Bishop, Nadean / Re-Imagining Collection / Duke Digital Repository

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All right, thank you so much, Nadean, for meeting with me.

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If you could say your name please.

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Nadean Bishop.

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Thank you.

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Are you lay or clergy?

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Clergy.

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And the domination is?

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American Baptist.

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Wonderful.

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When and where were you born, Nadean?

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I was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on March 6th, 1932.

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Okay, I didn't know that.

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

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Mhmm.

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I went to Pacific School of Religion

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in Berkeley, California and I was there from 1982 to 1985.

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Okay, yes.

0:43

How and when did you first become

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aware of feminist theology?

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It happened, hmm.

0:51

Well I say I became a feminist on one day

0:57

in 1970 when Robin Morgan came to give an address at

1:00

the University of Michigan where my husband was a professor.

1:08

She talked about theology as part,

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or she talked about feminism with

1:17

a little bit about theology, but not much.

1:19

There were 3,000 women in the hall

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and one man who was the photographer.

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She kicked him out and said, "This is just women.

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"You can't hear this."

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Then she asked the lesbians to join her on the stage,

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and about 250 women came and sat on the stage.

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I went home just completely changed, that was amazing.

1:42

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That is amazing.

1:46

This is amazing, Nadean.

1:48

What about it changed you?

1:49

What did you hear that changed you?

1:51

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It was clear to me that women's work had been

1:54

narrowly defined and as a literature teacher,

1:59

I'm pretty much in the stereotype.

2:03

I was teaching in Eastern Michigan University

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and did that for of my career, for 25 years.

2:08

The University of Michigan, with all the prestige,

2:13

hired my husband and someone quit.

2:17

Eastern Michigan is where

2:21

the wives go.

2:22

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Really?

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'Cause all these Harvard trained, or very,

2:24

some went to Brown, some went to other places.

2:28

But they were not asked to teach

2:31

at the University of Michigan.

2:33

They came over and taught over at

2:34

the little teacher's college behind

2:36

the big research university so I was ripe.

2:38

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Yes, yes.

2:42

When was it that feminism, so that's when you

2:44

became a feminist.

2:46

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That's feminism.

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How about feminist theology?

2:47

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I don't have dates

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in mind, I'm sorry.

2:53

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Oh, sure.

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But I was privileged to hear about

2:54

a Catholic women's conference.

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This was called Women's Church.

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I went with a friend to that in,

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I think it was in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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Most of the conversation had to do

3:17

with the intersection of feminism and Catholicism.

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But as an American Baptist, I drew a lot from it,

3:23

and met a lot of people, and came

3:27

to understand that that was very important for me to do.

3:31

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Nadean, I have to ask.

3:37

You mentioned you were a literature professor.

3:38

You're an American Baptist pastor.

3:40

How did that happen?

3:43

(both laughing)

3:44

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Yes.

3:46

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There's gotta be an interesting story there.

3:48

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I was invited by Jitsuo Morikawa,

3:50

the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Ann Arbor,

3:54

to become the campus minister.

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It was largely graduate students who came there.

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Jitsuo was a wonderful mentor because he kept pushing

4:06

theology books across the desk

4:11

toward me and I started reading them.

4:14

By chance, I think by God's grace,

4:18

the University of Michigan got a grant,

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or someone who was there got a grant,

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to invite five theologians from across the country.

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Harvey Cox came, and Rosemary Radford Reuther came,

4:34

and Gustavo Gutierrez.

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Wow.

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Across the world, isn't it?

4:48

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Yeah.

4:49

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And two others and I was just entranced.

4:50

I just thought that was just so inspiring.

4:55

So that's what I'd consider, it was in 1980,

5:00

that I went to Theology in the Americas

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which, do you know about that?

5:09

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I don't, no.

5:11

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Every 10 years, Latin American countries,

5:12

theologians, meet with US theologians.

5:17

Where was it held?

5:25

It was in Detroit, and so I stayed in Detroit for a week,

5:29

and got to know Harvey Cox, who was one of the participants.

5:34

He was one of the speakers.

5:40

It really let me know that this liberation theology

5:45

included feminist theology, or it was very close to it.

5:50

That was a major push.

5:55

I think it was just five days for Theology in the Americas.

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But again, I met a lot of women in theology

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including Carter Heyward, and Beverley Harrison,

6:10

and Cathy Johnson was there with me,

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I had known her in seminary in Berkeley, and other women.

6:20

We began to realize there may,

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so they held a kind of women's caucus

6:27

of the Theology in the Americas extemporaneously almost.

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30 of us sat in a circle

6:36

and got acquainted so that was major.

6:37

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At one point in your life did you go

6:41

to seminary and become a pastor?

6:42

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Not till I was 50 and I was divorced in 1945.

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Let me think about this.

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I was divorced in 1975 and went to seminary in 1982.

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My daughter was very depressed and living at home.

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She took over managing the duplex.

7:07

It was the best three years of my life.

7:15

It was just incredible.

7:17

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Was it really?

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Yeah, it was wonderful.

7:18

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Because you were able to learn all of this?

7:19

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Yes and meet a lot of women.

7:22

I went to a conference where a Latin American theologian

7:24

made a presentation at a retreat center, On the Bay.

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My professor, Edwina Hunter, was with me there

7:46

and then she was called to teach in New York

7:53

at Union.

7:59

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Union?

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Mhmm.

8:03

I was step by step by step meeting

8:04

the right people at the right times,

8:07

and studying and reading everything I could get my hands on.

8:09

By the time I left seminary, I felt that I was truly

8:13

meant to be a preacher, a pastor.

8:18

While I was in seminary, I would do my practicum

8:25

back in Ann Arbor with Jitsuo.

8:29

Then I was teaching the Bible as literature,

8:36

and women's spirituality, and some courses like that

8:40

began to get stirred into my teaching load.

8:45

I was integrating what I was learning

8:48

and I was able to finish in three years,

8:50

having done my practicum and my,

8:54

there wasn't a thesis but there was a long paper.

8:59

So I got it all wrapped up in three years.

9:02

Graduating in 85, I did take, well.

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Everything overlaps.

9:11

(both laughing)

9:12

Then again, I think it's God's will that this happens.

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But I took a little church named Northside Community Church

9:17

in Ann Arbor when I got back from seminary.

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I was ordained by First Baptist Church almost,

9:26

well in the summer after I graduated in May.

9:30

Then I began to pastor that little congregation

9:33

while teaching full time and that was wonderful.

9:38

Because they were blue collar, maybe 35 on a Sunday morning,

9:42

probably 70 all together, a sweet little church.

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It's still the same people and the same size

9:53

only it's their children and their grandchildren now.

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I still send them Christmas letters and keep in touch.

9:59

It was perfect.

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I had that opportunity to begin to preach every Sunday,

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and every Sunday, and to administer to those people.

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I remember I went to a board meeting,

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did the minutes because we didn't have a church secretary.

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Yeah, maybe a graph, I remember that, yes.

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(both laughing)

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Dropped them off on my way home because everybody

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was on my way home.

10:32

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Oh my goodness.

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So everything was just step by step by step by step,

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more and more clear that this is my vocation.

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I have to ask one more question.

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How did you end up at University Baptist?

10:44

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Names aren't important to get--

10:52

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No.

10:53

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Yes, but a friend from

Ann Arbor First Baptist Church

10:55

had grown up in University Baptist Church in Minneapolis.

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She was visiting back and she said to them,

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they wanted to bring a woman in as their pastor,

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be groundbreaking, and so she said,

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"I know a woman who would be perfect for this church."

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She gave them my name.

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A week and a half, no, two weeks later, a person who

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was in First Baptist Church Ann Arbor but had moved

11:26

to Iowa came here to shop, I think, and came to UBC.

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She said, "I know the perfect person

11:39

"for you to call to be your pastor."

11:42

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Wow.

11:45

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In July, I came for a first interview that was during

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the Special Olympics and the weather was gorgeous.

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There were fireworks in the sky every night

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because of the Special Olympics.

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Everyone was high about that

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and I did not preach on that occasion.

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But the committee interviewed me for two and a half days.

12:12

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Wow.

12:17

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Then in November, no, it was the year

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of the Halloween snow storm.

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I got in before the snow started, and preached that Sunday,

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and that afternoon they called me to be their pastor.

12:34

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You came despite--

12:37

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It was 1991.

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91 and you came despite the Halloween blizzard?

12:40

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I came in spite of the Halloween blizzard and when I moved

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my stuff here, it was 17 below zero, mid-January in 92.

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Someone said, "That's a subliminal intelligence test."

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(both laughing)

12:57

To move to Minnesota in the middle of winter.

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What were you thinking?

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How long were you at University Baptist?

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Until 2000 in January, eight years.

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It was a wonderful church, perfect for me,

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just the most loving, loving people.

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They taught me ever so much.

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I really just, still I just adore those people.

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I go to a book club every month

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so I can see them every month.

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Oh, that's so glad.

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Well this is fascinating, it really is.

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Too many peripheral stories or we'll never get through it.

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I know, I know.

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It's too interesting, that's the problem.

13:40

Well let's get to the Re-Imagining community.

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What was your relationship to the Re-Imagining community?

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What did you do?

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Okay.

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I was not on the planning committee.

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But I was new in town and had been invited

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to UTS for a gathering that they had

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for local pastors and all the faculty women.

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The women's studies program at UTS met,

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and so I got to know them, and I got to know,

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I was beginning to know the community.

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The question was?

14:24

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Oh, what was your relationship

14:26

to the Re-Imagining community?

14:27

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I think it was because I knew Chris Smith

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and some others who were involved in the planning

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that they asked me to come to talk to them.

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I said that I thought we should have a, nope that's not it.

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That I wanted to help and that I'd like to be involved.

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I did get to be a part of the small discussions.

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You may remember the second, maybe the first day

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that Re-Imagining gathered, someone stood up and said,

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"I would like to invite all the lesbians

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"and lesbian supporters who are here to come forward."

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The place was mobbed.

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I mean it was such an unexpected and inspiring thing.

15:16

I had volunteered to organize

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a small group called Lesbian Theology

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and we reserved a room that held 25 people.

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100 and some people crowded into that room.

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Wow.

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I had met these people.

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Well, I called four people, and every one of them was home,

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and answered the phone, and every one of them said yes,

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they would be a part of the panel.

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I had met those people because there was a group formed

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called CLOUT, Christian Lesbians Out, at that point.

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Salice Barry was chosen to be the coordinator of that group.

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But it must've been 50 of us, and it was that weekend

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when I was in town candidating, and the blizzard happened.

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So the maybe 30 people made it in spite of the blizzard

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and we had to sleep on pew cushions

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at First Congregational Church

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because we couldn't go in the snow.

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I had met all the people who said yes

16:37

for the Re-Imagining conference at that time.

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So when I called, they had heard it

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was going to happen, and they all said yes,

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and they all came.

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Wow.

These are all people from CLOUT.

16:50

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Yes and their names are in the books,

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so we can pull those out.

16:55

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Good, great.

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I know that Carter Haywerd was there

16:57

and that was a thrill to me because I just,

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oh, I was already so entranced with her books.

17:05

Mary Hunt was there who didn't make it to Re-Imagining.

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Janie Spahr I know was there

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and she was one of the speakers.

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She was on her way from California to Rochester, New York

17:18

to candidate for the pastor of the Downtown Baptist Church

17:24

of Rochester, New York, where she was for many, many years.

17:29

There was a woman whose name I can look up

17:32

who was blind, who was candidating.

17:35

Lisa Large, L-A-R-G-E-E, or yes, I think.

17:38

Lisa was also candidating that weekend

17:44

so three of us were on our way to preach

17:48

at places where we became pastors.

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Wow.

17:54

This is at the 1991 CLOUT meeting?

17:56

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At the 1991 CLOUT meeting.

17:58

So by the time we were planning for the 1993 session,

18:01

I had known these people that way.

18:07

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I know you were involved in Re-Imagining

18:09

throughout its history so could you

18:12

say a little bit more about the roles

18:14

that you played during the 10 years?

18:16

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Yeah, I was secretary for a lot of the years

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and the coordinating council was the most

18:21

life changing thing in spite of all

18:23

these stories I've told you because we took

18:25

an hour at the beginning and told stories about our lives,

18:28

our children, our worries, our griefs.

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It was like the best support group

18:36

you can imagine in the world.

18:37

Mary Gates was so involved in that

18:40

and she became the head of the board

18:44

for the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice,

18:49

where I went after I left the pastorate in 2000.

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Those friendships are again, very longstanding.

18:57

My roles included not just secretary

19:03

but I was one of the two co-chairs for

19:08

one of the subsequent Re-Imagining meetings.

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I got to help choose the people that

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we invited to come as our guest speaker.

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So those were thrilling times.

19:25

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Do you remember some of theespeakers that you chose

19:28

or who your co-chair was?

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Yes.

I'll have to look it up I think.

19:35

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We can look that up, no problem.

19:39

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One of our speakers was Miriam Winters.

19:43

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Oh yes, Miriam Therese Winter.

19:49

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Miriam Therese Winter and I think it was as she

19:51

was concluding the last session, we got the word

19:55

that Anwar Sadat had been shot in Egypt.

19:58

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Yes.

20:05

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Right, Egypt?

We just stayed an hour, and prayed for the people,

20:09

and for the disruption of foreign

20:12

affairs that that would bring about.

20:15

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You've mentioned some of the significant events.

20:24

You talked about the CLOUT,

20:27

and the relationship to Re-Imagining,

20:30

and this moment too which is really significant.

20:32

Are there other powerful moments

20:34

that you recall from some of the gatherings?

20:37

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So many.

20:41

I frankly found the small groups

20:45

as inspiring as the huge group.

20:49

But in terms of our gathering,

20:52

the use of a round table was something

20:55

that the Catholic conference, Women's Church,

21:00

had used and I don't know if that's where we got the idea.

21:06

But those conversations around the table were very powerful.

21:09

I remember we had an artist from New York

21:14

who came and was doing art upfront.

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We were encouraged to do art, and I have

21:22

two artist sisters, and I never was an artist.

21:24

I found that very liberating and I kept those.

21:28

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Really?

21:31

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I've been finding them,

of things that I sketched and drew on that occasion.

21:32

I'm cleaning up a house so I'm throwing them away.

21:39

But some of those materials might be here.

21:41

The major events for speakers, some of the women

21:47

you had mentioned interviewing,

21:54

Jung Hoon Yung, or Yung Jung, was stunning.

21:56

There was a woman from Canada whose name

22:04

I have not been able to retrieve who was disabled.

22:07

We didn't know how she was disabled

22:15

but it was a lung problem so she couldn't climb steps.

22:17

They made some accommodation for her.

22:22

Do you remember that time?

22:26

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I don't, no.

22:28

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I found her very inspiring and hadn't thought

22:30

about the movement to help open up,

22:34

make buildings accessible and that

22:38

was a major thing that she was talking about.

22:41

Beverly Harrison was just fascinating to me.

22:46

I remember her talk.

22:50

There were some panels in front of us I think

22:55

and those were very powerful because they

22:58

would discuss among themselves.

23:00

Then we would discuss among ourselves.

23:02

That sense of collaborating in the theological work

23:04

that was getting done was very forceful.

23:08

I had, having taught women in world religions,

23:13

and women in women's spirituality and all that,

23:16

I had done the research and I knew all that stuff.

23:19

But more and more that we recognized

23:22

that we had never preached it,

23:24

that we had never dared to take it into the congregation.

23:26

So this was a major push to do that.

23:29

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Yes, yes, that's great.

23:32

If we could move to the backlash for a minute.

23:36

I knew you were aware of it.

23:39

Did the backlash affect you directly?

23:40

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Well a lot of it broke my heart but no, not really.

23:48

I was not out when I interviewed

23:51

for the small church in Ann Arbor, the blue collar church.

23:56

So they did not have this information that I was a lesbian.

23:59

But in a sermon, I did mention that

24:03

these are oppressed groups that we should pray for,

24:06

and mentioned lesbians, and the Sunday school

24:09

superintendent walked out, and never came back to church.

24:12

That wasn't backlash from Re-Imagining

24:18

but it was a sort of the a clue

24:20

to the kind of thing that was happening.

24:22

Later, people said that was the best thing

24:24

that happened to you, it was early in my ministry,

24:27

and she was always a worry wort,

24:30

and never knew what she was gonna say.

24:32

You're not just to grieve about this.

24:34

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When you applied to University Baptist,

24:38

were you out at that point?

24:40

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I was out to the committee.

24:42

I made it a point, they had arranged

24:45

for five house meetings while I was there,

24:48

and each one of those I made it very clear

24:52

that this is who I am, and that they

24:55

could choose whether or not to publicize it.

24:57

But I wanted not to be closeted any longer.

25:00

That felt really great.

25:04

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I bet, yes, yeah.

25:05

Whether or not it directly affected you,

25:09

how would you account for the backlash?

25:10

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I think it has to do with the fear

25:19

that people had for anything that meant

25:23

they would have to change their minds.

25:27

I think lesbian and the fact that

25:30

there was a lesbian theology conference

25:32

was highlighted in a magazine called...

25:35

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The Presbyterian Layman?

25:41

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No.

25:43

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Good News?

Oh no, something else.

25:44

Oh okay, sorry.

25:45

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It's headquartered in California

25:49

and they did a phone interview with me.

25:52

I will have to look it up.

25:56

When they called, I thought it was a local

25:58

magazine in the Twin Cities.

26:01

But it wasn't.

26:04

It was a national magazine for gays and lesbians.

26:05

I was pictured on the front page

26:10

of that, I think it's a weekly newspaper.

26:12

I have some copies.

26:22

They thought it was remarkable,

26:25

that Re-Imagining was, let me think.

26:27

Nope, cancel all that.

26:32

When I was called to UBC, they did this interview.

26:33

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Oh, I see.

26:36

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That meant it was public

record around the country.

26:38

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Of course.

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So that kind of outed me farther out

26:40

than I thought I was going to be.

26:42

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I see.

26:45

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Then when the laymen, I think it was,

26:46

did the report on the Re-Imagining conference,

26:51

that, when my picture was on the front page

26:55

and they talked about the lesbian

26:58

workshop that I had, the lesbian theology workshop.

26:59

So that's the connection to the publications.

27:03

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Makes sense.

27:05

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Do I understand it any differently than that?

27:07

I think it has been resounding in my ears

27:16

while Donald Trump has been speaking

27:20

and when Sarah Palin was running for vice president,

27:22

I think it's not necessarily all Republicans.

27:25

But it's that kind of fear of what

27:30

is going on in the world that they

27:33

cannot control and that they need to find a way to squelch.

27:35

That was very much my attitude

27:41

toward the Katherine Kersten reportage of the conference.

27:42

When I went back and looked online

27:51

at the Katherine Kersten reporting

27:53

on the conference, I was reminded of things I had forgotten.

27:55

I thought they did a rather comprehensive job

27:59

of really telling what was happening there with horror.

28:02

Horror.

28:07

(both laughing)

28:08

But I kept that because it was a good memory.

28:09

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Right, right.

28:12

They had a lot of the details there.

28:14

Right.

28:15

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They did.

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How would you define Re-Imagining?

28:17

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I struggled with the board, with the coordinating council,

28:27

years later to try to put it in a sentence.

28:30

I had forgotten what phrase I added

28:34

but it was theologically, I think it opened,

28:36

it made a lot of room for women

28:45

in congregations and in denominational structures.

28:48

So that once they got through the backlash,

28:53

everyone knew what we were about.

28:56

Everyone, not every congregation,

29:00

but every denomination had had discussions

29:03

about how much they wanted this to impact their work.

29:06

The fact that a woman was fired from the head

29:09

of the Presbyterian Women's Work in the country

29:16

got to go to Switzerland and spread it to the world.

29:19

I just thought that was quite iconic but that's what

29:25

we hoped would happen, that the message

29:29

be perhaps more because of the backlash

29:31

than because of the conference really did

29:35

make its way to a lot of people

29:39

who would not have heard otherwise.

29:40

Defining Re-Imagining, I think it was a landmark

29:43

shift in consciousness for religious women around the world.

29:50

That's too grandiose.

29:58

For women who were touched by the conference

30:00

either by attending or by hearing reports

30:03

from the pastor or by other laywomen

30:06

who came back and felt free to preach it.

30:09

I think that might, this is so rambling.

30:12

-

No this is good, keep going.

30:16

-

That it might be exactly

what was meant to happen, that by responding

30:18

to the backlash, people were able to hear

30:22

about something that they hadn't heard about before.

30:28

-

Yeah and the community was formed.

30:31

-

And the community was formed.

30:34

-

Were you involved in

30:36

that at all?

30:36

-

Oh yes.

-

Oh, good.

30:38

What do you recall about that?

30:38

How and why the community was formed?

30:41

Obviously the backlash I assume but say more about that.

30:42

-

How and why it was formed, I'm not clear.

30:46

But I know that I was in charge of faith labs.

30:48

I may have proposed that we do that

30:52

and it did not take off everywhere.

30:54

But I think you're in a group that still meets.

30:59

Is that correct?

31:01

-

Oh, the small groups?

Do you mean--

31:02

-

The small groups.

-

The small groups 'cause faith labs

31:03

is where we went in churches, and day classes,

31:04

and small groups were--

31:06

-

It was support groups.

-

It was support groups, that you were involved in starting?

31:09

-

Well I was involved in starting the ones

31:11

that were short termed courses.

31:13

-

Yeah, the faith labs.

31:17

-

The faith labs.

-

Right, yes.

31:19

-

I thought that it was from the faith labs

31:20

that the support groups came, that it came out of that.

31:23

But I may be all wet on that.

31:27

-

Do you recall the faith labs went on for several years?

31:30

-

They did.

31:34

-

Do you recall anything about,

31:35

well why did you wanna start faith labs?

31:37

-

Because I recognized that this talking

31:39

around the table about theology was really crucial.

31:42

That that was the piece that I knew

31:47

I wanted to cherish and continue forever.

31:49

It seemed that we could bring that

31:52

to local churches rather easily.

31:54

It just takes one book, and one teacher,

31:56

or one speaker, or some focus so that

31:59

the around the table conversations

32:03

could keep going, and going, and going.

32:05

-

I know that, do I know that?

32:08

I formed small groups in the first six months

32:14

of my ministry at University Baptist Church.

32:18

So that those were already going when Re-Imagining happened.

32:21

I recognized it was something I wanted

32:26

to bring back to my church.

32:28

So I got the faith labs to meet at our church.

32:30

We did attract some people who were not members

32:34

of the church to come and be a part of those study groups.

32:37

I don't know if they lasted three weeks,

32:41

or five weeks, but it wasn't long, and it wasn't arduous.

32:45

But we advertised them in such a way

32:49

that people felt welcome to come,

32:51

even if they'd never heard of Re-Imagining because they were

32:54

drawn by the subject matter, or by the book.

32:57

I have an idea that the list of some

33:00

of the faith labs will be in this box.

33:05

-

Oh good, good.

33:08

Some of them are in the quarterly publications.

33:09

It's been fascinating to read all the different

33:11

topics that were offered.

33:13

-

Oh, good.

-

It felt and that seemed like an important part

33:16

of that bridging the gab between

33:18

feminist theology, and the academy, and the local church.

33:20

-

Exactly.

33:23

-

That that was part of that.

Yeah.

33:25

You have already been talking about this

33:27

but could you say a little bit more

33:29

about how feminist theology affected

33:30

the structure and functioning of community?

33:32

You talked about the round tables,

33:34

you talked about telling stories at

33:36

the beginning of the coordinating council.

33:37

Are there other things that you can think of that

33:39

you thought was an important part of it?

33:42

-

Yes.

33:44

Hmm.

33:45

I don't think I'm clear on what

33:52

came first, the chicken or the egg.

33:55

(both laughing)

33:57

So this may not be accurate, Sherry.

33:58

The crucial things that I wanted my church to do

34:03

included having small face-to-face groups

34:10

that met every month and would continue.

34:13

The book study group that came from

34:17

that is still meeting every month.

34:20

The people who were attracted to those

34:23

small gatherings were developing

34:29

as new leadership for the congregation.

34:33

When the church is 100 people on Sunday morning,

34:37

which is what half the churches in America are,

34:40

you need to be drawing new blood and not simply regurgitate

34:44

what has been going on for a long time.

34:49

That was a major function for me of the faith labs,

34:53

of the small groups, because if you have a meeting

34:57

of women in your neighborhood,

35:01

and your neighbor's been intrigued by what you've been

35:02

telling her over coffee, you bring her

35:05

into the small group, and she likes the people.

35:07

Then she can take the baby step of coming to church for

35:09

worship and then she becomes a Sunday school teacher.

35:13

Then you develop, and develop, and develop.

35:15

So it did not feel like a long term strategy at the time.

35:18

It just felt like fun.

35:23

-

Yeah, did it work?

35:25

Did it bring in people?

35:27

-

It worked

at University Baptist Church.

35:28

Yes it did.

35:30

We created small groups there around

35:32

things that were not in Re-Imagining.

35:38

One of them was supposed to be talking about

35:40

Carter Haywerd's books and we did it as a potluck.

35:45

It became a gourmet cooking group.

35:50

(both laughing)

35:52

-

Oh, I love it.

35:56

-

I know.

35:58

-

You just never know.

36:00

-

Glen said, "Well, it is still reminding me

36:04

"of dishes we cooked together,"

36:06

and barely thinks we talked about it.

36:09

But she's a powerhouse at Plymouth Church now.

36:12

I just love that, this girl just kept going and going.

36:17

One of our, who were some of the others?

36:23

Hmm, I'm not remembering.

36:28

-

Yeah, that is great though.

36:31

I love that.

36:32

What challenges were faced by the community

36:34

during the 10 years it was in existence

36:37

and how were they addressed?

36:39

-

I'm not sure if this is what you meant by challenges

36:50

but I do remember that, now we're talking

36:54

about the coordinating council?

37:02

-

Or the community as a whole.

37:04

-

Or the community as a whole.

37:05

-

However you wanna define it.

37:06

-

Well the work of the community as a whole,

37:08

excuse me, it seemed to me, was not simply

37:13

to have four more conferences.

37:16

That those were just bubbling out of our enthusiasm.

37:19

That the work of the community was to help congregations

37:22

get this levin into the congregations.

37:27

I'm not sure if that worked in as many cases as we'd hope.

37:33

But the places where it did work,

37:40

it really worked, it seemed to me.

37:42

The sense that a church is not, we knew this.

37:47

The church is not the steeple.

37:51

The church is what's inside that.

37:53

People in the pew might not have known that till we kept

37:56

pounding it into their heads, and saying over and over

38:01

that we are the church, that this is the church,

38:04

that what's done here is the important part.

38:07

Not the building, not the structures, but the community.

38:10

So that whole sense of what community is.

38:15

What used some of our time was planning the next conference.

38:19

Those, I thought, were done very,

38:25

because it had happened once with Mary Kay Sauter

38:29

and the other co-chair, because--

38:32

-

Kathi Austin Mahle?

38:35

-

Yeah.

38:36

Because they had done it on a large scale,

38:36

it had felt that we had a blueprint

38:39

and we could pretty much just do it.

38:41

So they were small.

38:44

Some people forgot that there

38:46

was anything that happened after 93.

38:47

But for me, they were just marvelous.

38:50

It seemed like very little effort had to be put into it.

38:53

Some people, like Jerry Smith,

38:57

and Pam Joern worked their tails off.

38:59

The rest of us just got to lull and enjoy what they created.

39:03

I remember that.

39:08

I remember that Jerry said, I think it might've been Pam,

39:09

that Jerry Smith said she never got to attend

39:14

any of the things in the session,

39:16

in the conference that she planned.

39:18

I remembered her outside the door, making things happen.

39:21

So there were people who sacrificed

39:24

their own pleasure to give the rest of us

39:28

these just unbelievable experiences.

39:31

Barbara Lundblad's conference was just. (sighs)

39:35

Unreal, I mean just so stunning.

39:40

It was, as I remember, about Jesus.

39:43

But I remember the healings the Jesus did was one of her

39:47

sessions and that just meant everything to me.

39:51

When I found that she and her partner

39:57

had bought a condo in Minneapolis,

39:59

I got my hopes up, and I had gotten

40:01

to be with her in the Re-Imagining

40:04

things that we've been meeting.

40:09

She gave a presentation at a Lutheran church

40:13

and I got to do a workshop in preparation for that.

40:17

It's just she and I just really,

40:20

I mean I like her a lot, and it was like having

40:22

the president, or someone who's a celebrity

40:26

come say, "I'd like to ride with you.

40:30

"You okay?"

40:33

(both laughing)

40:34

-

I wanna go back to something really important

40:36

that you've been talking about,

40:38

or at least I think it's really important.

40:39

That is the community reaching out to the churches.

40:41

I wanna make sure I completely understand that.

40:44

How did the community try to reach out to the churches?

40:47

-

Hmm.

40:51

-

Was it through the faith labs, the small groups?

40:52

Were there--

40:55

-

Those are the two that are the most memorable.

40:56

I thought more laywomen came to the smaller conferences

41:00

through those years so that it was not understood

41:07

to be mostly clergy and some laywomen.

41:11

But it was mostly laywomen who themselves

41:15

were perhaps encountering this for the first time

41:19

and then would bring it back in a different way

41:23

from those of us who are pastors.

41:26

Because pastors are cowardly in many ways.

41:28

We don't take risks as we should.

41:31

It was hard for some of those who attended the first one

41:33

to go back and preach because they knew

41:37

there would be too much backlash in their congregation.

41:40

But when the laywomen began to come

41:44

to the smaller conferences, then I think

41:47

it became much more building community from grassroots

41:50

and not imposed at all from above.

41:57

That occurs to me as something

42:01

that was different about that.

42:03

On a personal note, my daughter killed herself,

42:06

and it was the Re-Imagining community

42:08

that I happened to be meeting with that day.

42:10

I told them the story and one after another,

42:14

people told me about their daughter

42:17

who ran away from home, their son who shook the dust

42:19

off his shoes, and they had never seen him again.

42:25

Stories that are so intimate and in that

42:28

coordinating council, it just became my soul place.

42:32

-

Wow.

42:40

Actually you've been talking about this so I'll just ask you

42:46

if there's anything else you wanna add to it.

42:48

What aspects of Re-Imagining were

42:49

most significant to you and why?

42:51

Obviously what you just said was so powerful.

42:53

-

Yeah, right.

42:55

Hmm.

42:59

-

You may have felt like you already answered it

43:03

but I wanna see if there's anything else.

43:05

-

I think so.

43:06

I love the fact that so many seminary professors

43:10

became active in the first one,

43:15

Chris Smith doing the major keynote,

43:18

I think a major presentation at the worship at the last.

43:20

I had to preach that day so I didn't get to hear that.

43:26

But that was one thing that I was very, very happy about.

43:29

I think the others have come

43:39

through my answers.

43:41

-

Yeah they have,

very powerfully, absolutely.

43:42

Did your involvement in the Re-Imagining community change

43:46

your perspective on feminist theology or the church at all?

43:49

-

Yes, very much so.

43:55

Because I doubt if you'll have many others

44:02

who are lesbians, I thought I would try

44:04

to emphasize those pieces of it.

44:05

-

Excellent.

44:08

-

When that person who was on my panel

44:09

stood up and said, "Would the lesbians come forward?"

44:12

I was encouraged even, it became imperative

44:14

that I not be in the closet any longer, and that part

44:20

of my ministry be overt and not under the surface.

44:25

I think because I was willing to do that at UBC,

44:31

I had maybe 40 women from the University of Minnesota

44:35

come to my office because they knew

44:41

there was a lesbian there who was a preacher.

44:43

-

Wow.

44:47

-

They were not Baptists.

I never saw them again.

44:49

But it developed this sense that if one person speaks out,

44:51

then other people who've been anguished,

44:58

or even just confused, have a resource to come to.

45:02

It became what I thought of

45:08

as a major part of my ministry there.

45:10

I'm sure I'm not the only one that

45:13

in some way, what sparked in another pastor

45:15

created a counseling opportunity for that person.

45:19

-

I have notes.

45:27

Do you have other questions?

45:28

-

Oh yes, yes.

45:29

In your opinion, what specific contributions

45:32

did Re-Imagining make to Christian

45:35

theology and/or Christian liturgy?

45:37

-

Oh.

45:40

I wish this had happened more.

45:44

But I was very impressed that the worship group,

45:48

which Sue Martin had led so well,

45:53

did not stick with a pre-planned script in every case.

45:59

Maybe in no cases.

46:05

Because they said the felt a sense

46:06

of the meeting and played what they

46:09

thought was needed in that moment.

46:12

That was just life, I mean that just changed

46:16

the way liturgy's done in my head so perfectly.

46:20

I know you have a bulletin but you can make

46:23

things happen as you sense them in the worship experience.

46:25

So for her little team to be able

46:30

to be that light on their feet,

46:35

that creative in saying, "Take your book

46:37

"and turn to this page," which is not

46:40

where they planned to go, and, "Let's stand up and sing."

46:42

Or, "Let's do a little dance."

46:46

Or, "Turn and say this to the person next to you."

46:47

That they were constantly massaging it so it was like

46:51

a heart, it was like a live thing what they were doing.

46:54

It was just incredible that she was able

46:59

to do that, or that the team was.

47:02

I think it was watching them as

47:04

a team of people contributing.

47:07

I was brought up Southern Baptist

47:10

so I was very prejudice against Catholics.

47:12

I wasn't sure they were really Christians

47:15

if you will forgive what was happening

47:18

in the 40s and 50s in Oklahoma.

47:20

To be with these Catholic women,

47:25

and I don't know how many there were,

47:27

but to know that Catholic women

47:30

also know about feminism, and know

47:33

the mind opening things that happen

47:36

when women get together and share.

47:39

Then later I realized that convents

47:41

have had that kind of ferment for centuries.

47:44

I just was dumb about it.

47:48

I knew that was going on.

47:51

So it woke me up.

47:53

-

Oh, Nadean.

47:56

Why don't we move toward the future then?

47:57

We're kind of finishing up here.

47:59

What do you think is the greatest legacy

48:02

of the Re-Imagining community as you look back on it?

48:04

(both laughing)

48:10

-

Part of it is that I think women who were there

48:13

in 93, 95, 97, were made bolder to go back and present

48:18

things that they had not the courage to do before.

48:27

So it was I'm not alone this.

48:30

I always thought that this might be something

48:34

I can talk about, and to go and gain strength from

48:36

the gathering to bring to a community.

48:41

To build a community for themselves so that they

48:45

can have courage to do the next step.

48:47

So I think it's very much a progressive thing.

48:49

Now I've been disappointed that

48:55

after 10 years we said enough already.

48:58

I don't gather in our trying to do the archives

49:02

that we're going put on another conference.

49:07

But I can dream, can't I?

49:09

-

Yes.

49:10

-

So that I want, well.

49:11

I need to say another thing.

49:16

At the last session of the...

49:17

Well let's just go on.

49:25

I had an interview with Mary Hunt

49:27

that I had staked out because I knew

49:29

she was, wait a minute, was it Mary Hunt?

49:31

I think it was and I missed hearing

49:35

the two young women who spoke.

49:43

-

At the 2003 conference?

49:46

-

At the 2003 conference.

49:48

-

Right.

49:49

-

I knew them because one had followed me as executive

49:53

director at the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

49:58

One of them had, well both of them

50:04

did that but that was after 03.

50:08

Those two leaders in this session at Re-Imagining

50:11

were new to me and I didn't hear them present.

50:16

But it was in the years following that they they followed me

50:22

at the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

50:26

-

Really?

50:28

-

So I don't remember that choice

50:29

was an issue in 93 and I don't know

50:31

if they talked about that in 03.

50:35

But I do know that by the time I came to them so thoroughly,

50:39

I asked them to join the board.

50:45

They grew, and they became executive directors sequentially,

50:47

that they clearly did what we hoped was going to happen.

50:51

That was the young come up and begin

50:56

to do the work that we have been doing.

50:59

So it was passing the torch and it didn't happen

51:02

as magnificently as I had hoped.

51:06

But in that instance, it happened so marvelously.

51:08

Mary Gates was our Imagine chair at the RCRC board.

51:13

She probably was influential also in pulling them

51:21

into leadership there after I left in 05.

51:23

-

Any ideas about what do you think

51:32

Re-Imagining means today?

51:34

-

Well for the women who were there,

51:40

it means life changing experiences

51:41

and friendships that will keep going on and on.

51:44

Mary Gates and another member of our board

51:53

who's from Minnetonka were at Cheryl's funeral.

51:58

I realized that yeah, that heart

52:01

connection that's still there.

52:04

So I think that remembrance of all the things

52:10

that we did together will be a richness in every life.

52:13

I think we dreamed that in two years,

52:24

the young women would do another conference.

52:26

I was disappointed that it was sort of shut down

52:31

more finally than I wanted it to be in 2003.

52:35

I didn't have the energy at that time or the...

52:45

I don't know why I didn't follow through on that myself.

52:50

-

One last question.

52:58

You know we're working on the Re-Imagining website.

52:59

Do you have any ideas about what should be included?

53:01

Who would benefit from it?

53:04

How they could find out about it?

53:07

Any thoughts you have about the website.

53:09

-

Mhmm.

53:11

Well it occurs to me as we talk

53:15

that it might be intriguing because you can,

53:17

that it doesn't cost a lot to put things on

53:24

that people might not read, but they can swirl by them,

53:26

that we might want to put brief interviews with people

53:30

in telling what they remember about the conference.

53:35

No, not the conference, about their

53:40

experience of Re-Imagining.

53:42

So that picture and a couple of three paragraphs

53:44

might be a feature on the website.

53:50

It would take somebody's time and effort

53:53

but I think it would be something people would read.

53:57

We would recognize how we knew them,

54:00

and where we were when we met them, and all of that.

54:03

I think that might be good.

54:07

It might be easy because of the people

54:08

who are now working on the thing,

54:11

we could just say, "Would you do one for

54:13

"this week, or this month?" or whatever.

54:15

I would like to see some (laughs)

54:18

this is more labor intensive.

54:23

I would like us to find a way to have

54:26

the money to send a letter to the participants

54:29

whose addresses we have, and say, "Could you reflect with us

54:33

"on the meaning for this in your life?"

54:39

That could give us 100 maybe responses

54:42

and that might be an easy way to just

54:47

put those excerpts from those responses.

54:49

But it would take money to do the mailing and we'd have

54:52

a lot of addresses that were no longer accurate.

54:56

But that might be good to sort of clean up the list

55:00

and see who we might contact later.

55:02

I've never run a website.

55:07

I think it's complicated.

55:09

I'm very impressed that you know more about this

55:12

and you're learning more about how to do all of this.

55:15

I think it's imperative that we have that.

55:22

I just think that's one of the best ideas.

55:25

This may not need to be on the tape,

55:31

but CLOUT, which I mentioned started in 1991,

55:33

still has a website, still has people responding

55:38

and hearing about it for the first time.

55:42

There's no executive director, there's no money,

55:44

but that presence is still on the web, or on emails.

55:47

I don't run it and I don't know if anybody runs it.

55:52

But it's still a reminder.

55:56

It comes in my mailbox and I say,

55:59

"Oh, somebody signed onto our website.

56:00

"I wonder what they wanna know."

56:02

Things like that so it sort of is a way

56:04

to keep the linkage going without a lot of work.

56:06

-

Exactly, yeah.

56:09

Is there anything that we haven't

56:11

discussed that you would wanna say?

56:12

-

I read the notes.

56:18

This probably doesn't need to go in the tape but I wrote--

56:24

-

Do you want me to?

56:28

Maybe you should say it after I turn the tape off.

56:28

Would that be good?

56:30

-

Sure.

-

Yeah.

56:32

-

It's just a joke.

56:32

-

Oh okay, well.

56:34

-

I titled my article for the publication afterward,

56:36

Leaping Lesbians, and they changed it.

56:38

-

They did.

56:43

-

They didn't because they were not lesbians

56:44

and they didn't know that there's a song,

56:46

Leaping Lesbians, that was sung

56:48

on a CD that I had had for years.

56:51

I sang it for them and they said,

56:56

"Oh, I wish we used Leaping Lesbians."

56:57

(both laughing)

56:59

It's little jokey things.

57:02

-

Oh, I love it.

57:05

Nadean, thank you so much.

57:07

Thank you so, so much.

57:12

Bishop, Nadean

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Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History & Culture