Olson, Manley / Re-Imagining Collection / Duke Digital Repository

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If it won't pick up too much of my blowing my nose,

0:00

and so forth, or coughing.

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(laughing)

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Well, it's all part of it, isn't it? (laughs)

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Let me make sure.

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There we go, all right.

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First of all, I need some background

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information from you, your name.

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Okay, Manley Olson.

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And are you lay or clergy?

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I'm this weird thing in the Presbyterian Church

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called an ordained elder, which is lay, but,

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in the Reformed Church, you've got the ordained,

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so I'm an ordained elder.

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And the Presbyterian Church, yeah?

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Manley, when and where were you born?

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Born in Wisconsin in 1936.

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Oh, okay.

0:43

So you're a Midwestern person.

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Where did you go to school?

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Graduate school, Divinity school, any of those things?

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Got a PhD from the University of Minnesota

0:53

in Constitutional History.

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Oh.

0:58

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Well, I was in,

0:59

but my dissertation was on Church-State Relations.

1:01

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Is that right, I never knew that, really.

1:05

And so what kind of work did you go into?

1:09

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Well, I spent 30 years as Dean of Liberal Arts

1:13

at Normandale Community College.

1:16

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Okay.

1:18

Great, all right.

1:19

These interviews are great.

1:21

I find out all kinds of interesting things.

1:22

So how and when did you first

1:24

become aware of Feminist theology?

1:26

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I couldn't tell you a specific time or place.

1:32

One of the interesting things is that

1:39

a lot of things I've gotten involved in the church

1:42

had been strictly by accident.

1:44

And,

1:47

I had agreed to,

1:50

the Presbytery had a list of committees

1:54

you could get involved with,

1:56

and one of them had to do with higher education,

1:59

so I had checked off that.

2:03

So I end up with a committee,

2:06

somebody made a mistake, obviously.

2:09

I think, I don't know.

2:11

(laughing)

You basically start to say, well, the Holy Spirit works.

2:13

I ended up on a committee that,

2:17

I don't remember what the title was,

2:21

but it was basically dealing with vocation.

2:23

And,

2:28

so we talked about vocation and theology,

2:29

and one of the things we did was officer training

2:33

and elder training and so forth.

2:36

So we started talking about, that was my first

2:38

real discussion with anybody about theology of any kind.

2:42

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Oh, interesting.

2:47

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Because I went to a public institution,

2:49

and,

2:54

had no background at all in it,

2:57

and got involved in some discussions of that.

3:01

That was one of the two streams.

3:04

The other was that I worked at the University of Minnesota,

3:08

and one of my jobs was, the university was

3:14

the accrediting agency for non-public schools,

3:18

and so I was in charge of going

3:21

and setting up visits with high school,

3:23

this was high schools, of Catholic,

3:27

Missouri Synod Lutheran,

3:29

Seventh-day Adventists,

3:32

prep schools like Blake and Breck.

3:34

Well, Breck is I guess nominally Episcopal,

3:38

but (laughs) it's really pretty secular.

3:40

And so you get involved with these discussions,

3:45

and one of the funniest things was we had a visit.

3:47

You're familiar with North Central Association.

3:52

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Yes.

3:54

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We had a visit at St. Cloud Cathedral,

3:55

run by the North Central Association,

3:58

because we were a part of it.

4:00

So we're there and we set up.

4:02

The person who was doing North Central

4:06

always forgot to set up a religion committee,

4:07

because they didn't have to worry about that,

4:09

so we put together an ad hoc religion committee.

4:11

So I ended up on most of these

4:14

visits to, we did jointly.

4:16

I ended up on the religion committee kind of thing.

4:18

So I got involved and did some discussions and so forth.

4:21

And it was funny, at one of the schools,

4:24

at the end, everybody's saying thank you for everybody,

4:28

and somebody, "It's nice to have a whole bunch of

4:30

"concerned Catholics at the religion committee."

4:33

And I said, "Boy, if you're gonna fake it,

4:36

"fake it with sincerity," kind of thing.

4:37

So I started getting some interest in those kinds of things.

4:40

My next committee I got on again by accident,

4:45

was a women's committee for the Synod.

4:48

I had put down for something else,

4:52

and I ended up on a women's committee.

4:54

So, fine, I'm on the women's committee.

4:57

And that led to another accident where,

4:59

the National Presbyterian Church had

5:04

a committee called Justice for Women,

5:07

which was just basically what the name implies.

5:10

I get a phone call late at night

5:14

from the person I know who was on the committee said,

5:17

"I just put your name in to be on the

5:21

"National Justice for Women Committee."

5:23

I said, "Well, how come," she says,

5:24

I said "I thought we had nominated so and so for it."

5:27

"Oh, yeah, but I forgot who it was

5:30

"and your the only name I could think of, so."

5:32

(laughs)

5:33

So from there I went to the Ecumenical Decade Committee,

5:35

the national one, again because

5:40

the person who was supposed to serve couldn't,

5:42

so I ended up filling in.

5:45

And so because I was on that I said,

5:47

well, I might as well get involved with the local group,

5:50

which had just started, so I missed probably

5:52

the first two or three meetings

5:54

of the original Re-Imagining group,

5:55

but I got in at the very ground level, so.

5:57

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I love it.

6:02

What a circuitous route, and you got there.

6:03

That is wonderful.

6:05

Well, that transitions beautifully

6:06

into your relationship with the Re-Imagining committee,

6:08

which I know has been a long one.

6:10

So could you pick up there, you started on the

6:12

Ecumenical Decade.

6:15

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So I started on the,

I was on both the national committee

6:17

and the local committee.

6:20

And the national committee--

6:22

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Just to clarify, this is a national committee

6:24

for the Presbyterian Church?

6:26

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Presbyterian Church.

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Right, for the Ecumenical Decade.

6:28

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There was also a United State, well.

6:29

Ecumenical Decade was a World Council of Churches event.

6:33

Then there was a US committee,

6:37

and the US committee was co-chaired by Mary Ann Lundy

6:40

and some bishop from some other denomination,

6:44

I don't remember who it was.

6:49

I was on the US committee which had

6:51

probably 15 people from around the country.

6:55

I remember we had one meeting in Detroit,

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where we met jointly with

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the World Council of Churches folks.

7:07

So I got to meet a lot of those folks.

7:09

So I got involved with a local group,

7:14

and was part of that,

7:17

up through the start of the conference,

7:19

and then once the conference ended,

7:22

and we were gonna fold our tents,

7:24

and we were gonna have a farewell party,

7:27

and all of a sudden the flack hit,

7:30

and so we decided to keep going, so,

7:33

I was a part of it for the rest of its history.

7:35

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I wanna talk more about that decision,

7:40

'cause I think it's really important, but.

7:42

So were you involved the whole 10 years?

7:44

And what kind of role--

7:47

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The whole 10 years.

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Were you on the coordinating council the whole time?

7:49

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I was on the coordinating council.

7:51

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For the whole 10 years?

7:53

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For the whole 10 years.

7:54

I was never on the,

7:55

we had an individual three or four people

7:57

that were in charge of planning each of the local events.

8:01

I was never on one of those.

8:03

I just didn't have time for that,

8:05

but I was on the coordinating group.

8:06

So we met probably, I think most of the time,

8:07

we met about every month, something like that.

8:10

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That's quite a commitment for 10 years.

8:14

Were you usually the only guy on the committee?

8:16

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Uh, no.

8:19

There were two of us on the committee most of the time.

8:22

Randy Nelson,

8:26

and,

8:28

I don't know if you've heard this story.

8:29

Do you know Elizabeth Bettenhausen?

8:33

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Yes.

8:34

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Sally Hill tells the story

8:36

of she is meeting with Bettenhausen,

8:39

and,

8:42

they're talking about Re-Imagining.

8:45

I think this is after,

8:47

no, I think it's before Re-Imagining,

8:48

before the conference actually happened,

8:50

and Bettenhausen was surprised.

8:53

"You have men on this committee?"

8:56

"Oh, yes, we have men.

8:58

"Manley Olson and Randy Nelson."

9:00

"Now, wait a minute.

9:01

"I can understand, but names like Randy and Manley?"

9:02

(laughs)

9:06

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I love that.

9:08

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And about, oh, probably the mid-90s,

9:09

several years after Re-Imagining,

9:13

I was doing a workshop at Ghost Ranch,

9:15

and Bettenhausen was doing one,

9:17

and we ended up doing worship,

9:19

on the worship committee together

9:22

for a Sunday morning worship.

9:23

(laughing)

9:25

She said, "Okay, I'll believe it, there is a Manley."

9:28

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There is a Manley, and she got to meet you.

9:30

So I'm just, 'cause ya know,

9:33

10 years, that's a long commitment.

9:34

What kept you on that coordinating council for 10 years?

9:37

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Two things, I guess.

9:44

One was there was an awful lot that still had to be done.

9:46

Because we had one conference just scratch the surface,

9:53

and each of the subsequent conferences dealt with something.

9:58

But the other was,

10:03

all the attacks that were coming from the outside,

10:08

and I thought I was in a position,

10:13

given the fact that I was very much

10:15

involved with the Presbyterian Church,

10:16

that I could be part of telling the story

10:19

to the insiders in the Presbyterian Church,

10:23

that a lot of the people couldn't,

10:27

because most of them,

10:30

for whatever reason, were not insiders.

10:34

They were for personal reasons,

10:38

or professional whatever, they were,

10:41

many of the people who were involved,

10:44

were on the margins.

10:45

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Involved in Re-Imagining.

10:47

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Yeah, were involved in Re-Imagining,

10:48

were on the margins of their own denominations,

10:51

or any denomination, and I was an insider, so.

10:54

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A lot of them though were clergy.

10:58

Wouldn't you say?

11:00

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Yeah, mm-hmm, yeah.

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Yeah.

11:02

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But they weren't necessarily people who

11:02

were in the hierarchy kind of thing.

11:05

They weren't very important.

11:10

Mary Ann Lundy, who wasn't clergy was, but,

11:13

a lot of them,

11:19

most of the rest of 'em weren't.

11:20

They did have a position, it was in the women's unit,

11:21

kind of thing, which,

11:25

was not the most important or prestigious kind of thing.

11:29

And so a lot of them were involved

11:33

in the women's part of it.

11:35

They were involved in Presbyterian Women,

11:36

or the whatever, the Methodist women's group,

11:38

and there were a number of Catholic sisters and so forth,

11:40

again, who had no real input into the hierarchy.

11:43

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Right.

11:49

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And so forth.

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Oh, that's fascinating, that makes sense.

11:50

Let's talk about the backlash after the 1993 conference.

11:53

I know you were aware of it certainly.

11:57

Did it affect you directly?

11:59

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Yes and no, I mean.

12:05

I caught some of it,

12:08

but it didn't have any impact on me because I was,

12:10

I wasn't working for the church.

12:16

I was working in a Presbytery that

12:19

is about as liberal as they come.

12:24

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In a Presbytery here in--

12:29

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Yeah, the Twin Cities area is certainly

12:30

one of the most liberal, uh-huh.

12:34

So, I mean, you were aware of it.

12:37

The only,

12:43

well, backlash.

12:49

I guess, notoriety was probably more

12:52

the word I would use.

12:56

The Presbyterian Layman.

13:01

Jack Adams, who was,

13:04

who Parker, you've probably heard the name Parker,

13:06

Parker Williamson was a long-time editor of it.

13:09

When he retired, a fellow named Jack Adams took over,

13:11

and Jack and I got along very well.

13:14

We kind of bandied about at meetings and so forth.

13:17

And every time Jack Adams wrote a story

13:21

about things it was, Manley Olson,

13:25

who is one of the ringleaders in the Re-Imagining group.

13:28

I mean, that was sort of his tagline all the way through,

13:32

so I got, I mean, the Layman once,

13:35

on the pages of the Layman, I got called apostate,

13:38

and people said, "How'd you manage that?" (laughs)

13:42

So, I mean, I got,

13:46

I got noted, but, no.

13:48

It had no negative impact at all.

13:50

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As an, one of the,

13:56

involved in the initial conference,

13:58

did you have any idea

14:00

that it would have this kind of backlash?

14:03

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No.

14:05

I don't think anybody did.

14:06

I think that the...

14:09

Excuse me.

14:13

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Sure.

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The people who were...

14:14

(blows nose)

14:18

Well, the...

14:21

I can remember when I had heard a little bit about

14:24

that this conference was being organized,

14:28

because I sat on,

14:31

I was on the Presbytery women's committee,

14:35

among other things.

14:37

But, and, so,

14:38

several of the people who were on that committee,

14:40

Judy Strauss Clemons was one,

14:44

and I don't remember who else was on there,

14:46

were involved on that, on the original group.

14:49

So we heard a little bit about it,

14:52

but we were sort of fighting our own battles

14:54

in the Presbytery in terms of,

14:55

just getting women more involved

14:58

in positions and everything else.

14:59

So it was...

15:03

Yeah, we heard about it, and then when I got to the,

15:08

I remember the first meeting of the Ecumenical

15:10

Decade Committee was in Atlanta,

15:12

and, so,

15:15

I had breakfast with

15:17

Mary Ann Lundy and a couple other people,

15:20

and, so,

15:25

Mary Ann kind of outlined what it was.

15:27

And it was very clear that this was envisioned as

15:30

a very high-level academic conference

15:35

of women theologians, to talk about their issues,

15:41

and how those issues affected the Christian Church.

15:47

And, so,

15:54

as the,

15:56

as the conference went along,

15:58

and we started getting numbers,

16:01

then we started looking at

16:06

what other kinds of things might we do

16:12

apart from the content, which was this group of

16:18

20 or so theologians talking about various issues.

16:24

So we started adding various kinds of things, so,

16:29

Pam Joy wrote a play, for example,

16:34

and we set up a number of mission trips

16:37

for people to go out and look at ministries,

16:40

particularly involving women in the area and so forth,

16:44

and there were discussion groups set up,

16:48

and I think there were even, I don't know,

16:50

I think there were even exercise groups, or things like,

16:54

I mean, there were other kinds of things.

16:56

But it was clearly viewed as that,

16:58

and I think everybody was surprised.

17:01

Nobody expected 2,000 people were going to show up for this.

17:03

I think the hope was that,

17:07

maybe 100, 150 kind of thing.

17:11

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Wow.

Do you recall, was liturgy or worship

17:13

always gonna be a part of it,

17:16

or did that come later on?

17:17

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There was always gonna be worship as a part of it, and,

17:22

I'm not quite sure how the liturgy part developed,

17:28

as far as the detail of the program.

17:37

You know, I couldn't say.

17:40

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Sure.

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Either Mary Kay or,

17:43

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Kathi Austin Mahle?

17:47

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Kathi would probably be better.

17:48

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Well, how do you account for the backlash, Manley?

17:53

What do you think caused that?

17:56

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The Presbyterian Church,

18:05

and the Methodist Church,

18:09

had been,

18:12

under major tension,

18:16

over,

18:21

a couple of issues.

18:24

The main one was,

18:27

the whole issue of GLBT.

18:31

Except then, it was just sort of

18:35

the gay issue, kind of thing.

18:37

And so that had been,

18:39

in the Presbyterian Church, had been a major flap at

18:44

the 90 or 91 general assembly,

18:53

and the Methodists were having their

19:00

discussions of the same thing.

19:02

So the conservatives were riled up about that.

19:04

And I think because most of the women were also

19:09

sympathetic to that, and,

19:16

a fairly large number

19:21

of the women theologians were lesbians,

19:22

not necessarily out lesbians,

19:27

but at least, I know a number that are or were.

19:30

So I think it was,

19:38

that's the enemy, in all of these kinds of things,

19:43

and,

19:47

part of it was also the,

19:49

well, the other hang-over issue was abortion.

19:50

So you had

19:54

these issues of abortion,

19:57

GLBT,

20:01

and uppity women,

20:04

and we had to do something about that.

20:07

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What was your reaction to the decision

20:11

by the general assembly, after the conference?

20:15

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In one way, it was surprising,

20:37

in another, it wasn't surprising.

20:38

Because I...

20:41

The Presbyterian Church merged in 1983,

20:44

and the Southern Church was much more conservative.

20:51

And just the nature of the way the reunion came about,

20:58

the Southern Church ended up with

21:04

a disproportionate amount of

21:07

power in the new church, just because

21:12

when there was competition for positions,

21:15

the Southern Church was small and fairly united,

21:18

and their candidates, they tended to have,

21:20

their candidates tended to, they had a sort of,

21:23

they were much more organized in terms of positions,

21:27

so that the church was,

21:30

had a very strong conservative wing,

21:35

in the Presbyterian Church.

21:38

I can't speak for the Methodists,

21:41

but guessing they also had that.

21:43

And it was also, there were also,

21:47

a lot of people from the Northern Church,

21:52

particularly from smaller rural areas,

21:54

and so forth, who were also quite conservative,

21:57

and there had been a big backlash

22:01

in the Presbyterian Church over,

22:03

I don't know if you've ever heard

22:06

of the Angela Davis situation.

22:08

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Uh-uh.

22:11

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Angela Davis was a black activist,

22:12

who was involved in...

22:16

(sighs) I don't remember all the details, but, anyway.

22:24

She and several other people were charged with murder,

22:27

and the question was, was it racially motivated or not,

22:31

and Angela Davis,

22:36

the Presbyterian Church voted to spend,

22:38

I think it was $10,000 for the Angela Davis defense fund.

22:41

Well, and she was a devout communist as well,

22:45

or at least a communist sympathizer.

22:47

So you had all of this, you had the racial,

22:50

the communist, all of these kinds of things,

22:53

and the Lay Committee originally was formed

22:56

as an anti-communist group.

23:00

I mean, to fight the communism

23:03

of the World Council of Churches.

23:06

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The Lay Committee, you mean--

23:09

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The Presbyterian Lay Committee.

23:10

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Okay.

23:11

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That published the Presbyterian Layman.

23:12

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Oh, I see.

23:14

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That was their start,

was this anti-communist kind of thing.

23:16

And so they just picked up on

23:22

all of the conservative kinds of issues.

23:25

So you had a group that,

23:29

like some of the Republican candidates today,

23:32

who jump on any conservative issue.

23:36

And so, that--

23:40

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So you said it surprised you in one way,

23:42

and it didn't surprise you in another.

23:43

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Well, it surprised me,

23:44

I didn't think that the leadership would knuckle under

23:48

to the degree that they did.

23:54

That surprised,

23:57

I was not as involved,

24:00

at the national level.

24:06

I mean, I was involved but it was,

24:08

again, it was on the fringe kinds of things.

24:10

It was in social justice and women's areas and so forth,

24:13

and not in the central kinds of things.

24:16

That came later.

24:20

So I was...

24:22

And so while I knew some of the people and so forth,

24:26

as I say, I was both surprised and not surprised.

24:32

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Yeah, yeah.

24:36

Was that similar to Mary Ann Lundy's resignation?

24:37

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Well, yeah, that was a part of it.

24:40

That was a part of it.

24:42

In fact, we were,

24:47

we were at the assembly

24:51

when that whole thing happened.

24:53

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You were, yeah.

24:55

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Well, we had not planned on going,

24:56

but we started hearing all the reports of

24:58

what was gonna happen, and so we went.

25:01

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Yeah.

25:05

And do you remember what your reaction was,

25:07

or the reaction of other people at that?

25:08

What were the feelings?

25:11

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Well, again it was,

depending on where you were,

25:14

that the whole,

25:19

women's part of it,

25:22

and the women's unit then was a pretty,

25:24

a fairly extensive kind of thing in terms of

25:27

numbers of programs and so forth.

25:29

But the women, the justice kinds of things,

25:32

were aghast that this kind of thing would happen.

25:34

The arch conservatives were, well, this is just

25:39

the first head that's gonna roll kind of thing.

25:42

And,

25:46

the guy who was her boss, who acquiesced to it,

25:48

the next assembly, he was dumped.

25:55

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Really.

25:56

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Yeah.

Or, no, I guess it was two years later.

25:58

But, yeah, he had a term,

26:00

and his term was not renewed, yeah.

26:04

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Was it because of this whole thing?

26:07

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Yeah, in fact, it was the next,

26:08

because Mary Ann was dumped in the '94 assembly, and,

26:11

was it '95 or '96, Jim Brown was dumped, yeah, so.

26:19

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And why was he?

26:23

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Partly because he hadn't been tough enough on women.

26:28

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Really, okay.

26:31

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Mary Ann had been the only one who'd been fired.

26:33

All these other 20-some women,

26:35

or I don't remember how many women from.

26:38

The Presbyterian Church paid for people

26:41

from the national office to attend,

26:43

and none of them were fired.

26:46

-

I see.

26:48

-

Well, you just got rid of one,

26:50

but you got all these other people still around.

26:52

-

I see, okay, I didn't know about that piece of it.

26:54

Talking about the Re-Imagining community,

26:57

how would you define Re-Imagining?

27:00

-

You ever read Animal Farm?

27:20

-

Yes.

27:22

You've got me intrigued. (laughs)

27:24

-

Well, they finally end up at the very end,

27:27

the sign on the barn that says, "All animals are equal,

27:30

"but some are more equal than others."

27:33

-

Yes.

27:36

-

Re-Imagining basically, was to try to carry out

27:38

the idea that all people are equal, period.

27:44

And that was basically the gist of it.

27:50

And because that wasn't the case,

27:56

people involved in Re-Imagining were,

28:03

I think for the most part, motivated by

28:07

not just bemoaning how bad things were,

28:11

but what can we do to change it.

28:16

So I think it was basically a group motivated

28:19

to try to change the position and perception

28:22

and influence of women in the church.

28:27

-

Nice.

28:31

You alluded a little bit to this,

28:32

but I'm really fascinated with how and why

28:34

the Re-Imagining community was formed.

28:36

Could you say a little bit more about that?

28:39

You said something about the celebration.

28:46

You were supposed to have a celebration at the end.

28:48

-

Well, I think there are,

28:50

there are a couple of Re-Imagining communities.

28:54

One of the things that happened after Re-Imagining,

28:59

is that in a number of communities, little groups

29:03

coalesced and kept meeting and doing things.

29:07

I mean, the only one I really had

29:11

anything to do with was Santa Fe.

29:14

There was a group in Santa Fe,

29:17

and because I was out in Ghost Ranch a lot,

29:19

I was out there, but there were something like

29:22

eight women from Santa Fe, who came to Re-Imagining,

29:25

and when they went back, they were enthused,

29:33

and they set up their own little community.

29:38

So there were a number of these little

29:40

Re-Imagining communities around,

29:42

and there were a number of them in the Twin Cities,

29:44

and there were a few that are still hanging on.

29:45

So I mean I think you've got that

29:48

kind of Re-Imagining community.

29:50

But then I think you have the people who

29:53

were part of the organization,

30:01

which included two dozen people who were on the

30:05

main committee, plus all of the other people

30:11

who worked on various kinds of committees,

30:14

and about the time, I suppose it was January,

30:18

we,

30:25

had a,

30:28

I don't remember if we had a meeting to plan the party,

30:34

or if we just were gonna have a party, but anyway,

30:36

I can remember talking to Sally Hill,

30:41

and Sally was showing me just all the correspondence

30:45

she was getting from people.

30:52

I mean, negative letters from people that

30:56

were reacting to this horrible event that happened,

31:04

and letters from people who had been at Re-Imagining,

31:07

who were passing on what the flack they had gotten,

31:11

and everything else, and,

31:17

so anyway the,

31:22

we had,

31:25

and the event was just for people

31:26

who were involved in planning,

31:28

so I don't know how many people were there, but,

31:29

it was pretty clear that

31:33

there was just so much misinformation

31:38

being spewed out there,

31:42

that

31:46

we decided that we need to figure out

31:49

some ways to respond to that at least.

31:53

And so initially, it was to support Sally Hill,

31:57

and Mary Ann Lundy and Jeanne Audrey Powers,

32:03

who were the people who were getting the flack,

32:09

as well as maybe a few others that we knew about.

32:13

But,

32:18

I don't know exactly at what point, we decided,

32:20

one of the things that we started getting was,

32:25

"Are you gonna do this again?"

32:27

So we did.

32:31

And so we started doing another series of conferences,

32:32

and all of a sudden, started shifting the mechanism from

32:39

well, let's see now, how do we wind down all this,

32:42

and what do we do with all this stuff,

32:45

to let's keep going, and so we did.

32:48

And so we ended up opening an office

32:50

in the church center, and,

32:53

-

Going on for 10 years.

32:57

-

Going on for 10 years.

32:58

-

Mm-hmm.

How would you say, how did Feminist theology

33:01

affect the structure and functioning of the community?

33:04

-

I think it was,

33:15

tried to be as much as possible,

33:19

a nonhierarchical organization.

33:21

I mean, it was,

33:25

obviously, there were people who were making decisions

33:27

because of the necessity to do so,

33:31

but it was certainly an attempt to

33:34

get as many people involved as possible.

33:38

I think one of the failings was that it became,

33:42

for the most part I think,

33:47

a group of privileged white women.

33:52

And a few white men.

33:56

-

Right, yeah.

33:57

Do you have any idea why that was?

33:59

I mean, that was a concern along the way, but.

34:01

-

Well, I think part of it was,

34:04

part of it was (sighs)

34:09

the structure in the Twin Cities

34:15

of,

34:20

there were not a lot of,

34:24

at least, I don't think people were aware of,

34:30

the number of, that there were a lot of people

34:32

outside of the main, mainstream,

34:35

denominations and so forth, who were interested in this.

34:40

And so while there were some involvement,

34:46

it was that those were the people who

34:54

sort of gravitated to it kind of thing.

34:57

And even though there had been,

35:00

and at a national level,

35:03

well, there were really wasn't a national,

35:05

there was the local organization,

35:09

which did conferences and drew in people from the outside,

35:12

but the people who were invited to conferences and so forth

35:16

didn't have a long,

35:22

an ongoing relationship with,

35:26

with the organization.

35:33

I mean, the African American women for example,

35:34

Katie Cannon did not have.

35:40

Rita Brock had some, because for a while,

35:42

she was in Hamlin, so she was here,

35:45

but there wasn't an ongoing kind of thing,

35:49

so it was pretty much

35:53

an older, middle-class, white women's group.

35:57

-

So the speakers were often women of color,

36:02

but they didn't--

36:04

-

Oh, the speakers were I mean

the speakers, there was an attempt

36:06

to try to get as broad a range as possible.

36:08

And even from the,

36:14

at the first one, there certainly was an array,

36:17

and there was an attempt to get them down.

36:20

And then there was a flap at the beginning one,

36:24

as to whether or not there was enough diversity.

36:26

And some of the women were pretty critical of that.

36:31

Joan Martin and Delores Williams.

36:40

Joan Martin particularly I think

36:43

was pretty concerned about that kind of thing.

36:45

-

Diversity among the speakers?

36:50

Diversity among the participants?

36:51

-

Well, just the whole nature of things.

36:53

I think there were speakers but the,

36:56

the issues seemed to be white women's issues.

36:59

-

Yeah, mm-hm, mm-hm.

37:01

Were there efforts during the 10 years

37:04

to try to address those issues of race?

37:06

-

(sighing) I, well, from the,

37:09

The Re-Imagining committee basically was doing two things.

37:14

It was doing annual conferences,

37:22

or just about annual conferences.

37:25

I don't know if we had 10 conferences,

37:27

but there were probably at least eight I think.

37:30

-

I think there were six more.

37:35

-

Okay, yeah, okay.

37:36

-

Yeah.

-

So there were the original and six more.

37:38

Okay, so there were seven, okay.

37:40

But that was about,

37:41

and so there was a lot of work on those,

37:44

and then there was the newsletter that was published.

37:46

And beyond that,

37:52

there wasn't a lot being done I don't think

37:55

by a central group or anything.

37:59

-

Right.

38:02

Were there other challenges

38:03

the organization faced during those 10 years?

38:05

-

Well, it was just how to keep going.

38:10

Finances, kind of thing.

38:15

That was,

38:19

and keep the interest up and so forth,

38:22

and to some degree,

38:26

the Presbyterians spun off their own group,

38:33

which lasted a little bit longer.

38:37

-

Voices of Sophia?

38:39

-

Voices of Sophia.

38:40

-

And you were involved in that as well.

38:47

-

Yeah.

38:49

-

Mm-hm, mm-hm.

-

I did not make the original meeting.

38:53

My wife still is upset that,

38:57

they had this organizing meeting,

39:01

I got invited, she didn't.

39:02

-

Really. (laughing)

39:04

-

I wasn't at the pre-meeting.

39:06

I was actually in Detroit for

39:08

the meeting with the World Council of Churches.

39:10

But then we had a meeting and we had

39:14

50-some people, I think four or five men.

39:19

We had, Jeanne Audrey Powers was there,

39:22

and there was an Episcopal nun,

39:26

and a couple of other people from outside things,

39:30

but it was pretty much a Presbyterian kind of thing.

39:34

And again that group basically,

39:36

for the most part, did events at general assembly.

39:40

And had a breakfast meeting and a booth,

39:47

and that kind of thing.

39:51

-

Did they choose the name Sophia because of Re-Imagining?

39:52

-

Oh, sure, yeah.

39:55

-

Mm-hm, mm-hm, mm-hm.

Neat.

39:59

Talking about the significance of Re-Imagining,

40:00

what aspects of Re-Imagining

40:03

were most significant to you and why?

40:05

-

At the time,

40:11

I suspect it was just being

40:16

sort of overwhelmed by how many

40:20

extremely talented women there were doing theology.

40:29

I mean, I was a novice to the area.

40:37

I know a heck of a lot more about it now than I did then.

40:39

I was just amazed by who was out there

40:45

and how talented they were, and,

40:51

how strong they were in terms of what they were doing.

40:54

-

And at that time, were you mostly

40:58

introduced to them through the conferences?

41:00

-

Yeah, most of them, I didn't,

41:03

I didn't really know very many of them

41:06

from other kinds of things until later.

41:11

I later got to know

41:13

a number of them.

41:19

Beverly Harrison and Carter Heyward for example,

41:26

I got to know them in North Carolina and so forth.

41:30

And they had a little house church,

41:35

and I've been there a couple of times,

41:37

and so forth, before Beverly died.

41:39

And so I got to know some of the others as well

41:43

in various other kinds of capacities, but at the time,

41:46

I really didn't know a lot of them and so forth.

41:51

So I think that was sort of my initial reaction.

41:55

What was the question?

42:00

-

How was it significant to you and why?

42:01

-

Well, I think the,

42:04

the other is that I could see cases

42:10

where it was seemingly making a difference

42:14

in some parts of the church.

42:17

People were raising these kinds of questions and so forth.

42:19

One place where it was happening,

42:25

I think it happened for a while, was in Presbyterian Women.

42:27

Presbyterian Women was the women's group,

42:32

and it was

42:36

a combination of,

42:41

somebody said, pastor's wives and sewing circles,

42:46

and that kind of thing, and,

42:49

there were some agitators in the group,

42:52

but for the most part, they were,

42:55

they were content to do things from the back,

42:59

from the back of the room kind of thing.

43:04

And one of the things that I think Re-Imagining did

43:06

was to energize that group to start getting,

43:09

taking more stands on issues and so forth.

43:15

-

Is that because some of them attended Re-Imagining?

43:18

-

Some of them attended,

43:20

and they saw other women out there doing things.

43:21

I think a lot of the women who were involved, and speakers,

43:24

probably had very little to do with Presbyterian Women.

43:29

They were the academics, they weren't...

43:33

And so I think it,

43:38

I don't know that that lasted terribly long,

43:41

but I think it brought women together

43:44

from a variety of perspectives in the church.

43:48

-

And what kinds of things did Presbyterian Women

43:52

at that point get involved with?

43:54

-

Their conferences,

43:58

I think had more sessions that dealt with issues.

44:03

The Presbyterian Women was,

44:11

up until that point I think their issue was mission,

44:15

broadly defined, whether it was overseas mission

44:17

or a local mission and so forth.

44:20

And it seemed to me that there was a lot more emphasis

44:23

in discussions about women's issues

44:29

and getting women involved in all levels of the church.

44:34

-

Very interesting.

44:44

How did your involvement in Re-Imagining change your

44:46

perspective on Feminist theology and/or the church?

44:47

-

Well, as far as Feminist theology,

45:03

I learned a heck of a lot more about it.

45:05

-

Yes. (laughs)

45:07

-

That's the quick and easy answer, kind of thing.

45:09

I was involved in these kinds of discussions that,

45:16

you had to know something about it to be involved.

45:23

But as far as the church,

45:29

when I got involved in the church,

45:37

it was pretty obvious that the Presbyterian Church

45:47

was pretty divided on social issues.

45:51

Social justice, broadly defined,

45:59

racial issues, ordination issues, abortion.

46:04

And I think one of the things that being involved

46:09

in Re-Imagining made me aware as to

46:12

how divided the church really was.

46:20

Both in terms of the Presbyterian Church

46:23

and the Christian community as a whole.

46:25

And I started,

46:30

attending events where there are people there

46:36

from other churches and so forth,

46:39

and you start talking to people

46:42

who come from different perspectives,

46:44

and you just understand the depth of that,

46:46

of those differences that exist

46:50

on so many kinds of issues as to

46:53

what is the church and what is...

46:59

Well, I guess it's the old focus on

47:05

is the prime concern the salvation of the individual's soul,

47:10

or is the emphasis on justice?

47:15

And it seems to me that on that issue,

47:20

is where an awful lot of the divisions exist,

47:26

and I'm sure teaching at a Catholic institution,

47:31

you get hit with another set of issues relating to that.

47:34

-

Mm-hm, mm-hm, mm-hm.

47:39

-

And one of the side kinds of things is that,

47:42

I got involved in the Catholic Church from...

47:46

Bit of history.

47:54

I grew up in a community where we joked about

47:57

the one minority family in our school

48:01

was the one Catholic family, so I mean it was,

48:04

it was Scandinavian, Lutherans, and New England

48:08

Congregationalist and Methodists kind of thing.

48:13

Now, there was a primarily German community

48:17

10 miles away that had a Catholic grade school,

48:20

and a Catholic church, but we didn't have any,

48:22

so I didn't really know anything about

48:26

Catholicism or anything like that,

48:29

or Catholics (laughs) kind of thing,

48:31

as my Swedish neighbor used to talk about.

48:34

When I got to the university and I ended up

48:37

dealing with accreditation of schools,

48:40

I mean, I was on a first-name basis with

48:47

Roach and Jim Habiger and Ray Lucker.

48:54

So I got involved with a lot of those folks.

49:02

Terry Murphy, who was St. Thomas.

49:11

Colman Barry at St. Johns.

49:14

So I worked with those people, but knew them as individuals,

49:17

not as necessarily church officials kind of thing.

49:22

So I got to know quite a bit about that,

49:28

and as I got involved in writing my dissertation

49:31

on Church and State Relations,

49:35

there's a very strong Catholic

49:39

presence in that whole discussion.

49:42

And so I got into some very interesting discussions

49:47

with some of the,

49:52

well, at that time, there was an organization

49:56

called Citizens for Educational Freedom,

49:58

which was essentially a group that was

50:00

advocating for public aid to private schools.

50:03

And so I got involved,

50:10

And most of the leadership were Catholic.

50:14

There were a few Missouri Synod,

50:16

but not a lot, most of them were Catholic.

50:20

In fact, yeah, I think,

50:26

no, I was gonna say the one Lutheran,

50:28

but I think he was Wisconsin Synod, kind of thing.

50:29

So I got to know something about

50:33

them and their perspective and so forth.

50:37

So I basically read America

50:40

and Commonweal on a regular basis,

50:42

and have National Catholic Reporter on my computer.

50:45

-

Very Ecumenical Presbyterian. (laughs)

50:53

Would you say,

50:56

are there certain specific contributions you think

50:58

Re-Imagining made to Christian theology and/or liturgy?

51:00

-

Oh, I think it has opened up liturgy a lot.

51:06

I think just the,

51:11

and hymnody.

51:16

And those aren't necessarily divisible,

51:17

but I think that,

51:20

created a lot of

51:25

diversity in terms of the images

51:30

that we use in liturgy and--

51:34

-

Do you think that made it into

51:38

the individual congregations, into churches?

51:40

-

Only to the degree that there was a catalyst,

51:46

either a pastor or some people

51:50

on a worship committee that did it.

51:54

And I mean,

51:59

I attended a church that was liberal Presbyterian.

52:01

I mean, we had 10 people at Re-Imagining.

52:10

But yet when one of the pastors talked about

52:15

praying to our father and our mother,

52:23

a few people got very, very incensed about it.

52:26

-

What do you think that's about?

52:35

-

I think for a lot of people, religion is an anchor.

52:46

And,

52:53

it's a central kind of thing,

52:56

and if you start chipping away at that central

52:58

set up of beliefs and so forth,

53:04

what else is there we can believe in?

53:10

And I mean, these were not people who were

53:14

biblical literalist or anything like that,

53:18

but they just, there are certain things that...

53:22

And I used to have a lot of arguments

53:29

with some fairly close friends who were,

53:31

he was a self-proclaimed Kentucky redneck.

53:36

And we used go around and around on it kind of thing.

53:42

-

And yet you were still friends.

53:46

-

We managed to, you know.

53:47

There were a lot of other things I didn't like about him,

53:49

but he was an interesting guy and you know,

53:52

and his wife were friends and everything.

53:56

-

Yeah, neat.

53:59

Well, to end with,

54:01

we still have a few minutes if that's okay.

54:03

-

Sure, we got plenty of time as far as I'm concerned.

54:05

-

Good, well, this is very fruitful and helpful.

54:07

Looking toward the future,

54:10

what do you think is the greatest legacy

54:12

of the Re-Imagining community?

54:14

-

The term Re-Imagining. (laughs)

54:19

-

Yeah, oh, interesting, yeah.

54:21

-

Well, you don't have to go very far to see it,

54:23

and I don't know whether or not

54:31

that term was used before the 1990s or not,

54:35

but everybody is re-imagining.

54:42

The Catholics are re-imagining,

54:52

the Lutherans are re-imagining,

54:54

the car dealers are re-imagining.

54:56

(laughs)

54:59

So that was sort of a flippant kind of response,

55:05

but I think it did put the word out there.

55:09

From what I gather, it has made a difference

55:22

in terms of, at least in the Presbyterians,

55:26

and probably in some other denominations,

55:32

has made some difference in terms of seminary curriculum,

55:36

at least it seems to be out there more

55:45

than there are people talking about it.

55:49

Now, it's not new.

55:52

I can remember at the height of Re-Imagining,

55:53

Tom Gillespie, who was the president of Princeton,

55:58

and Tom was a pretty conservative guy,

56:01

and I know Tom pretty well,

56:03

Tom said once,

56:08

in the debate about Re-Imagining he said,

56:10

"There isn't a single idea that was raised with Re-Imagining

56:13

"that hasn't been espoused in some class

56:16

"at Princeton in the last five years."

56:18

Tom was much more,

56:21

Tom's issue was much more ordination.

56:23

He was totally and completely opposed to GLBT ordination.

56:26

But as far as the women's issue...

56:33

I get the sense that if you look at

56:38

the mainline denominations that

56:43

there is much more of an equality,

56:47

it isn't equality yet, but at least things are moving

56:51

in terms of women's perspectives.

56:55

And I think there are a lot more

56:58

women faculty in seminaries.

57:00

As far as, but on the other hand,

57:05

I think that to some degree,

57:08

we're losing ground with the younger generation.

57:15

I'm not sure how many, and I think that's

57:18

one of the key things that I think is so important

57:20

about what we're doing now, is to just get

57:23

the generation who grew up that didn't know Joseph.

57:29

-

Before I move on to that,

57:33

and I think that's really important,

57:34

in terms of worship,

57:36

I think part of the purpose of Re-Imagining

57:37

was to bring Feminist theology to churches, to the pews.

57:39

What is your perspective on inclusive

57:44

or expansive language, in terms of Feminist theology

57:47

and worship in mainline churches,

57:50

maybe specifically Presbyterian church?

57:52

Where do you think it is today?

57:54

-

Speaking of the Presbyterians,

58:00

it's clearly there in terms of

58:02

the official prescribed kind of situation.

58:07

And I think it shows up a lot

58:15

in local churches and so forth,

58:20

particularly if there has been a woman pastor,

58:25

and just the growth in terms of number of women pastors.

58:29

I think it's there.

58:34

It's still,

58:41

for those people who

58:45

aren't really sure that that's a going thing, it's,

58:51

well, we'll do it kind of thing, grudgingly.

58:55

We say a lot of things we don't necessarily believe.

59:00

-

Just to clarify something.

59:04

When you say it's prescribed, how is it prescribed?

59:05

-

If you look at the Presbyterian Church

59:07

at a national level and at the Presbytery level,

59:13

at policies about use of inclusive language,

59:17

and the question is how far it goes.

59:26

And it's both inclusive language for people,

59:29

and expansive language for God.

59:34

-

Yeah, right.

59:37

-

I think there is probably more in terms of

59:38

the inclusive language for people,

59:43

than there is expansive language for God.

59:45

-

Good.

59:51

I wanna get back to what you were talking about today.

59:52

I mean, a minute ago about Re-Imagining today.

59:55

You were talking about younger people.

59:58

What does Re-Imagining mean today?

1:00:00

What needs to happen now?

1:00:03

-

Again, I'm not as up on this,

1:00:13

but as I listen to people who are involved in seminaries,

1:00:17

and so forth,

1:00:23

it sounds like Feminism is sort of

1:00:25

accepted as, well, something that's there,

1:00:32

but,

1:00:37

nobody's really paying much attention to it.

1:00:41

-

So it's this generation, that it needs to be passed on?

1:00:48

-

Yeah, it needs to be passed on.

1:00:51

I was on a committee for the Presbyterian Church

1:01:03

that was a national fundraising kind of thing,

1:01:07

and one of the things we were looking at,

1:01:11

in terms of a target population,

1:01:17

were churches over a certain size.

1:01:20

And I don't remember how many we had on the list.

1:01:26

I think it was something like 150 churches.

1:01:28

I think three of them had women as the senior pastor.

1:01:30

-

Wow.

1:01:35

-

I think those are the kinds of things that

1:01:38

have not yet come to pass.

1:01:42

It's the kind of thing that I think

1:01:48

people believe is possible, but,

1:01:50

haven't necessarily seen it with their own eyes.

1:01:56

I don't know if there are a lot of

1:02:02

young women in seminary who's goal

1:02:04

is to be the pastor of a 3,000-member church.

1:02:07

-

That's good.

1:02:17

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

1:02:18

Do you have any ideas about

1:02:21

what you think should be included,

1:02:23

or who would benefit and why?

1:02:25

Any thoughts about that?

1:02:28

-

I think the big thing about websites is that,

1:02:30

the audience that you end up with

1:02:36

is often not the intended audience.

1:02:37

That you end up with people just

1:02:42

browsing websites and finding things.

1:02:45

-

Good point.

1:02:48

-

So I think it's...

You have to somehow steer between

1:02:55

having it so simple that it insults people,

1:02:59

versus having it get bogged down in jargon, and,

1:03:02

something people don't understand what you're talking about.

1:03:12

-

That's a good point.

1:03:18

It's a broad audience, isn't it?

1:03:19

-

It's a broad audience, and people end up

1:03:20

visiting websites,

1:03:25

probably,

1:03:29

an awful lot of 'em just are either sheer accident

1:03:33

or they're kind of searching for something

1:03:36

in a vague way and they hit on something.

1:03:39

I think that certainly the history of what has happened

1:03:43

and how it's connected to where things are now,

1:03:52

I think it would be very useful to have

1:03:55

people who have,

1:04:09

women who have made it as, in churches,

1:04:10

either as professors or as pastors,

1:04:15

to just talk with them and,

1:04:20

what impact did they make, and because of

1:04:25

Feminism and these kinds of things,

1:04:31

or did they make it sort of in spite of?

1:04:34

I think of women that I know who are in key positions.

1:04:40

Most of them are strongly Feminist,

1:04:49

but it's not necessarily a point of emphasis with them.

1:04:56

-

Is that what you mean by in spite of Feminism?

1:05:05

What does that mean?

1:05:08

-

Yeah, yeah.

That they make it because they were

1:05:10

good strong intelligent people who got through,

1:05:16

figured out how to work the system and so forth.

1:05:21

-

So how much did their Feminism actually influence?

1:05:29

-

Yeah, yeah, I mean,

1:05:32

I think that any time you get

1:05:33

an organization that feels pressure to

1:05:39

provide diversity,

1:05:51

and a lot of organizations are

1:05:55

being pressured to become more diverse.

1:05:58

And whether there's a commitment to it or not,

1:06:03

we've at least got to have the visible symbols of diversity.

1:06:07

I think part of the problem in Minneapolis public schools,

1:06:13

is they were looking for a particular,

1:06:16

superintendent with particular characteristics,

1:06:19

and didn't look very much further than that.

1:06:21

And I have seen some horrendous hires

1:06:26

of people who were hired because they were

1:06:33

women or minorities or whatever the case was.

1:06:37

People looked on them with one characteristic.

1:06:43

That one maybe wasn't enough to overcome

1:06:52

all sorts of other issues.

1:06:58

Just like the Catholic Church has found out,

1:07:02

just because somebody's male doesn't mean

1:07:04

that they don't have a bunch of other flaws.

1:07:06

-

Is there anything we haven't discussed,

1:07:10

that you would like to mention?

1:07:13

-

Oh, I don't know, I've wandered all over the place--

1:07:16

(laughs)

1:07:18

-

Well, it's been very productive wandering.

1:07:19

It's been very thoughtful answers,

1:07:21

and you provided really useful context for a lot of this.

1:07:23

Thank you so much, Manley.

1:07:26

-

Oh, well, thank you.

1:07:28

-

I really appreciate it.

-

And thank you so much for doing all this.

1:07:29

-

Oh, I'm--

1:07:30

Olson, Manley

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Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History & Culture

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