Brock, Rita / Re-Imagining Collection / Duke Digital Repository

(chattering)

0:00

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OK, we're now recording, and if you could,

0:06

thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed.

0:08

And if you could just say your full name, please.

0:10

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Rita Nakashema Brock.

0:13

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Thank you very much.

0:15

And are you layer clergy?

0:16

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I'm neither nor and both in.

0:19

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Oh, great, explain this.

0:21

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A period of my life where being clergy was

0:22

useful to the work I did.

0:27

I applied for and got regional commissioned

0:30

minister standing in the Disciples of Christ denomination.

0:34

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OK.

0:37

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So I was at the time I started doing this,

0:38

they called it licensed ministry, rather than

0:41

ordained ministry, now it's commissioned rather than

0:44

ordained, but I did , I think it was, three years

0:46

at Chapman University as a campus minister while

0:50

I was a PHD student, so I was reverend in that period,

0:53

when I was a chaplain.

0:56

And then

0:58

when I moved out to Oakland in 2002 and I was doing

1:01

progressive faith organizing, it was helpful to me to be

1:05

working with rabbis and imams and people,

1:09

and be able to call myself reverend.

1:12

It marked me in a certain way, so I applied through

1:14

Northern California, and I had commission standing

1:16

for about eight or 10 years out there.

1:18

And then when I moved to Texas, I got it there.

1:21

So for about the last 13 or 14 years, I've been

1:26

a commissioned minister for the work I've been doing,

1:29

but I'm not ordained, so I can't just leave the region

1:33

and call myself reverend and take a church or something.

1:36

That's, it's just a different category from what

1:40

the work of ministry outside traditional ordained

1:44

church membership.

1:47

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Oh, fascinating.

-

Or ministry.

1:49

Yeah.

1:50

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Yeah, OK.

Well, thank you.

1:51

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So I could work in

a church if I wanted to, but I've never wanted to.

1:53

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Sure, oh, that's interesting.

1:55

So Rita, where and when were you born?

1:56

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1950 in Fukuoka, Japan.

2:00

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OK.

2:02

OK, great.

2:03

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Yeah.

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And then you grew up in Kansas, is that right?

2:05

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Well, no, I grew up for six years in Japan.

2:07

And then I moved to Fort Riley, Kansas when I was six

2:11

and changed language, culture, religion, and geography

2:14

all at once.

2:17

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OK.

2:18

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And I was raised

in a military family.

2:21

Six years in Fort Riley, a year in Emily, Mississippi,

2:22

in a civilian, very racist environment,

2:24

and then three years in Landstuhl, Germany.

2:27

And then the last place my father was still

2:30

in the military is Barstow, California, where he was

2:32

sent to Vietnam.

2:35

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Wow.

-

So because I was already in Southern California,

2:37

I went to all my higher education there.

2:39

So Chapman in Claremont.

2:43

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Great, oh, thank you.

2:45

And you've already talked about where you went to school.

2:47

So Chapman in Claremont, yeah.

2:51

And then what work or ministry were you doing at the time of

2:53

1993 to 2003?

2:57

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I was a professor in the endowed chair and humanities

3:00

at Hamline, University.

3:03

And I was there from 1990 to 1997.

3:05

I was teaching a women's studies class in religion

3:07

at the time, I don't remember what it was called anymore.

3:11

But I had about 25 students.

3:14

And I made Reimagining a class assignment.

3:17

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Really?

3:21

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And I talked to

Sally and the planning committee about letting my students

3:22

attend without attending the whole thing,

3:26

I just said you have to go and attend one thing.

3:30

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Yes.

3:32

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And they let me do that.

3:33

And a lot of them didn't go to the planning events

3:35

when they went to the workshops on topics.

3:37

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Yeah.

3:40

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But they all found it amazing, even the men.

3:41

I had quite a few men in the class.

3:43

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They did, so they were really positive about it.

3:45

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I used to have a lot of men in my women's studies classes,

3:47

it was great.

3:50

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Yes, yes.

That is great.

3:51

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Yeah.

It was Minnesota.

3:53

(laughing)

3:55

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That's right.

3:56

And I know you've done several things after Reimagining.

3:58

I'll give you a second there.

4:01

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All right.

4:02

(laughing)

4:04

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We're having lunch.

4:06

We want to leave you a little time to eat, too.

4:08

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So, what like?

4:10

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Just briefly, what you did after Reimagining.

4:12

I know it's been several different things.

4:15

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You mean occupationally?

4:17

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Occupation, right, yes.

4:18

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Oh, I left Hamline to run the Bunting Institute

4:20

at Harvard University, at Radcliffe College, at the time.

4:23

And it was a one year residential fellowship program

4:27

for exceptionally talented women early in their careers.

4:31

And I ran that for four years, and there were 40 fellowships

4:37

a year.

4:39

And I directed it.

4:42

I was also in the same time put on the strategic planning

4:44

team for the Radcliffe Harvard merger, which my group

4:49

put together, the plan for the merger and then the

4:51

leader of our group was on the negotiating team

4:54

with Harvard, and we got everything we wanted.

4:58

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Wow.

5:00

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And in my second year,

we became the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study

5:02

at Harvard University.

5:04

And my program became the premiere institute for this

5:06

advanced research institute.

5:09

And so the last two years I was there, we were at

5:11

Harvard University and because we got a lot of money

5:14

for going in, $250,000,000 to our, they doubled

5:18

our endowment, we got this little cash fund to bring

5:22

six senior fellows who had originally been fellows

5:26

and early on, and the institute was 37 years old

5:30

when I took it over.

5:34

These were all women, early fellows that I could invite

5:36

back and I got to basically pick a lot of them.

5:39

So, I brought back Judith Glasgow.

5:44

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Oh, goodness.

5:47

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She'd been a fellow.

I brought back Judith Herman, common recovery.

5:50

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Wow.

5:58

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I brought back Nancy Totoro, pre-production of mothering.

5:59

I brought back Sue Miller, the novelist.

6:04

I brought back,

6:07

I'm thinking who I brought back.

6:12

Judy.

6:15

Judith.

6:16

Sue.

6:18

Nancy Totoro.

6:19

I'm trying to think, there was a whole group of them.

6:21

It was really fab, oh, Mary Katherine Bateson.

6:23

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Oh, really?

6:27

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She was a fellow.

So these were all fellows while I was there,

6:29

but they were sort of the senior group.

6:31

But the, you know, there were people, Alice Walker

6:33

wrote her first novel there.

6:37

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Did she really?

6:38

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She did.

And let me think, what else?

6:40

(chattering)

6:42

The first two poets were Maxine Cuman and Anne Sexton.

6:47

They both won Pulitzers.

6:51

The number of the writers that won Pulitzers.

6:53

Sue Miller wrote her first novel on our kitchen table

6:58

while she was at the Bunting.

7:01

Marsha McNutt is a junior biologist at MIT came,

7:03

now she's editor of Nature Magazine.

7:08

Or the Nature Journal, I'm sorry.

7:10

And she was chair of the president's science advisory board

7:12

for Obama, she was head of

7:15

Monterey Bay Aquarium Association.

7:17

One of my fellows is now head of the Iowa Writers Workshop.

7:19

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Really?

7:22

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Samantha Chang.

You know, it's just, these are the kind of caliber of women

7:27

that I got to work with for four years and one of the

7:30

women I had was on the truth and reconciliation commission

7:33

in South Africa, (foreign language spoken) was her name.

7:41

She's a social psychologist.

7:42

And a friend of Desmond Tutu, so she got an endorsement

7:44

for proverbs of ashes for us from him.

7:47

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Oh my goodness.

7:51

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I said, "Do you think?"

I said to her, "Puma, I know that the theological ideas

7:53

"in this book are kind of out there,

7:56

"but do you think that, you know, Bishop Tutu might

7:58

"possibly endorse it?"

8:02

She said, "He will if I tell him to."

8:04

(laughing)

8:05

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Oh, I love that.

8:07

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And he wrote us a three page critique of our theology,

8:08

but he endorsed it.

8:10

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Did he really?

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Yeah.

8:12

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Oh my goodness.

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It was wonderful, actually.

8:14

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It is.

He really took it seriously.

8:16

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He did.

He was very upset.

8:17

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How fantastic.

(laughing)

8:19

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But he was like gracious about the endorsement,

8:22

it was all right.

8:23

And so I had an amazing experience.

8:26

Annette Smith was another graduate of the program.

8:28

She was an unknown theater professor at Harvard

8:32

and she went, she went, I mean, at Stanford University,

8:34

and she went to Broadway with her Bunting project.

8:37

Fires in the Mirror was her Bunting project.

8:41

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Really?

8:42

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So it was just an astonishing array of talent.

8:43

I now know things about incredible research areas

8:46

that, you know, I know how an X-ray telescope works,

8:52

I understand anti-angiogenic cancer therapy.

8:54

I understand the P53 grim reaper gene flip switch

8:57

that cancer uses to turn.

9:01

I know how certain kind of computer science things.

9:03

It's just bizarre what I learned in four years.

9:09

It's wonderful to know.

9:11

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What a fantastic experience.

9:13

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So, of course, now my work

with veterans involves a lot of neuroscience.

9:15

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Yes.

9:18

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I had a neuroscientist

explain to us what an MRI was, and then she had this project

9:20

and all the fellows volunteered to be part of it and

9:23

you know, so I'd had an MRI done and it's like,

9:25

OK, it's really very cool.

9:28

Yeah, so I just, I understand, basic science stuff doesn't

9:30

scare me anymore, you know?

9:35

I mean, I was a science major in college, but it's changed

9:37

so much, so I had a little tune up in those years.

9:39

And so now, you know, neuroscience is hot in pastoral

9:43

theology and there are all these people that are

9:46

writing books on neuroscience.

9:49

You know, they're good books, but what I prefer to do

9:51

is to read the journal articles.

9:53

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Yes.

9:55

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And I don't get

the entire formulaic and the, you know, I don't get all

9:57

of it, but I can read them well enough to understand

10:00

whether they're solid studies or not, and what the

10:02

conclusions might mean.

10:05

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Yes.

10:06

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And that's fun.

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Yes.

10:07

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It is fun.

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Well, that's wonderful.

10:09

And it's so relevant for what you're doing.

10:10

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Uh huh.

10:12

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Great, that's great.

Shifting to the Reimagining.

10:14

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So sorry.

-

Yes, no, that was fascinating.

10:16

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Five years at Harvard cured me of academia.

10:17

So I moved to Oakland to finish this Singing Paradise

10:20

book with Rebecca, I thought I'd do it for two years,

10:23

and then become a dean or a president or something,

10:26

and the book took six years, so I wound up

10:28

self employed for 10 years and in there I had a half time

10:30

contract as a senior editor in religion for the new press

10:33

in New York, so I got totally introduced to the world

10:37

of publishing in New York City.

10:41

And they asked me to do a progressive religion series,

10:43

so I invited my friends to write books.

10:46

Or I asked them who should.

10:49

So, you know, I did Jim Forbes' last book.

10:50

Dan McGwire did a book for me.

10:54

Rebecca Alper.

10:57

I had so much fun doing that series.

10:58

I got laid off in the LA crash.

11:00

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Oh, yes.

11:03

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And now you're doing soul repair.

11:04

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Yeah, in that 10 years of self employed work led to this

11:08

Truth Commission on Conscience and War Project,

11:10

and then the Moral Injury Center, and I decided

11:14

I needed a pay job anyway, so we wrote a grant

11:17

to create the center.

11:19

And we waited a year, Lily was the funder,

11:22

and they held the money for a year until I found

11:27

a home for the seminary, because I wanted it to be

11:30

at the seminary.

11:34

They wouldn't fund in California, so I had to find

11:35

a place outside of the GTU.

11:36

Which is where I had originally wanted to do it.

11:38

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Sure.

11:40

What a fascinating career, and so many different things

11:42

coming together, it is fantastic.

11:44

So, I know you presented at many,

11:47

several of the conferences.

11:50

And I'm wondering what led to your initial involvement

11:54

in the Reimagining gathering.

11:56

Do you remember?

11:59

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Well, I was in the Twin Cities, and a feminist theologian.

12:00

And I knew some of the people at United that were

12:03

on the planning committee and

12:07

so I kind of knew it was happening.

12:09

I don't think I followed it super closely because I wasn't

12:15

one of the clergy people involved.

12:17

But I was all excited.

12:20

I was really thrilled that it was happening and I was

12:22

excited to be presenting at it.

12:24

With so many amazing women.

12:27

So, you know, I don't know, clearly it became the

12:29

feminist theology event of the decade.

12:33

And the first one really, of it its magnitude and scope.

12:37

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Say some more about that.

12:43

What do you recall from that 1993--

12:45

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I remember Mercy Odiyoya, to have a feminist theology

12:47

conference in the US, have somebody from Africa,

12:49

Asian women, the 27 countries sent women,

12:53

I mean, they didn't send them, but women came from

12:58

27 countries, was a testimony to its scope.

13:00

And at the time, I think I was a member of the

13:06

Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians,

13:09

and it felt like they were really tapping into this

13:12

international energy around feminism that was emerging

13:15

and so, I wouldn't have missed it.

13:19

I mean, in fact, you know, I sent my students

13:23

because I thought it was a really important event,

13:25

and who knew how important it was going to become, right?

13:28

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Exactly, that's right, yeah.

13:32

Are there any specific moments from that '93 conference

13:34

that you mentioned, Mercy, yeah.

13:37

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Mercy was fabulous.

13:40

Bernice Johnson Reagan was fabulous.

13:42

I remember all of those LGBT women.

13:44

It was a huge group.

13:49

Some of them had to wear things on their heads.

13:51

That was sad, but that they all stood up there

13:53

was fabulous, I remember that moment.

13:55

I remember the artists painting in the background.

13:57

I think Tiny Heck and Judy Chin were both at it, right?

14:01

I don't know, I get it confused, but anyway, there was

14:04

art going on.

14:07

And I remember the set up of the round tables and the

14:09

whole way, you know, I haven't even turned that podium,

14:11

was really kind of neat because if you had a transition

14:16

in your talk, that's when you would turn the podium

14:20

and you didn't have to fake a transition, you could just

14:22

turn the podium.

14:24

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Yes.

-

Next section.

14:27

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Uh huh.

-

SO I really enjoyed that and it was the only time

14:29

in my life I ever wore my mother's kimono.

14:32

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Is that right?

14:34

Wow.

14:36

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To give a presentation

because the back of it is beautiful.

14:37

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Oh.

14:41

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And whoever looks at

your back?

14:42

Right, but in the round, you need to have your back

14:43

interesting.

14:45

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Oh, I love that detail.

Yes.

14:49

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Yeah, so I wore it.

And she had gotten it, it wasn't an antique or anything,

14:51

she had gotten it like in the '70s when she went

14:54

back to Japan, she just wanted to own one.

14:56

I got married in it, actually.

15:00

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Wow.

15:01

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It doesn't fit me anymore,

but I wore it as a robe rather than as a kimono,

15:02

so I didn't have all the accoutrements, I just

15:06

wore it so that you could see the back, my back wasn't

15:08

so boring.

15:11

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Oh.

-

And that was fun.

15:13

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Yes.

-

That was really fun.

15:15

But I remember, there are several things that still stay

15:16

with me, one is the energy in the room.

15:21

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Yeah, yeah.

15:24

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The hunger for this,

and the joy of having it.

15:26

And all the rituals.

15:28

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What do you remember about the rituals?

15:33

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They connected people.

15:35

A lot of them happened around those round tables.

15:37

Little tobacco things and the crayons and then

15:39

the singing of La Sofia every time, that sort of

15:42

punctuated everything.

15:48

I think that was the strength of the whole conference

15:50

was the rituals, actually.

15:53

I think the content of the talks disappears,

15:55

but the embodied ritual process is really,

15:57

is what changes people, is really powerful,

16:00

and that's what Reimagining did really, really well.

16:04

They attended to that with great care.

16:05

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Yes.

16:08

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And I think that's why it was so powerful.

16:09

I mean, the talks were inspiring.

16:13

What I know from the neuroscience is, it's really

16:16

the rituals that make it work.

16:18

And I didn't know that at the time, I just knew they

16:20

were really fabulous.

16:22

And partly, you know, Mary Hunt and I,

16:24

because Mary presented at one of the workshops,

16:29

she was asked to do the Nightline show, I wound up doing.

16:32

Where she was on vacation, and they asked her,

16:37

"Well, who else?"

16:38

She said, "Oh, call Rita Brock."

16:39

So they called me and I agreed to do it.

16:41

Well, Mary Hunt, you know, the backlash and the controversy

16:42

erupted, and Mary Hunt one time had, and I had

16:46

a conversation about, we said, "You know,

16:49

"it's just kind of weird because none of us did

16:51

"our really radical feminists, it was a church

16:54

"lady conference, so we did church things."

16:56

You know, we tried to be attended to who would be there

17:00

and help them understand their life and stuff and so,

17:03

we didn't do our really radical stuff.

17:05

So why are people so upset?

17:08

It was like so puzzling to us.

17:11

We just, you know, like, well, OK, this must be

17:13

a real threat to people, that they're on their

17:17

high horse about something so moderate and nice.

17:19

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Exactly.

17:23

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So that's what,

you know, yeah.

17:25

So the ideas, I don't think it was, I mean, I think

17:27

some of the workshops were better in terms of like

17:30

Dolores and Prelan and the Christology one and

17:33

and lot of my students went to that one,

17:35

push it forward, but in terms of the plantery talks,

17:37

they were inspiring and really good, but you know,

17:41

I don't think that was what made it work.

17:43

It was really the power of the ritual and the connections

17:46

and women not feeling alone and

17:49

so many women came from places where they were

17:53

the only feminist in the town and they were pastoring

17:55

a church and feeling really alone and for them

17:58

it was transformative.

18:00

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Exactly.

18:02

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Because they really

made a carefully designed so that women who came alone

18:04

had people to sit with.

18:10

They got to know.

18:14

So I don't think anybody had to go eat alone.

18:15

Or you know, they really took care to do that.

18:19

I thought that was really fabulous.

18:21

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Yes, yes.

18:23

Exactly.

18:25

And even thinking about mittens for people, I mean,

18:26

all the details.

18:28

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All the details.

-

Exactly.

18:29

-

They got the details right.

-

Yes.

18:31

Now, you were starting to talk about the backlash.

18:33

First of all, did it affect you directly?

18:35

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Mm mm.

18:37

Well.

18:38

It affected me in a positive way.

18:41

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Oh.

18:43

-

I mean, I'm not

grateful for it or anything, but I thought it was stupid,

18:45

but I worked at Hamline, which is a liberal university,

18:49

so when I wound up on Nightline, they were just thrilled

18:55

I was on anything.

18:58

So the PR person came with me to make sure

19:00

they said the name right and spelled it correctly.

19:03

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Really?

19:05

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Oh yeah.

My name, the school's name.

19:07

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Oh.

19:09

-

She still, she's a Facebook friend.

19:10

(laughing)

19:12

We used to, you know, so I made a deal with her office,

19:14

I said,

19:18

"I will do this if you agree to screen any comment

19:20

"comes to the university switch board for me."

19:27

-

Oh.

19:29

-

Because people get

death threats and stuff.

19:31

-

Right.

-

So she said, "Oh, we're happy to do that."

19:34

And I said, "And I want," and I told the university,

19:38

"I want somebody to open any mail of a name I don't

19:41

"recognize--"

19:44

-

Very smart.

-

And if there's any threats or something, they need

19:46

to go in a file and reported to the police.

19:48

They said fine.

19:50

And so I agreed to do it.

19:51

Then Barbara came with me to the studio and it was kind

19:53

of neat to have somebody standing there rooting for me

19:57

because you don't see anything.

20:00

I can't see what's going on on the TV set,

20:02

you've got this little thing in your ear, and you're

20:04

only listening.

20:06

But I got a call from the producer ahead of time

20:08

and it was really clear they didn't really understand

20:12

what the controversies were.

20:14

They thought it was about whether the Bible was

20:16

literally true or not.

20:17

And I said, "You know, that's kind of like asking

20:19

"if Newton's true or not, after the era of Einstein."

20:22

-

Right.

20:25

-

And I said, "You know," it was just when I was working

20:26

on the opening chapter for an introduction

20:30

of feminist theology that my denomination was doing,

20:34

I said, "Let them see this little introduction I was

20:36

"for clergy women," and so I sent them this 15 page,

20:39

you know, double space introduction on

20:43

what is feminist theology.

20:45

And all the producers that called me were female.

20:47

Well, when I got on the, and then I talked to the

20:51

communicate, this is all stuff I learned about

20:55

when you do these things, what you need to do.

20:57

Because I didn't know anything.

20:59

I asked the communications people at Hamline about

21:00

Nightline.

21:04

And this woman said, "Be careful."

21:06

She said, "That show is always stacked.

21:09

"That first set piece they do that describes the problem,

21:13

that always has a slant, so you need to listen

21:15

carefully to see if it's gonna go your way

21:19

or go against you.

21:22

And if it's going your way, you're fine,

21:24

but if it goes against you, you need to have

21:26

a strategy to returning the momentum of the show.

21:29

-

Wow.

21:32

-

I should really should, they said, "Yeah, be careful.

21:33

"It's not a neutral news show."

21:37

So I thought, "Well, OK."

21:38

So I, you know, I sort of called people and said,

21:41

"What if they do?"

21:44

Sort of strategized how I could turn the momentum

21:46

of the show, well, I'm listening to the set piece

21:48

at the beginning thinking, "OK, is this going my way

21:51

"or not?"

21:53

They plagiarized my introduction.

21:54

-

No, seriously?

21:57

-

No, it was fabulous,

I'm just like sitting there thinking,

22:00

"I'm riding this baby home."

22:02

(laughing)

22:03

It was like, "Oh, yes."

22:05

Oh yes, right, right.

22:06

That's when I learned, be nice to the media.

22:08

Don't be offensive.

22:12

Give them all the information that will help them.

22:13

All of that.

22:16

Have a good friend, even if you don't like what they're

22:17

asking you, give them, you know.

22:19

So that was, so all I had to do was stay with that energy

22:21

and the woman from the IRD was--

22:26

-

Susan Cride.

22:30

-

--Stryden, yes,

she just wasn't very smart about, she didn't know,

22:33

obviously they hadn't coached her very well,

22:34

and she didn't have, she wasn't very sophisticated, right?

22:36

So I remember, and the guy came on the earphones

22:40

and he says to me, before the show starts he said,

22:42

"Now, remember, this is a debate, don't, you know,

22:44

"you need to let your opponents make her points,

22:48

"but you don't need to let her go on and on

22:50

"if she's already made her point.

22:51

"You're free to interrupt."

22:53

So, she was saying, she had one point she repeated

22:55

over and over, "You can't change God, you can't change God."

22:58

So about the second or third time she started into that

23:01

trope I said, "Oh, please."

23:03

I said, "No right minded theologian ever thinks you're

23:06

"actually talking about God, you're talking about

23:10

"symbols for God.

23:12

"Those change all the time.

23:14

"And in fact, people who get PHDs in theology,

23:15

"that's what they do.

23:19

"They think about how you think about God."

23:21

And I said, "We've earned the right to do that

23:23

"because we have our doctorates."

23:26

-

Great.

23:28

-

I just wanted

to flat out say that.

23:29

We're doing a good job of that, or something like that.

23:31

And it just completely took the wind out of her sails.

23:35

-

That was her one point.

23:38

-

That was her one point,

and she really didn't have much more going for her.

23:39

So, so, I just learned a lot about how you do media stuff,

23:41

from that one experience, and then I got calls

23:46

from all over the country, as soon as the show was over.

23:50

-

Did you?

23:53

-

When it aired?

Yeah.

23:55

I think, I don't think it was live, I think it was taped

23:56

and then aired.

23:58

And I got, you know, the woman who was head of the

24:00

National Council of Churches call me.

24:04

Campbell, Joan Campbell called me.

24:06

Her daughter's Joan, is that it?

24:09

Jane, her daughter's Jane, she's Joan.

24:12

Anyway, she called me, this woman at Connecticut

24:14

College of Rights on Women and Humor that I'd had

24:17

a conference invite her to, she called me.

24:19

She said, "Oh, Michael and I were laying in bed

24:22

"watching Nightline and there you were.

24:23

"It was really great, you did a great,"

24:25

it was really funny.

24:27

An old boyfriend I didn't know for years called,

24:28

I mean from, it was just strange.

24:30

So that was, that was a really interesting experience,

24:32

but I was protected at Hamline because they were

24:36

delighted I was on TV.

24:40

They didn't care what I said.

24:42

And Barbara would call me, oh, I don't know,

24:44

for six months or so, every now and then,

24:49

she'd call me, she'd say, "Hey.

24:51

"You want to know who called you?"

24:53

And she'd tell me the funny calls, the crazy crackpot

24:55

calls that would come in for me.

24:58

-

I was wondering, did you get those?

25:01

Yeah, yeah?

25:02

-

And I got a few crack, I didn't get any threats,

25:03

but I got a lot of crackpot letter kind of things

25:05

I didn't have to leave.

25:07

I just decided I didn't want to have to deal with 'em.

25:08

And I didn't read them.

25:10

But Barbara just enjoyed the funniness of it,

25:12

and so we would have these like humorous moments

25:14

where she would tell me, "Oh, we got a call today

25:16

"from a mister blah blah blah.

25:19

"He thinks some blah."

25:21

(laughing)

25:22

-

Oh, I'm so glad, I'm so glad.

25:25

By the way, before I forget.

25:28

I have been trying to get, I have a couple people

25:30

who might be able to send me the video.

25:33

You don't happen to have access to, or know where

25:34

I could get it?

25:37

-

I have it.

Somewhere in a box on one of those tapes.

25:38

-

VCR tapes?

25:45

-

VCR tapes.

-

Yes, yes, yes.

25:46

-

I do.

I have that.

25:48

-

Well.

25:49

-

I would love to

turn, I'm sending my archives to the Radcliffe Schlesinger

25:50

Library.

25:54

-

OK, great.

-

So, it would go there otherwise.

25:56

-

OK.

25:57

-

So, I mean,

I can just send it to them and it can be accessible,

25:59

but it does exist and I have it.

26:02

-

That's great, that's great.

26:04

Well, good, so.

26:05

Because the other thing is, we really want to get it

26:07

digitized because that technology is not going to be,

26:08

I mean, it's already virtually inaccessible.

26:12

-

It actually might be more useful in your hands then,

26:15

because I don't know that Radcliffe would do that.

26:16

-

Yeah, well, if you don't mind doing that,

26:19

that would be great, and then I can give it to,

26:21

well, we can talk later about which archive might want it,

26:22

because I'm sure they might want that, too.

26:25

So, that'd be great.

26:27

But we're trying, we would like to digitize it.

26:28

-

Might be union because of the media piece.

26:30

-

Yeah, that's a good idea.

26:32

Yes, that would be great.

26:33

So, how do you account for the backlash?

26:35

You mentioned that a lot of these ideas were

26:39

fairly moderate, so what accounts for the backlash?

26:41

-

The IRD?

26:46

The main leader of that.

26:48

Was created by Jim Watt and Daniel Patrick Moynihan

26:51

and Skip Jackson.

26:54

When the Democrats,

26:56

it was during the Reagan years.

27:02

It's all part of the Reagan resolution, right?

27:04

Which killed the mainline churches because

27:06

it wasn't created to take out feminist theology,

27:08

but it was created to take out the mainline churches

27:13

because of the Iran Contra opposition to the

27:18

Reagan illegal, and the cocaine trafficking,

27:22

and the government used to pay for it.

27:27

So all the just say no, drug thing,

27:31

was also aided and abetted by Birches, the head of the CIA

27:34

and Reagan, the administration using cocaine money.

27:39

That's when the streets of the drop,

27:45

street value of cocaine dropped a tenth of its

27:48

original value because it was so much cocaine in it.

27:50

And then crack cocaine epidemic and all that,

27:53

that was part of the Contra war thing.

27:55

-

Wow.

27:58

-

I've researched all this really carefully because

27:59

I wanted to know who my opponents were.

28:01

-

Right.

28:03

-

So, the IRD's mission was to

28:06

destroy or sort of defang the mainline churches.

28:11

One step removed from any political involvement

28:17

of any administration.

28:20

They called it one step removed.

28:22

And so, that's its job.

28:24

Still is.

28:28

And it tried everybody, and even tried to make the,

28:29

their job was to destroy or make the mainlines

28:31

go rightward, those were the two objectives.

28:35

They even tried to do that to the UU's,

28:38

but they gave up.

28:40

And they gave up when the UCC pretty early, too.

28:42

And the disciples because our right wing screwed up.

28:44

It wasn't very smart.

28:48

And so it narrowed, finally, its choices to the

28:50

Episcopal, Presbyterian and Methodist churches,

28:53

and they're still working on them.

28:56

But we got in their crosshairs because

28:58

we were an easy target.

29:04

They could caricature things and they didn't,

29:10

their people didn't identify as media, but they

29:13

wrote all these trashing articles and

29:15

I think by then, abortion had become a big deal

29:19

as a wedge issue for them, because that was a change

29:23

that happened in the late '70s,

29:27

a Southern Baptist convention, and then pro Roe V Wade

29:29

suddenly went anti-abortion, all that stuff happened

29:31

with the right wing as a strategy for defending Bob Jones.

29:33

It was a racist, white supremacist strategy, and the IRD

29:38

became all part of that.

29:42

So, I think the feminists, there was a lot of,

29:43

you know, there was anti-gay, anti-abortion,

29:49

all of that stuff was going on and so,

29:51

Reimagining just got in those crosshairs.

29:55

As collateral damage.

29:57

And an easy target.

30:00

-

What exactly made it an easy target?

30:03

-

Well, it's like Bless Sophia and is it gay things?

30:04

Now it seems so tame, so utterly tame, but at that time,

30:09

it was really radical.

30:15

And it was multi-racial and international and they were

30:17

using Native American things and oh my God.

30:23

So it became a really good target and the Presbyterian

30:27

layman was the front cutting edge of that.

30:31

The Good News Methodists tried, but since the Methodist's

30:33

women's desk doesn't care, I mean, they had their own

30:36

Good News women that tried to take out the women's desk

30:40

and totally failed, so Methodist women didn't pay

30:43

the same price as Mary Anne Lundy did because the layman

30:47

was really potent and nasty.

30:50

So, that all happened.

30:54

And what's interesting is,

30:57

and this is the unintended consequence of that backlash

31:02

attack, is that Reimagining generated more column inches

31:05

of media reporting on progressive religion

31:12

than any event since the Vietnam war.

31:17

Now, I know that because I have a scholar in the academy

31:23

who studies media reporting on religion,

31:27

and he studied it.

31:29

And he said, "Weren't you with?"

31:31

You know, we were at some meeting where it was kind of

31:33

irrelevant to this, but he said,

31:36

"Weren't you at Reimagining?"

31:38

I said, "Yeah."

31:39

I said, "Yeah, I was even on Nightline,

31:41

"it was just awful, you know, then it was on

31:43

"Neil Nair News Hour stuff."

31:45

And he said, "Yeah," he said, "You know,

31:49

"Reimagining generated more column inches for

31:50

"progressive religion than any events since the

31:53

"Vietnam war," I said, "Your kidding."

31:55

He said, "Yeah, I've checked."

31:56

-

Wow, who was this?

31:58

-

Some religion scholar.

I can't remember his name anymore.

32:00

It sort of came, it went by in a conversation

32:01

about other things.

32:03

And I remember thinking, "Huh, OK, wow."

32:04

So I mean, somebody else could research this,

32:08

it's not hard to dig through, but you know, it was

32:10

a little one inch column on page 16 of the New York Times

32:12

was the first media report and then suddenly exploded

32:16

into Nightline and you know, News Hour and everybody

32:20

picked it up and it became a big story.

32:22

Not since the Vietnam war.

32:27

Had progressive religion done anything controversial

32:29

enough to warrant news coverage, right?

32:31

-

Wow.

32:36

-

So.

I was pleased.

32:39

-

Yes.

-

But it was a horrible price to pay.

32:41

But it did kind of jettison feminist theology into

32:45

the public sphere in some kind of way.

32:49

Suddenly, this is the other benefit of it.

32:51

Suddenly churches were talking about it.

32:53

Theology and wondering what the hell it was.

32:55

-

Right, yes.

32:57

-

I had so many

theologian friends that were asked to go to churches

32:59

and explain atonement theology.

33:01

-

Yeah.

33:03

-

And what were the feminist's

objections to it, right?

33:05

Yes, that whole conversation was--

33:07

-

It disrupted the sort of autopilot acceptance of

33:09

atonement theology.

33:14

It is now really being rethought in a lot of churches.

33:15

I think that's a long legacy of Reimagining is it's

33:19

gonna kill atonement theology.

33:22

(laughing)

33:25

-

Hooray.

33:27

-

Yes.

-

And in fact, that's what you talked about in the

33:28

'94 gathering, you talked about Christology

33:30

and Soteriology and you laid out beautifully those

33:31

issues.

33:35

Do you remember anything in particular?

33:36

I know it's been a long time, but anything about

33:38

the '94 conference or your thoughts about going back

33:40

to another Reimagining conference after what happened?

33:43

-

Oh, I loved it.

33:46

I felt like I was with some communion of saints.

33:48

I mean, you know?

33:51

-

Yes.

33:52

-

At that moment, it was a pivot point in feminist theology.

33:55

-

Say some more.

34:01

-

Beyond the church thing.

34:03

Churches were asking feminist theology,

34:06

feminist theologians who knew about it to come

34:08

and talk to them.

34:11

That Mary Anne wound up at the World Council,

34:13

that was huge.

34:18

I remember saying at one of my talks,

34:19

about the backlash, I said, you know,

34:21

"Poor Mary Anne Lundig, you know, what happened to her,"

34:23

I said, "But I kind of think she got fired up."

34:26

-

That's a great line, yes.

34:30

-

You know, and I really thought that, I thought,

34:31

talk about feminist influence.

34:34

It went international because of Reimagining and it,

34:38

you know, not in a way that anybody would have

34:41

wanted to happen, but it happened.

34:43

-

Exactly.

34:45

-

And I'm not sure

it would have for a much longer period of time.

34:46

-

Yes.

34:48

-

It sort of forced

the issue, which it was designed to do.

34:50

It would force the issue in the World Council

34:53

because they weren't doing anything about the Decade Aid

34:56

Committee, or not enough, anyway.

34:57

-

Yeah.

35:00

You know, I saw an online interview with you where you

35:01

mentioned that your commitment to, you saw in 1994,

35:03

in the crisis in Christianity, really influenced you.

35:08

And the direction you took.

35:12

Can you say a little bit more about that?

35:13

Because that was really interesting.

35:15

-

I don't remember what that was.

35:16

(laughing)

35:17

But I did think the mainlines were already in trouble

35:20

and they have not, I don't think they're gonna make it.

35:24

-

Really?

35:28

Yeah, say some more about that.

35:29

-

I don't think they're gonna make it.

35:30

In any recognizable form because I think

35:31

with very few exceptions, the whole Protestant project

35:35

of sectarian denominations is bankrupt.

35:42

It's a kind of strange,

35:47

now nobody knows,

35:51

first of all,

35:53

the feminists don't care.

35:54

We don't even care about the religious differences,

35:58

I mean, you know, we don't show up at meetings

36:00

and say, "Well, are you a Christian, Jewish

36:02

"or Muslim?"

36:03

It's like, I mean, those things matter in some ways,

36:04

but they're not the main agenda, so

36:08

I have feminist colleagues in Catholicism and

36:11

Judaism and Protestantism of various sorts

36:15

and even Evangelicalism, it's just,

36:19

those boundaries, they're judicatory structures,

36:22

they're not an expensive judicatory structures

36:27

that I think actually are a part of the problem.

36:33

The resources spent.

36:40

Sort of like these tiny little seminaries

36:42

that are dying that have a president and a missions,

36:43

I mean, it's like the money spent on administration

36:46

is outrageous for the delivery of the product.

36:49

You know?

36:55

There are universities that manage to have one

36:58

president and have 5,000 levers, or whatever,

37:00

students, and yeah, you have to have staffing to run

37:03

those places, but it's a matter of economies of scale

37:06

and the seminaries are in the opposite direction.

37:12

Especially the freestanding ones.

37:14

So, it's just, these models don't work

37:16

and people are so, I think, obsessed about their

37:21

own survival that they can't let it go.

37:26

They can't move far enough out of that structural thinking

37:29

to actually reimagine church and seminary life.

37:33

-

Which brings me to the question, what does

37:40

Reimagining look like today?

37:43

And I mean that in the broad sense.

37:45

-

I do mean it's to reimagine Christianity.

37:46

-

Yeah, and what does reimagining Christianity look like?

37:49

That's fascinating.

37:52

-

I don't know.

37:54

I don't know anyone knows, but I do think

37:57

that the seminary, you know, seminary is the most

38:00

endowment driven of all the higher education institutions

38:06

because it's an expensive education for alumni

38:09

that can never pay you back.

38:13

You know, they're not gonna make, and less and less

38:16

are they gonna make enough money, unless they do

38:18

something besides ministry.

38:23

-

Right.

38:23

-

So, it's not a good model, and I think that this

38:25

sort of graduate education model that seminaries

38:31

have followed where they, you know, somebody comes

38:36

and they do three years limping along, working,

38:40

and sort of trying to get their education done,

38:44

I think it would actually be a better education

38:48

to do it in 12 months full time.

38:53

And I've thought this since I looked at what the military

38:56

does.

39:00

-

Oh, interesting.

Yeah.

39:02

-

They can take

an 18 to 25 year old in eight to 12 weeks and change

39:03

them so dramatically because it's a complete immersion

39:07

process.

39:10

-

Right.

-

Everything's ritualized.

39:12

And I don't want to do that, but I think you could,

39:14

but I know that if you learn a language in a month,

39:17

40 hours a week, you can do a whole semester.

39:20

I did Chinese that way.

39:24

And I did enough, I did half a day,

39:28

five days a week, for eight weeks, in German,

39:32

then I enrolled in the University of Basil.

39:38

Now, I had had sixth grade or junior high German,

39:41

but you know, I hadn't had anything since.

39:44

So I knew a little German, but you know,

39:48

I kind of knew how the letters were pronounced and stuff,

39:51

but the course I took wasn't like that.

39:53

We couldn't, we read things in German on a screen

39:55

that were conversations, then we repeated them

39:59

and repeated, it was very ritualized.

40:00

We weren't allowed to use dictionaries,

40:03

we weren't allowed to translate anything.

40:05

So I learned to think in German,

40:09

I started doing German in eight weeks.

40:10

-

Amazing.

40:12

-

Right?

So because why?

40:13

These intensive things reinforce themselves

40:14

by constant repetition the way you'd train

40:17

an athlete for hours a day to learn a skill, right?

40:19

So I think if you did seminary education in one year,

40:22

you figured out how to pay for it so that people

40:25

didn't have to work,

40:28

some people could afford to do it anyway, but for the

40:31

people who couldn't, you have scholarships,

40:33

but you have to figure out how to make it work,

40:35

and figure out what you have to do about,

40:38

with those with families and things.

40:42

And maybe this is a special program for people

40:45

who can do it, but you do it in a year,

40:48

and you do it

40:52

with understanding they come in cohort groups.

40:55

Of maybe a dozen.

40:59

And the rule is that the whole group graduates

41:00

or no one does.

41:03

And you don't use grades.

41:04

You have standards and you have feedback and you have

41:07

people evaluating saying, "You haven't met it,"

41:11

but you don't do grades.

41:13

-

Yes, yeah.

41:15

-

And all that

bureaucratic silliness.

41:17

-

You know, one of the goals of Reimagining was to bring,

41:19

to bridge the gap between the academy and the church.

41:21

And I'm wondering how you would evaluate,

41:25

in terms of inclusive expansive language,

41:28

feminist theology, where do you see the church now

41:30

and where do you see it going?

41:34

-

It slid back so far.

I know churches have stopped using inclusive language.

41:38

Lord is back, God the Father is back.

41:41

I think it, I think the feminist movement lost traction.

41:47

Because we didn't attend enough to the rituals.

41:56

So the rituals of the church are 500 years old and molded.

42:00

And they're very comfortable for people,

42:07

but they're not transformative rituals.

42:10

So what happened at Reimagining was a one off rather

42:13

than being a thing that began to be used in churches

42:15

and permeate churches.

42:18

And you can't, you have to change the art forms,

42:22

you have to change the structures, the choreography,

42:25

you have to do a lot with the ritual world.

42:27

Because it's not the sermons and the ideas

42:30

that deliver the change, it's the constant repetition.

42:32

-

Do you see that happening in the mainline church

42:38

or do you see it happening more in

42:39

feminist interfaith things, or something different?

42:41

-

I don't see it happening much.

42:45

I mean, I haven't been recently to a lot of,

42:47

I just dropped out of the theological world for a while

42:51

and I go to the American Academy of Religion because

42:55

it's a professional thing, but

42:58

I don't remember the last feminist theology conference

43:03

I went to, I just haven't been to many in recent years.

43:05

So I just don't know what's going on in that world,

43:09

but I don't see it permeating in a profound way

43:12

in churches and you know, it's been almost 25 years.

43:17

-

2018 will be 25 years.

43:23

-

Yeah.

It should've done that by now.

43:26

If it had been a sustained initiative to do that.

43:28

I think what we needed to do was to start

43:31

rewriting books of prayer, books of prayer and really

43:35

pushing forward on the art of ritual.

43:38

-

Yes.

43:43

-

And figuring out

ways to get it into the hands of men and women clergy

43:45

who really wanted social transformation and didn't

43:48

know how to do it.

43:52

I think that's what's needed.

43:54

And I worked with Silvia Thorson Smith who's with

43:56

Voices of Sea.

43:58

And a woman named Alicia Lola Jones, who's a black musician,

44:00

musicologist who's a really talented music person.

44:03

When we were gonna try to do a summer intensive course

44:09

on creating new ritual materials.

44:13

But it didn't make.

44:16

-

Really?

-

Yeah.

44:19

Uh uh.

44:20

I think people don't get that.

44:22

-

Yes.

44:23

-

Anyway, so that's what I'm, I think has been the missing

44:26

piece, and it may be too late.

44:31

Because the people left in the churches are,

44:37

with a few exceptions, over 50.

44:41

And the fastest growing group are nones and

44:46

spiritual but not religious.

44:49

Yeah, so, even the Evangelicals are losing their young

44:51

people, so.

44:53

-

So where do you think the spiritual life is moving

44:58

or the focus should be, when we look at Reimagining?

45:01

-

I really think it might be interesting to just

45:09

give up on the mainline churches and start designing

45:11

rituals and community life for people who don't have,

45:13

for the nones and spiritual but not religious.

45:15

Who are feminists and want a spiritual life but not

45:19

the moldy kind of thing that they, most of them

45:23

walked away from something, they're not nones

45:29

because they didn't have a family or, you know,

45:31

a lot of them have a religious experience

45:36

and they didn't find it satisfying.

45:38

-

Yeah, yeah.

45:41

In the end, how would you define Reimagining?

45:43

-

Hmm, that's an interesting question.

45:49

An international pivotal moment in the life

45:55

of feminist theology,

46:02

and women in the church.

46:06

And not because it changed feminist theology content,

46:13

but it moved it suddenly out into the public world,

46:18

in a way it never had been before.

46:22

-

Great, yes.

46:27

-

For all the good,

and it was controversial, but it happened, yeah.

46:29

-

Yes, yes.

46:33

And you mentioned ritual, so I'm asking what aspects of

46:34

Reimagining are most significant and why,

46:38

and you said ritual, is there anything else

46:40

you would want to add to that?

46:42

-

You know.

46:45

I really enjoyed the presentations, but they weren't new,

46:49

you know what I mean?

46:52

They weren't, I didn't suddenly go away thinking,

46:55

"Oh, I have to change this thing in my theology,"

46:57

you know, that isn't what happened to me, it was just

46:59

the power of seeing that many amazing women in one room

47:05

together.

47:06

-

Yes.

-

Committed to feminism, you know, it's sort of,

47:08

do feminist work, you sometimes feel kind of like

47:11

you're the only person on the planet, especially

47:12

in the places I was, like Hawkins, Texas, and

47:14

I was in really Podunk little places often.

47:18

So, for me, I mean, by the time I was in Minnesota,

47:22

I didn't feel that way so much because I had plenty

47:26

of feminist friends here, but I just, I was just amazed.

47:29

-

And for many of the women there, in small towns

47:34

across the country, this was, yeah.

47:36

Exactly.

47:38

-

Yeah, I get that.

-

Yeah, well, and it's clear it didn't change your

47:41

perspective on feminist theology,

47:44

did it change your perspective on the church at all?

47:45

-

No.

47:50

-

OK.

(laughing)

47:52

-

I was in a great church here.

47:53

-

Were you?

47:54

-

Yeah.

-

Where were you?

47:55

-

Spirit Lakes.

-

Oh, yes, yes.

47:56

Yeah, and what was great about that church?

47:59

-

It was about as far left as you can go in Christianity.

48:05

You know, with 95% LGBT, liberation theology oriented.

48:08

You never got an argument you raised a feminist issue,

48:13

you might get some pushback, but you know,

48:15

people were like, OK.

48:17

And they tried to be inclusive of people of color.

48:20

-

Yes.

48:23

-

I mean, it was, we had a people of color interest group,

48:26

we had potlucks every month.

48:30

We had a support system within the church that way.

48:32

-

Nice.

48:35

-

It was a life giving church in all of its messed up ways.

48:37

-

Mm hmm, mm hmm.

48:41

-

It did have major controversies, but you know,

48:45

yeah.

48:48

It was worth the struggle.

48:50

-

Yes.

I was thinking about your talk where you talked

48:52

about perfection is not the goal.

48:54

Integration and wholeness--

48:56

-

No, life.

Some liveliness, some creativity, some sense of energy.

48:58

And that church had it.

49:02

-

Yes, yes, yeah.

49:04

So in the end, what do you think the greatest legacy

49:06

of Reimagining is?

49:09

-

I think it is that sort of launch of a process of

49:14

mainstreaming feminist theology.

49:20

-

Yes, yeah.

49:24

-

It's no longer some exotic fringe thing.

49:26

-

Mm hmm.

49:29

-

I think one reason I haven't gone to very many

49:33

conferences in recent years is it's so established now

49:35

that virtually every mainline seminary has feminists

49:39

on the faculty and

49:42

read books all the time, publishers want them

49:45

because they sell, that tells you something.

49:48

-

Again, it's not in the mainline churches.

49:51

-

No, because it's the idea stuff that is popular,

49:56

but the rituals haven't changed to go with them.

49:58

-

Yeah, yes, yeah.

50:01

My last question for you, and it's a very specific one,

50:04

is the Reimagining community is working on a website

50:07

and part of it is going to be historical, making the

50:09

conference talks and other things accessible digitally.

50:13

But also looking at ways to maybe network,

50:16

and do you have any ideas about who maybe benefit

50:21

from it, what should be on the website, any thoughts

50:23

about what would be valuable?

50:27

-

I think it would be really valuable to have a section

50:32

on trauma.

50:35

-

Oh, yes.

Say some more about that.

50:38

-

Well, trauma studies is the hottest thing right now

50:39

in religion, or in theology.

50:40

-

Yeah.

50:43

-

And I think it's not all good work.

50:45

This is sort of like, now if you suffer at all,

50:49

you are traumatized, which isn't true.

50:50

But I had this conversation of Shelly Rambo

50:54

about her book Spirit and Trauma.

50:57

And she said, "You know, I didn't write that book

50:59

"to bring atonement theology back, so I don't want you

51:04

"to think that's what it's about."

51:06

And she said, "But what I noticed was that after

51:08

"the feminist theology movement sort of made

51:11

"the atonement anathema and you

51:13

"just don't read feminist atonement

51:16

"theologies anymore, it's like nobody does that,"

51:19

she said, "But then nobody was writing on trauma."

51:22

And she says, "Well, what do you do with human suffering

51:25

"if you don't believe in the atonement?"

51:29

And I think that that is important.

51:32

And so I think something on that goes deeper

51:37

than the sort of surface level of anger on feminism.

51:43

And I think that would be good to have.

51:48

And I think having a whole lot of stuff

51:53

on art and ritual would be really,

51:55

like maybe even a regular new feature on

51:57

electionary cycle of prayers and litanies

52:02

and sermon ideas to take you, and take you beyond

52:09

the stuff that's going on now and

52:14

I have to say, you know, there was this era

52:17

of new hymn writing by feminists,

52:20

most of it sucks.

52:23

Because it's like singing a lecture.

52:25

There's no poetry in it, it's very wooden.

52:29

Or very preachy.

52:31

And a lot of new hymns are that way, anyway.

52:34

So, they don't hit you as poetry.

52:37

You know, and your brain is changed by poetry.

52:40

It's affected by poetry far more than prose.

52:43

Because prose has little emotional content in it.

52:46

Poetry has a lot of emotional content

52:50

and that's how it works.

52:52

Memory works by what you perceive hitting your limbic brain

52:54

and then it circulates, the perception circulates

53:00

in there, and if it flares any kind of emotional content,

53:04

it will be stored in your memory banks,

53:09

but if it doesn't, it's forgotten.

53:12

And so so many hymns are just easily forgettable

53:15

because the language is clear this is like

53:21

ideologically driven language and poetry

53:25

doesn't work very well that way, so

53:28

I think we need better resources

53:31

and I think it means

53:35

bringing in real artists.

53:38

I remember I was on a panel at Green Bell in England,

53:42

which is a religion and arts festival that

53:45

thousands of people come to.

53:47

It's a religious Woodstock of England, it's fabulous.

53:49

Wild Goose has attempted to do it here,

53:52

I've never been to a Wild Goose one, but the one in

53:54

England is really interesting, and I was on a panel

53:58

with a woman who's a senior minister of a church,

54:04

she was maybe in her 30's, she had tattoos and

54:09

spiky hair and she had a rock band that did

54:12

the main stage worship service that weekend.

54:15

You know, piercings.

54:19

She did not look like, and she'd have loved it.

54:21

You know?

54:23

And she was on the panel and then there was a guy

54:25

who was a poet on the panel, and a visual artist.

54:27

And the question for the panel was,

54:31

the difference between art and propaganda.

54:35

And we concluded that almost all religious stuff

54:39

is propaganda.

54:43

Because it's intended to evoke a certain outcome.

54:47

Whereas real art is multivalent,

54:52

it makes you think, it's transformative because

54:57

it doesn't prescribe the outcome, right?

55:01

So almost all liturgy is propaganda.

55:05

I'd like to see it be art.

55:09

I'd love to read a litany sometime that moved me

55:12

and didn't preach a theology at me.

55:14

To hear a prayer that wasn't like a sermon

55:16

with your eyes closed, I mean, you know?

55:18

-

Yes.

55:21

-

It's pretty, the stuff in services is just

55:22

pretty mediocre.

55:24

It's even mediocre propaganda.

55:27

It's not even very good propaganda.

55:29

Real good propaganda actually works, but.

55:31

So, yeah.

55:34

-

Those are great ideas, absolutely.

55:36

-

And even some art, some things that people,

55:37

you know.

55:41

This is why I think the mainlines aren't gonna make it.

55:43

Is that one of the agendas of the mainlines,

55:49

coming out of the Protestant Reformation,

55:53

was to attenuate as much as possible ritual.

55:56

Even to demonize ritual and call it superstition

56:00

as a Catholic thing.

56:02

So, what the mainlines did was retain a very thin

56:05

and not very effective set of rituals.

56:12

And so

56:17

ritual that's powerful has huge juice and creative energy

56:21

in it.

56:25

I think, I mean, why Protestantism is so desiccated,

56:27

it's gonna be hard to revive it without

56:30

a whole infusion of a very different set of,

56:32

a real belief that ritual matters.

56:35

Most protestants don't pay much attention to it

56:38

because it's not in the forefront of their thinking,

56:40

they're interested in the sermon.

56:42

And the Bible.

56:45

And so scripture is a really dumb basis for a religion.

56:46

-

And you said that it was actually the

56:54

Reimaging ritual that was so powerful.

56:56

-

Yeah, it was, I think it was.

56:59

I think partly because it was a ritual designed

57:01

to bring people together.

57:04

And to implant the ideas through the symbol systems

57:08

and the things on the tables and the interactions.

57:11

-

Yes.

57:14

-

And the singing.

-

Yes, yes.

57:16

-

You know.

-

And there was art and there was music and there

57:18

was dance.

57:20

-

There was a lot of art.

And some of it was very high quality.

57:22

You know, they really worked hard to make everything

57:26

really, really high quality.

57:28

-

Yes, they sure did.

57:30

So is there anything else you would want to add

57:33

that we haven't talked about?

57:35

This has been wonderful.

57:37

-

This is, my hobby horses are education is better

57:38

when it's prolonged and intensive,

57:42

rather than dribbled out in drips and drabs

57:45

and very expensive, and it's much better

57:47

when you do it with a group and there's something

57:50

at stake for the entire group to succeed together.

57:53

-

Yes.

57:55

-

People will try harder

for other people than for themselves a lot of the time.

57:58

And what really matters in life is art.

58:01

-

That's a great place to end, thank you.

58:08

That's fantastic.

58:11

Brock, Rita

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