Stokes, Allison / Re-Imagining Collection / Duke Digital Repository

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Well, Allison, thank you so much

0:00

for doing this interview, I really appreciate it.

0:02

And if you could just say your full name.

0:05

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Allison Stokes.

0:08

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And are you lay or clergy?

0:10

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I am clergy, retired.

0:12

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And which denomination?

0:16

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I was ordained in the United Church of Christ in 1981

0:18

and served for 30 years and retired in 2011.

0:24

But at this time, I'm identifying as a unitary universalist.

0:29

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Wonderful, thank you.

0:34

And when and where were you born, Allison?

0:37

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I was born on August 17th,

0:41

1942 in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

0:43

I grew up in Fairfield, Connecticut.

0:48

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Great, and where did you go

0:52

to graduate or divinity school?

0:54

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I went to Yale for my Ph.D. in American Studies

0:59

and to the Yale Divinity school for my M.Div.

1:07

And graduated with both those degrees in 1981.

1:11

And then later, I went to Harvard Divinity School

1:17

for a master of theology.

1:22

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Great, thank you.

1:26

So what work or ministry were you doing

1:28

at the time of Re-Imagining?

1:31

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I was a pastor

1:35

of the West Stockbridge congregational church UCC

1:39

in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts,

1:44

that's in the Berkshires Highland in Massachusetts.

1:46

At the same time, it was a part time position,

1:51

I had founded, with some others,

1:55

the Women's Interfaith Institute of the Berkshires

1:58

a year before Re-Imagining in 1992,

2:01

so I was doing both.

2:04

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Fascinating, that is great.

2:08

And what work or ministry did you do

2:10

after Re-Imagining, Allison?

2:12

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I went from the Berkshires,

2:15

after being pastor of this little church for about 13 years,

2:20

to become a protestant chaplain at Ithica College.

2:24

From there, I became director of the interfaith chapel

2:29

at the University of Rochester

2:37

and also director of the MK Gandhi Institute

2:39

for Nonviolence Fair.

2:42

And so I retired, as I've mentioned, in 2011

2:44

from the University of Rochester position.

2:48

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Okay thank you.

2:53

Well, Allison, I'm very interested to hear

2:55

how and when did you first become aware

2:57

of feminist theology?

2:59

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Well, I've been thinking about that,

3:02

it was in 1972 when I entered the American Studies program

3:05

at Yale.

3:09

At the time, I was 30 years old,

3:10

a mother, two kids, seven-year-old and four-year-old,

3:15

and I was a housewife

3:20

with this very traditional upbringing.

3:22

And I entered this graduate program and met

3:25

a whole bunch of feminists.

3:29

(both laugh)

3:31

It was quite amazing.

3:34

A historian, they were very excited that

3:36

feminists historians were at Yale and doing work.

3:39

But it wasn't really until 1977, I think,

3:43

when I became more involved at the divinity school

3:48

that I became more aware of feminist theology.

3:53

Before that, it was mostly a feminist historian.

3:58

But then the theology part, that Yale divinity,

4:03

and for the very first time,

4:06

I saw a woman presiding the Eucharist

4:09

and it sort of blew me away

4:13

that it was Joan Forsberg at Yale

4:15

who was in the gallery of male pictures,

4:18

paintings on the wall, you know, Forsberg, Joan,

4:23

is the only woman up there,

4:28

she was for a while, anyway.

4:29

So yes, it was pretty late into the 70s

4:31

that I became aware of the feminist theology.

4:35

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Joan Forsberg is a great woman, wonderful woman.

4:39

And I'm curious, where were the,

4:42

how did you encounter feminist theology at YDS,

4:44

was it professors, students, where was it happening?

4:46

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Mostly students, but also professors,

4:53

Letty Russell, particularly.

4:56

Although, I didn't, I was still,

4:59

I have to admit I was still very cautious about all this,

5:01

I never took a course from Letty Russell,

5:05

which I'm embarrassed to say.

5:08

It was a long process of getting into this field.

5:10

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Yes, sure, oh, I understand, yeah.

5:18

You know, if you don't mind,

5:21

I have to ask a question, I find it very interesting,

5:23

how did you go from traditional mother, which is great,

5:25

to entering a graduate school?

5:29

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Well, in '72, it was a fun thing to do.

5:33

I really missed studying, writing,

5:38

and I chose American Studies

5:42

because it was interdisciplinary

5:43

and allowed me to take courses across the board

5:47

wherever I wanted to.

5:49

But my husband and I separated in 1976,

5:51

'77, and divorced,

5:57

and suddenly, what started as a fun thing to do

6:00

became very serious and this was gonna be the way

6:05

I would earn a living.

6:09

So lots of transitions here.

6:12

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Oh, interesting.

6:16

Well, shifting to the Re-Imagining community,

6:18

could you say something about your,

6:21

I know you didn't have a direct relationship

6:23

to the Re-Imagining community,

6:25

could you say some about what your relationship was?

6:26

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Yeah, I did not attend the 1993 conference,

6:30

but that was a year after we had started

6:39

the Women's Interfaith group in the Berkshires.

6:43

And three of our members did go,

6:48

so even though, and I looked back at my records,

6:51

one of the biggest reasons, although I was well aware of it,

6:56

but didn't go, that fall of '93,

7:00

the institute had a very intensive program going,

7:05

a weekly program that we called women in America,

7:12

religion and thought,

7:15

leaders from different faith traditions and groups.

7:16

And on the Wednesday night before Re-Imagining,

7:20

'cause it began on Thursday, November fourth,

7:23

we had an important program

7:25

where we had an African American speaker

7:27

talking about African American, her experience,

7:30

and so they were all wonderful women speakers

7:33

and I was totally absorbed in that

7:36

and so I couldn't go,

7:38

but we did have these members who did go.

7:40

Mary Clark Michelle, Pat Patterson, and Ruth Keris.

7:45

So I knew I would get a wonderful report from it.

7:51

So I feel as if I was an observer,

7:54

but also, very definitely, yeah, a beneficiary.

7:57

Our whole group benefited

8:01

because what they brought back inspired us all

8:04

and touched us deeply,

8:10

and I can say more about that, but,

8:11

so it was extremely influential,

8:15

although I wasn't there.

8:20

And then I would get notices and keep in touch

8:22

with what was going on in the next decade.

8:27

And again, in 2003, I had announced a closing

8:29

and a final conference, I was in Ithica College.

8:35

And just a year earlier in 2002,

8:39

we had started, I had started a women's interfaith institute

8:45

in the Finger Lakes.

8:51

So we had two sister organizations.

8:53

And again, it was a year

8:57

before the last conference

8:59

and I was totally involved here and unable to go.

9:03

So I feel like I've missed the whole thing,

9:07

but actually, I didn't

9:10

because I was so interested and followed it

9:11

even though I wasn't actually participating.

9:15

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Well if there were ever good reasons to miss Re-Imagining,

9:19

those sound Like good ones, sounds like wonderful events.

9:21

You know, actually, either now or later,

9:25

would now be a good time to ask about

9:28

what you heard from those women who attended

9:30

or why it was so powerful?

9:33

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Yeah, they talked a great deal about the liturgy

9:35

and how different they were.

9:41

And Pat Patterson had a special, she's a poet,

9:44

and she had a special gift for liturgy.

9:49

And so she brought that back,

9:52

and in her interfaith group,

9:54

we were devising new liturgies

9:59

partly inspired and led by Pat.

10:03

And they were very, very important

10:08

and it was largely because of the Re-Imagining.

10:11

So that was one of the most important things.

10:17

Apart from the feeling of sisterhood here, a solidarity,

10:21

they talked about how inclusive Re-Imagining was.

10:31

And that was especially important to us

10:35

because as a multi-faith group,

10:37

we had a woman rabbi with us,

10:39

we had a woman cantor.

10:42

Later, we had a muslim woman

10:45

who then was already involved at the Berkshires

10:51

at the time of the terrorist attacks in 2001.

10:56

So she was all over this

11:03

as a member of the women's interfaith institute

11:09

who attempted to educate people about muslim life.

11:13

And so this sense of inclusion and solidarity

11:17

that was, as I understand it,

11:21

very much a part of the Re-Imagining experience.

11:23

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Yes, oh, that's really helpful, that's great.

11:28

I wanted to talk to you because you're coauthor of the book,

11:31

one of the coauthors of the book Defecting In Place,

11:35

and you wrote a really excellent paper,

11:38

Re-Imagining and women's spiritual support groups,

11:40

their challenge to the church.

11:42

And in that paper, you talk some about the backlash.

11:45

And one of the things you said in there

11:49

was that you thought it was not

11:53

about heresy versus orthodoxy, but about gender.

11:55

So I wondered if you could say more about

11:58

what you knew about the backlash and why you said that,

12:01

or how you would evaluate that now

12:05

almost 25 years later.

12:07

There's a lot there, Allison.

12:10

(both laugh)

12:11

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Okay, well I knew about it

12:14

because Pat Patterson and Ruth Keris, partners,

12:16

lived in New York City,

12:21

they had a summer home in the Berkshires,

12:23

so they were involved in our Berkshire group.

12:25

But they were still, at that time, based in New York City

12:28

and had worked for the church nationally

12:32

and even internationally.

12:36

And so they were close, they were United Methodist women,

12:38

laywomen, both laywomen,

12:44

but deeply involved in church structure,

12:46

not only in the Methodist church,

12:50

but were close to friends in the other denominations,

12:51

the Presbyterian church specifically,

12:56

and of course, we heard a lot about the backlash

13:01

in the Presbyterian church.

13:03

And Mary Ann Lundy,

13:05

other names of people I know you're interviewing

13:08

or have interviewed, they were close friends,

13:13

so we were learning about this

13:15

and they would come back and share horrible stories.

13:19

And I say in my paper about a program that they did

13:26

on international women's day the next year, I believe,

13:32

that was so powerful.

13:36

So we kept in touch and it was partly that way

13:39

that I understood that this was about gender.

13:45

And at the time, I was,

13:50

when I had first gone to the Berkshires

13:53

in the United Church of Christ

13:57

in 1989, '88, '89, I was astonished

14:02

at half of the congregational churches.

14:08

And there was one in every little town

14:12

throughout the Berkshire county in Massachusetts.

14:15

Half the churches were pastored by women.

14:21

And so having been a researcher at the Harvard seminary,

14:26

I thought this would make a really interesting

14:31

research project.

14:33

And I called the national office of the churches

14:34

and discovered that only 12% of the churches nationally

14:37

had women pastors,

14:41

but 60% in the Berkshires.

14:45

So we gathered monthly to,

14:47

decided to write a book about this

14:52

and try to explore the impact.

14:54

So it was all about gender.

14:57

And that was when, as a matter of fact,

14:59

what led to this interfaith group was that

15:03

we UCC women were having such an intense great time together

15:06

that other people wanted to join us.

15:10

(both laugh)

15:12

But we'd published a book and then chapters

15:16

where we each told our story.

15:19

And Adero Homis at the Harvard seminary

15:22

helped to devise a questionnaire,

15:25

and we sent it to, gave it out at all of our congregations

15:28

with an astronomical level of response,

15:31

an unusual level of response,

15:34

so we were really intensely aware of gender

15:35

at the same time that the backlash

15:39

after Re-Imagining was going on.

15:43

So, and because of my training in American religious history

15:46

with Sydney Alstra, I was involved,

15:53

I had a dual perspective on this.

15:59

I was a pastor, active as a pastor,

16:01

but at the same time,

16:04

taking a look at the whole situation

16:05

as an observer as an historian.

16:10

And why I'm so excited about what you're doing now

16:13

is collecting this history because it's so very important.

16:16

But it was that historical perspective

16:20

that helped me to see that this was

16:23

really a great deal about gender.

16:26

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Yeah, it said in your paper,

16:29

you know, you referenced Ann Hutchinson and the witch hunts,

16:31

so you had a broader historical perspective

16:35

on what was happening.

16:37

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And the reason we did this as UCC women

16:40

was that we could go back to the history of our denomination

16:43

and if we had written it from many different denominations,

16:49

we wouldn't have been able

16:53

to have this historical piece in the book

16:54

to show how that had developed over one

16:57

very progressive denomination.

17:00

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So Allison, how would you define Re-Imagining?

17:05

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How would I define that?

17:10

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Yes.

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Oh my goodness.

17:13

(both laugh)

17:15

You know what, I think I wanna leave that to the--

17:20

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Okay, that's fine, that's fine.

17:23

(both laugh)

17:26

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'Cause I was an outsider looking in,

17:29

I wanna leave that to the insiders.

17:30

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Fair enough, fair enough.

17:32

Good, so what aspects of Re-Imagining,

17:34

although you were kind of getting it secondhand

17:37

and you started talking about the liturgies,

17:39

what were most significant to you and why?

17:42

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One of the liturgies that we used a lot

17:46

was Mary Bednarowski's

17:52

when she had described the experience of 21 women

17:56

on a holocaust tour.

18:01

And I have it in front of me

18:06

because it was such an important,

18:07

I wanna read the first couple of statements

18:10

and then the concluding statement

18:14

because I think that many people who were involved

18:17

certainly recognize this.

18:20

She writes that on this tour,

18:25

they said to one another that, quote,

18:30

we will be together in these places,

18:34

we will watch out for women of Earth,

18:38

we will listen to whatever needs to be said,

18:41

we will not be fearful or anxious or prodding

18:44

when it seems that silence is the only possible response,

18:48

we will wait for the slowest,

18:52

we will sooner or later catch up with the fastest.

18:55

And then she concludes

18:59

we will do our best to stir in each other

19:02

the courage to act with love and justice

19:05

in our own particular lives.

19:08

We said to each other we will be together in these places.

19:10

And so we have that entire, and I haven't read it all,

19:15

the entire piece printed out and often said that together.

19:19

It was just extremely insightful and inspiring.

19:25

And told us, it said who we wanted to be

19:31

and how we wanted to do this,

19:38

and this was a re-imagining of ways to be together,

19:40

that's what we felt.

19:45

So that was one of the liturgies that we,

19:48

part of the liturgies that we used.

19:53

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That is wonderful.

19:56

By the way, do I have your permission

19:58

to email Mary Bednarowski and tell her that?

20:00

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Oh, sure.

20:04

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I'm sure she would love to know that.

20:05

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Yes, I never met her, but I think at one time,

20:07

years ago, and it's been at least 20 years,

20:12

I think I did contact her and asked for permission.

20:15

And it could've been maybe at the time

20:21

that I gave this paper in St. Louis

20:23

that you've referred to.

20:26

And yeah, but it was always a disappointment.

20:30

I didn't meet her, so I'd be thrilled to have this

20:34

as part of this historical record and for her to know

20:37

how much she impacted our group.

20:41

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Great, I will definitely do that, that is wonderful.

20:46

Although you weren't directly involved in Re-Imagining,

20:50

did it kind of indirectly change your perspective

20:52

on feminist theology or the church?

20:54

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Oh, it really did for sure, for sure.

20:58

The whole issue of inclusive language was enormous

21:01

at the time that UCC was, I think one of the first groups

21:06

to reproduce a hymno, it was very exciting

21:11

when an inclusive language hymno came out.

21:17

And my friend from Harvard seminary

21:21

who you've mentioned is writing a book,

21:25

Defecting In Place, with Miriam Therese Winter,

21:29

she does a couple of hymns in that UCC hymno.

21:32

We felt it was a time of pioneering,

21:38

of breaking new ground,

21:42

and the inclusive language was a huge piece of it.

21:44

I'm trying to go back to your original question,

21:51

make sure I'm covering it.

21:55

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Oh, did it change your perspective on feminist theology

21:56

or the church?

21:59

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For me, one of the problems I had with Re-Imagining,

22:01

this is personal, there was much talk about the goddess

22:07

and I think people

22:15

were feeling they were breaking new ground

22:17

by thinking of,

22:20

we had inclusive language, all kinds of different ways

22:22

of speaking of the holy and of the deity

22:26

and goddess was part of it

22:29

and maybe what did feel heretical to many Christians.

22:31

But I had trouble with it a different way

22:37

because it seemed to me as a female

22:41

talking about the normally god language with goddess

22:45

made both feel very anthropomorphic.

22:51

And I know that people in the Re-Imagining community

22:55

wanted to move away from that, you know, god in the sky,

22:59

but saying goddess didn't help.

23:03

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yeah, well, you know--

23:06

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But it was just personal.

23:08

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Sure, sure, well, what's interesting is

23:09

a lot of the goddess language actually came from the media

23:12

and from the right wing because--

23:15

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Is that right?

23:17

Oh, wow.

23:18

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That is.

See, the Sophia language in the newsletter

23:19

and in the comments afterwards,

23:22

people said we were using the Sophia language

23:24

as a biblical term to talk about an attribute of god

23:26

that they never actually said it was goddess.

23:30

And that was part of what the message

23:34

that got out early on,

23:36

that they actually said was not the intention

23:37

of what they were doing.

23:40

But it was very prevalent, that's how it was framed.

23:42

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Well, that's so interesting

23:46

because it shows the power of the media

23:47

to change my own thinking.

23:50

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And everybody's.

23:52

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Yes, right, but that's what I mean,

23:54

to really mess it up.

23:57

-

Well, and to give you a quick,

24:00

oh, I'm sorry, Allison, the problem with the phone is

24:01

we're talking over each other, I can't see you,

24:04

and I always apologize about that.

24:06

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No, no, go ahead.

24:08

-

Well I was just gonna give an example of that

24:11

that's really powerful.

24:13

The Minneapolis Star Tribune published an article

24:14

before the Re-Imagining conference, the first one,

24:16

and the article itself was completely accurate,

24:18

but the headline that the reporter was not responsible for

24:21

used the term goddess worship.

24:24

So it started even before the conference.

24:26

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Oh my gosh, okay.

24:28

Yeah, well that's, all right.

24:31

I'm glad, this conversation is very important.

24:34

-

Yeah, and part of it is setting the record straight

24:37

because that is the story that was told, and that's, yeah.

24:39

So what do you think is the greatest legacy

24:43

of the Re-Imagining community.

24:46

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Oh my goodness,

24:50

the empowering of women to,

24:53

and the inclusiveness where we value difference

24:59

and wanted to be together in solidarity,

25:04

but also recognizing our differences.

25:07

The fact of the womanist theology

25:10

and the, how do you pronounce--

25:15

-

Mujerista, yes.

25:20

-

Mujerista, you know, we,

25:22

it was an inclusive vision and we valued our differences

25:25

and wanted to be together

25:30

and break new ground

25:32

and support one another.

25:35

And to challenge patriarchy, that was huge.

25:40

Most of us UCC women in the Berkshires,

25:44

I think every one of us was the first woman leader

25:50

of the church she was serving,

25:54

the congregation in which she was serving.

25:57

And people, it's hard to, even now,

25:59

when it's become so much more common,

26:02

people didn't know what to call us.

26:05

And especially, for instance,

26:07

I went to a wedding or a funeral

26:09

and there would be people there,

26:11

many Roman Catholics, and they said

26:13

"Do I call you mother?"

26:16

(both laugh)

26:19

I mean, we were breaking new ground

26:21

and it was very exciting.

26:23

And re-imagining how to empower all that

26:27

made us feel that even if we weren't there,

26:31

it was part of the whole,

26:35

the culture, changing culture.

26:41

-

Yeah, in your paper,

26:46

following up on the significance of Re-Imagining,

26:49

you talked about Re-Imagining as an early warning flag

26:52

that signals the fall of Christian patriarchy,

26:56

and many people felt that at the time.

26:59

Now almost 25 years later, what would you say about that?

27:01

(both laugh)

27:05

-

Well, the very fact that it's so common now,

27:08

at least in the mainline, for women to be pastors,

27:11

here in Seneca Falls, the Methodist pastor,

27:16

the Presbyterian pastor, the Episcopal director,

27:18

they are all women.

27:21

Yeah, I think Christians are not surprised anymore

27:26

to have, in fact, in Seneca Falls,

27:31

the Methodist has its third woman pastor

27:35

since I've been here.

27:39

So I think that's very big, but I also think that

27:48

in those years since the Re-Imagining conference in '93,

27:52

we all are recognizing a shift

28:00

in the religious culture of our country

28:04

in the growing numbers of people

28:09

who are not identifying with Christianity

28:11

although that would be their religious background,

28:15

who say they're spiritual but not religious.

28:18

And maybe Re-Imagining helped open the way for that,

28:21

to say, you know, to explore and to be bold

28:26

about whether people are

28:36

spiritual but not religious.

28:39

Maybe having trouble with some of Christian doctrine.

28:43

For me, and I believe you told me

28:47

that one of the Christian doctrines

28:50

that they talked a lot about at Re-Imagining

28:53

was the atonement.

28:56

And people were not happy with the atonement

28:58

and it was something of a malfeasance.

29:02

I was a child.

29:04

So, and for me, it was the trinitarian doctrine

29:07

and then I began to identify more as a unitarian,

29:13

universalist.

29:18

And the whole universalist perspective

29:22

are all in Christian faith.

29:26

And the people asking lots of questions.

29:28

And the more interconnected our world is

29:31

and the more people experience

29:35

people from different religious traditions,

29:37

they're questioning.

29:39

So it's very, very interesting to me as an historian

29:41

to see this happening and to try to

29:45

make sense of it.

29:50

And, yeah.

29:56

(both laugh)

29:57

Is that a good answer to the question?

29:59

-

Oh, it is, it definitely is,

30:01

and I think you're actually starting to move

30:02

to another question I wanted to ask you

30:04

which was what does Re-Imagining mean today,

30:07

and I don't mean in the limited sense

30:09

of just the Re-Imagining community,

30:11

I mean what is being or needs to be re-imagined today

30:13

about religion and/or spirituality?

30:17

-

Well, I do think that because of the fact

30:23

that atheists are being more and more outspoken

30:29

about where they are and why

30:34

people are identifying as either atheists or humanists,

30:37

which is actually where I'm moving toward,

30:42

the issue becomes at the same time

30:47

what is so important to people is community

30:54

and music, and I talked to any number of people

30:58

who are still attending church regularly

31:01

even though they'll say to me "I can't say the creed,

31:04

"I just can't do it.

31:07

"But I love the music and I am there for the people."

31:09

And so for me, I figure the big issue

31:14

is re-imagining people coming together regularly

31:18

for the same thing the church has been.

31:24

So a justice, justice, social action,

31:28

that's another big piece of it,

31:32

that if folks are starting to stop attending churches,

31:35

how do they come together

31:40

unless it's in purely secular ways,

31:43

when they are saying "But I'm spiritual".

31:48

So for me, that seems to be what's needed now,

31:54

is how to bring the people together who don't feel

31:59

that they can embrace the theology of the church,

32:03

but still have a need for the kind of community.

32:08

What was the piece that I read from Mary Bednarowski

32:14

that we will be together,

32:18

there's no reference to the holy, really, that I remember,

32:20

but it's what we value

32:24

and saying that together and embracing it together

32:28

is so important.

32:32

And it reminds me of the Quakers,

32:34

who saw the holy in one another,

32:37

and the light.

32:41

And that's where Elizabeth Cady Stanton lived,

32:47

was in Seneca Falls.

32:49

Elizabeth Cady Stanton's home was here.

32:51

The first women's rights convention in 1848,

32:54

and I've been doing research

32:58

on women who spoke at the first parliament of religions,

33:00

which was held in 1893 at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.

33:05

Stanton wasn't there because by that time,

33:10

it was toward the end of her life

33:12

and she was working on the women's bible.

33:14

But she wrote a paper for the parliament of religions

33:16

and because she couldn't travel to Chicago,

33:22

Susan B. Anthony read it.

33:25

And I printed it out,

33:28

we have a record of all the women's speeches

33:31

and there were some 19 of them,

33:35

eight of them were ordained clergy.

33:36

And anyway, Stanton's paper

33:40

reads as if it could've been written yesterday.

33:45

She was so far ahead of her time

33:48

and this is where she was

33:51

in terms of seeing god within humans,

33:53

seeing god within others.

33:59

But it does recall the 1893 event

34:04

and the fact that eight of the speakers,

34:11

and the lecture hall where they spoke

34:16

and they were packed lecture halls,

34:19

had a seating capacity of 3,000.

34:21

I mean, these women were reaching many, many people

34:25

who had come from all over,

34:27

even beyond our country, from other countries.

34:30

It was history that was lost.

34:34

And I'm now working on getting it out there

34:37

because it's not in the history books.

34:43

And what's so striking to me about Re-Imagining,

34:46

and I include it at the end of the paper that you mentioned,

34:50

that I gave in 1995,

34:54

is the remark that we have now come to a place

35:04

in women's history where what women are doing today,

35:08

including the Re-Imagining

35:12

and especially the Re-Imagining where it can't

35:13

and won't be lost, we've turned the corner.

35:15

And this is again something that I pulled out

35:22

because I wanted to underline it in my talk with you

35:25

because I quote Gerda Lerner

35:31

in the creation of feminist consciousness.

35:35

She talks about how the wheel had to be reinvented

35:40

generation after generation.

35:44

Women lost their history,

35:46

they had to keep finding it again,

35:48

but she says that we're now experiencing this paradigm shift

35:50

where the woman's point of view

35:54

has entered the common discourse

35:56

instead of going backward.

35:59

Let me read to you just quickly what she writes.

36:01

She said "Once the basic fallacy of patriarchal thought,

36:05

"the assumption that a half of humankind

36:09

"can adequately represent the whole

36:13

"has been exposed and explained,

36:16

"it can no more be undone

36:20

"than was the insight that the Earth is round, not flat."

36:21

And then the last paragraph,

36:26

the concluding paragraph of my paper,

36:29

I go back to the words,

36:31

I wrote "From my perspective

36:33

"as an historian of American religion,

36:36

"a gender-based analysis is inescapable.

36:38

"From my perspective as a Christian feminist and pastor,

36:41

"the holy spirit is moving mightily.

36:45

"Increasing numbers of men no longer have any interest

36:48

"in representing the whole.

36:52

"They understand that when women's point of view

36:55

"enters the common discourse, all humanity is served."

36:57

and I think that Re-Imagining was a huge piece of that,

37:03

that it went way beyond the numbers of women

37:10

who were originally involved,

37:13

that we truly have turned a corner.

37:15

And as I told you earlier,

37:20

I really applaud you for capturing this history

37:24

and all testimonies of women

37:30

who either were there and very involved

37:35

or like me, who were nevertheless deeply impacted.

37:37

So you're doing great work with this project.

37:42

-

Thank you, and believe me,

37:46

it is such a delight and so exciting, it really is.

37:48

And I have to say I'm really excited

37:51

to hear about you covering the world parliament,

37:53

the 1893 meeting and Elizabeth Cady Stanton's role in that,

37:56

that is exciting.

38:01

And once again, it's part of keeping women's history alive

38:02

and not letting it get lost.

38:06

And so I'm glad you're doing that.

38:07

-

Well what was so surprising to me

38:10

was that when I entered divinity school in the late 70s,

38:13

and learned that Joan Forsberg and Letty Russell

38:18

had been ordained in the 50s,

38:22

I thought this is mind-blowing, they were pioneers.

38:24

Can you imagine in the 50s, they were ordained.

38:28

And so when I discovered not so many years ago,

38:31

I think it was back in 2008 or 2009,

38:37

that there were women ordained in 1893,

38:42

I thought I was such a novice,

38:49

I thought that the pioneers were from the 50s,

38:51

not the 19th century.

38:58

And I did know, yes, that Antoinette Brown Blackwell,

39:00

a very big name in the congregational church of the UCC,

39:04

she had been ordained in 1853, I knew that.

39:09

But to me, that was kind of an anomaly, and amazing,

39:11

but to learn that there were so many women,

39:16

and most of them were either unitarian or universalist

39:21

in the 1890s,

39:27

about Anna Howard Shaw and others.

39:30

Anyway, it's fascinating to see these women,

39:34

but it's not gonna be lost anymore.

39:37

And Re-Imagining,

39:40

and Gerda Lerner says we turned a corner, that's right.

39:44

And it's just begun, she says men are there too,

39:49

it's men who feel it that's very important,

39:55

it's not just women, that you know, that 50% or more, 51%,

39:58

(laughs)

40:03

of the perspective in this world to be heard.

40:06

-

Absolutely, yes.

40:10

I had one specific question that you may or may not feel

40:12

that you wanna answer is

40:15

we are working on a Re-Imagining website

40:17

and do you have any ideas about

40:19

what would be helpful to include

40:21

or who would benefit from it

40:23

or how they would find out about it.

40:25

Do you have any thought on that?

40:27

-

Oh my goodness.

40:29

Wow.

40:34

Well, it would seem

40:36

one of the, an important thing to include on the website

40:38

would be to have links to other websites.

40:43

-

Yes.

40:46

-

Where you feel that it would be useful

40:48

for women to connect, ways for helping women to connect

40:51

and learn what's out there, yeah.

40:56

-

Absolutely.

40:59

-

Real quickly on the parliament,

41:02

because it may be of importance,

41:05

especially as you think about the website,

41:09

quick history, the first parliament in 1893,

41:13

it was a hundred years before the second parliament

41:17

and it was 1993, also in Chicago.

41:20

And I wanted to go, same year as Re-Imagining,

41:23

I wanted to go and I couldn't.

41:28

So they decided that they couldn't wait a hundred years,

41:31

it was too wonderful, they had 7,000 people

41:34

come from all over the world to 1993,

41:37

so they had a parliament of world religions,

41:39

the third one was held in December 1999

41:42

in Cape Town, South Africa.

41:46

And I went to that conference

41:48

hoping that I would meet other women

41:50

who were doing interfaith work,

41:53

working across faith traditions,

41:56

not just within Christianity.

42:00

And I was very disappointed because it was largely male.

42:02

And after that, I became aware that the 1893,

42:06

it was so many more women leaders participating,

42:10

what I realized was that we had gone backwards

42:16

and I became interested in that as a subject

42:18

and began doing research.

42:21

So the next parliament, the fourth parliament,

42:23

was in 2004 at Barcelona, Spain.

42:27

And I didn't go to that one,

42:30

but a student of mine from Ithica College went,

42:31

he's now a leader at Marsh Chapel at Boston University

42:35

finishing his Ph.D.

42:40

But so then the next parliament, the fifth one,

42:42

was in Melbourne, Australia in 2009.

42:48

And I gave a powerpoint presentation there

42:52

of everything I had learned about its history.

42:55

And people kept saying why don't I know this,

42:58

why don't we know this.

43:00

Well, they finally held,

43:02

and then the parliament headquarters is in Chicago

43:04

and they wanted, after Melbourne and my presentation there,

43:10

they really wanted the board to learn more

43:14

about its history.

43:17

So they invited me to come

43:19

and give a presentation in Chicago

43:20

to the board and others

43:22

as part of a celebration they were having,

43:24

I believe it was the 120th anniversary of the parliament.

43:27

So I did that, and as a result,

43:31

at this last parliament,

43:33

the sixth parliament was held in Salt Lake City, Utah

43:35

in November.

43:38

October, October.

43:41

(both laugh)

43:43

2015 in October.

43:45

And it began,

43:47

pardon me for telling you this history,

43:51

they decided that it was time now

43:54

to bring women together and the first, the opening day,

43:59

the whole day was a women's assembly.

44:02

And the numbers of women on the stage and in that program

44:07

was absolutely phenomenal.

44:12

It was huge, it was huge.

44:16

And so that was, it's called the women's inaugural assembly.

44:19

So connecting with that,

44:23

I think what the,

44:28

because that's what these women are doing,

44:30

is Re-Imagining on a multi-faith international scale.

44:33

So that's what I wanna have to offer for the website,

44:40

is to connect with women

44:48

who are involved in the inaugural assembly

44:50

and in the parliament will be shaping

44:53

and working on parliaments in the future.

44:57

Because the ambition now is to hold them every two years,

45:03

but I don't know how they can do it

45:06

because there were 10,000 people at Salt Lake City.

45:09

And the logistics of pulling off an elaborate program,

45:12

a multifaceted program for those numbers is just,

45:18

you know, it takes years.

45:24

-

Allison, that is incredibly exciting.

45:27

And we can talk about this later in email,

45:29

but any links you have would be wonderful.

45:33

Also, you don't have to give an answer now,

45:35

but you mentioned you're getting a website going,

45:37

we can think about whether you'd wanna link

45:40

to Re-Imagining or not.

45:41

You're doing some great stuff

45:43

and this is exactly the kind of thing that we wanna do,

45:45

this is great.

45:47

-

Okay, good, yeah,

45:49

I hope it didn't go off on a tangent here.

45:51

-

No, it's directly relevant, it's exciting.

45:53

-

Good, okay, okay.

45:57

-

Is there anything that we haven't discussed

46:00

that you would like to add?

46:02

-

I can't think of anything except, again,

46:05

to just underline how thankful I am to you for this.

46:07

It's just an important project, it's wonderful.

46:11

And I'm glad to be interviewed

46:15

and to contribute in whatever way I can.

46:19

So yeah, thank you.

46:22

-

Thank you.

46:24

And one of the best parts of this whole process

46:25

is getting to get in touch with people like you

46:28

and find out what you're doing, so thank you.

46:30

I'm gonna turn off the recording at this point,

46:34

so just give me one second.

46:37

Stokes, Allison

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Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History & Culture

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