,

1:01:46

that may just not be at the moment anymore what we

1:01:50

need to do.

1:01:53

Sherry

Right.

1:01:55

Johanna

And I just found out that there is a Muslim

1:01:56

initiative in Louisville.

1:01:58

There is a friend mine who is a feminist Muslim,

1:02:01

a Dr. Rifat Hassan, and they invited me to be a part

1:02:04

of that, and they also will have Jewish participants.

1:02:10

So there is a kind of interfaith effort underway.

1:02:13

This has mostly to do with perspectives on Islam, you know.

1:02:18

It has to do with creating a positive Muslim presence

1:02:24

in our context, in our local context.

1:02:27

And I can't be a part of the first meeting because I'm here,

1:02:31

but I will be a part of it.

1:02:36

And I think it's great that that's happening because

1:02:38

that will be a natural for us to hook up with.

1:02:41

And Dr. Hassan is certainly a feminist,

1:02:44

strong Muslim feminist.

1:02:48

So I think, you know, that will be,

1:02:50

so there are some things, some signs I would say of things

1:02:53

happening that, where there's life.

1:02:57

That's what we need to look for and look into

1:03:01

and tap into and continue with, and see what,

1:03:04

what transpires, what comes out of all of that,

1:03:10

out of the shoot of Jesse, you know.

1:03:15

(laughing)

1:03:17

Sherry

Oh, I love it.

1:03:19

Johanna

Something will happen, I know.

1:03:22

I know that the spirit lives, and we will, you know,

1:03:24

there will be something.

1:03:27

But I'm getting older, so I sure hope it happens

1:03:28

before I die, I tell you that.

1:03:30

(laughing)

1:03:32

Sherry

Me too, for many reasons.

1:03:35

Well, Johanna, as you look back, what aspects of

1:03:39

Reimagining were most significant to you and why

1:03:42

would you say?

1:03:44

Johanna

I think it was directly influential on

1:03:46

my teaching, that I was encouraged to, I always have been

1:03:48

pretty participatory in my teaching, but even today I think

1:03:56

I'm still making progress, which I hope one always does

1:04:00

anyway, but I make changes all the time in the way I teach.

1:04:04

I think that's directly coming out of that conference.

1:04:10

Well, I felt we were really, even though there were speakers

1:04:13

in the central platform, we were all participating.

1:04:18

And if you're not all participating in the thinking process,

1:04:21

then it's not really good teaching.

1:04:24

Part of that is the art.

1:04:28

Part of that is the,

1:04:30

drawing on different intelligences.

1:04:33

I'm also I have not spoken about that because we would need

1:04:37

a whole other hour, but we have a womens center at

1:04:40

the seminary that's 25 years old, which is independent

1:04:45

in the sense that we raise all our own funds.

1:04:49

And there's been there, I was one of the founders

1:04:53

with students.

1:04:56

I don't know that it will survive my retirement.

1:04:58

I have a feeling it will not, but that may be also things

1:05:02

have to die so something new arises.

1:05:06

The womens center is really also a part of,

1:05:11

I'm trying to think, 25 years.

1:05:20

So if you're thinking 25 years back, that was also all

1:05:23

about the same time.

1:05:26

So I think the inspiration for that initiative,

1:05:28

the courage to try this out, to do things like that

1:05:33

very much were connected to the Reimagining conference.

1:05:38

So I give it credit for so many things in my own

1:05:42

personal life, and then in how that spilled over into

1:05:45

the context where I work.

1:05:48

And one of the programs that we have that the womens

1:05:51

center devised is called An Artist in Residence.

1:05:54

And every other January, I think we've done it for the

1:05:57

past 10 or maybe 12 years, every other January we invite

1:06:01

an artist to teach a course.

1:06:06

It's a course students will take for credit,

1:06:10

and it has to be a woman artist, and it has to be someone

1:06:14

who is interested in feminism.

1:06:18

It does not have to be a theologian necessarily.

1:06:20

We've had I think maybe two people who were not theologians.

1:06:23

One was a visual artist.

1:06:29

One of those people was a (mumbling), and also the fields

1:06:33

are different, so we're not having all one thing.

1:06:37

It's always been different.

1:06:40

We've had singers, songwriters, potters, dancers,

1:06:41

theater persons, and I was very, because of some intra

1:06:47

bureaucratic issues at the seminary,

1:06:55

what happened is that they could not make them adjunct

1:06:58

professors unless they had a degree in theology

1:07:03

beyond the MDIV.

1:07:06

And at first I thought that was a negative.

1:07:10

Then I thought no, we have to take advantage of this

1:07:13

because basically it meant we could invite anybody that

1:07:16

really had an interest in doing this,

1:07:20

and then it would fly as I say under my flag.

1:07:23

I would co-teach it with them, and it would be a biblical

1:07:26

theology course.

1:07:29

So that's what we've done in the last three years actually.

1:07:30

We've done a course on art, women in art,

1:07:33

and the Bible in the early Renaissance, and that was a

1:07:39

travel seminar.

1:07:44

We went to Italy and France to look at the art of

1:07:45

the Renaissance.

1:07:47

And we had one person who was also very influential for me,

1:07:49

and she is a theater person.

1:07:54

She was an ordained minister, but had a community theater

1:07:58

her whole career at FC worked after seminary.

1:08:02

She's just now retiring, and she did a course for us

1:08:08

on the Abram-Sarah-Hagar cycle.

1:08:11

And we did a performance actually on the basis of that.

1:08:18

It was a two-week deal, and she got me more into,

1:08:21

so I had already incorporated a lot of artistic expression

1:08:26

as you might want to call it into courses,

1:08:30

the smaller courses.

1:08:33

And she taught me how to also do more with the body

1:08:35

in your courses, so it's this whole, and I've learned

1:08:41

Bos, Johanna

Transcript

Item Info

Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History & Culture

More Info & Options