Lundblad, Barbara / Re-Imagining Collection / Duke Digital Repository

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There we go.

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I think it's yes, it looks like we are good to go.

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Okay, wow.

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So if you could just say your name.

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My name is Barbara Lundblad.

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Thank you, and are you lay or clergy?

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I am clergy.

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Lutheran, is that right?

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Lutheran, the LCA.

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Yes, good.

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And when and where were you born?

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I was born in Iowa, I mean I was actually born

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in a hospital in Fort Dodge, Iowa, but grew up

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on a farm there, and I was born in 1944.

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Okay, I didn't know about the Iowa.

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And where did you go to school, graduate or divinity school?

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Well I went to Augustana College in Rock Island,

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Illinois, and then I went to Yale Divinity School

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in New Haven.

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And how and when did you first become aware

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of feminist theology?

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Well I was trying to think of that,

1:02

I mean I do remember that in 1970 the Lutheran church

1:04

in America, this was before the most recent merger,

1:09

they met in a convention in Minneapolis,

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and that was the year they voted to ordain women,

1:15

and it passed me by, like it really was no big deal.

1:22

I remember being, I was a visitor there, and I

1:27

remember that, and it didn't strike me as something

1:31

monumental, so it was probably in the late '70s then,

1:35

or mid to maybe the mid '70s, '74 or '75 or so

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that I was part of a women's group in Minneapolis

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and somebody in campus ministry got it started,

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and there were probably 10 or so of us in the group,

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and it was mainly a support group, I would say.

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But we did read some feminist theology articles,

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and essays, I can't remember that we read books,

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although we might have, it might have even been

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some of Mary Daly's early books, like Church of

2:10

the Second Sex, I sort of have a vague memory that

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we might have read that, but it was pretty tame,

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and more support than anything else.

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And what was your status at that point,

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how were you involved?

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Oh, I was doing youth ministry for churches,

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so some of the other people in the group were

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also involved in that kind of work, so yeah,

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there were no ordained women in the group.

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There were people doing all sorts of different things,

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some worked at the university, and some.

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But someone I remember, organized that group

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and then we met for probably two or three years before,

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and then in '76, that's when I left Minneapolis

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to go to divinity school.

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And then, I mean it was much more of an awakening.

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I mean then, the feminist movement was very,

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very lively at Yale at the time.

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I mean, there were still women there,

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so if I started in '76, there would have been women

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who started in '73 or four, when there were

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very few women at Yale Divinity School, so.

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You could imagine that by now was probably 30 to 40 percent

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of the class would have been women,

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there was still a lot of activity.

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There was a women center separate room,

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one of the houses on the quad and Lettie Russell

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and Margaret Farley and Joan Forsberg,

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very, very much involved in supporting women.

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And then the women who were the directors of the women's

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center, they were very very strong feminists and---

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Did you go to YDS planning to be a ordained pastor?

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I had ambivalent feelings because when I was a youth

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director, there was a whole sense of trying to affirm

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those kinds of lay vocations, so at the time they

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were called lay professionals, which is sort of an

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odd designation, (laughing)

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but so I felt a little bit like a betrayal,

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because to be ordained, I remember somebody telling

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me, "Well, the only way you can get anywhere in

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this church is to be ordained," and I wanted to sort

4:29

of fight back against that, but during the time that

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I was at YDS people like Joan Forsberg and Lettie

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really, I think, awakened me to, you didn't have to

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look at things that way, like a betrayal,

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but what is it that you really want to do that you

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feel called to do, that you feel your gifts are,

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and it was pretty much leading me toward ordination,

4:54

so I went that direction.

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But I went there sort of kicking and screaming,

4:59

in some ways, but I can't overestimate the importance

5:03

of people like Lettie and Joan and Margaret.

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I mean, to have women on the faculty, and I think

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they might have been the only women on the faculty

5:15

when I started.

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I mean, there are more women there now,

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and Bonnie Kittle in Old Testament came while

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I was there, and Lee McGee, who taught pastoral care

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and those kinds of things was there,

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but there weren't so many.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Well if we could switch, this is really great background,

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I have to tell you.

5:43

I'm very interested.

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Oh no, no, no.

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What was your relationship to the reimagining community?

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I had no relationship with the reimagining community

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until the event itself in '93 and I was invited to

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be one of the speakers in the session called

5:57

"Reimagining Jesus", you know, there were all these

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different sections and those sections people could

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choose to go.

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I mean, because there were 2000 people there

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or something, all those sessions were quite large,

6:12

I mean there were hundreds of people, but I don't

6:16

know how it was that I was invited.

6:19

I mean I was a parish pastor at the time in

6:23

Upper Manhattan and I mean, somebody must have

6:26

told me a little bit about the event, because I knew

6:31

something about what it was going to be, but I hadn't

6:34

been part of the planning, and I was in that session

6:37

with Delores Williams, who was teaching then at Union,

6:43

and Guap Pilan from the Episcopal Divinity School

6:47

in Cambridge, and I didn't really know either of those

6:51

people other than through their writing or hearing of

6:54

them, so I can remember thinking, "Well, what am I

6:58

doing here, I'm a parish pastor."

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I mean, I don't know, I had some visibility as a preacher

7:04

but maybe they wanted to have someone from a parish

7:09

be part of that, but I really hadn't been part

7:13

of the planning in any way until I was there that November

7:17

and also participated, I don't know when it would

7:20

have been, a year later or more that there was

7:26

something called "The Reimagining Revival" that I

7:28

was also involved with, but.

7:31

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Yeah, and what did you do at that one?

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You know, I gave a kind of concluding wrap-up

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kind of sermon speech that was interspersed with

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music done by Tom Witt and Mary Proyce who were friends

7:46

of mine, that one I remember more international womens'

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presence, like Musimbe Kanyoro, but I mean I just

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can't even remember where it was or much about it, but.

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It's been awhile, it really has.

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It was a follow-up on the first one,

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and I don't know that there were as many people, but it's

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just much vaguer in my memory than the first one is, even.

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In preparation for this, I looked back at your talk,

8:16

it was published in Church in Society, the first one,

8:18

in '93, and I'm just wondering if you can say a

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little bit more about your, it was wonderful,

8:24

you talked about Elizabeth and Mary, you talked about

8:27

the woman who was going to be stoned, and you mentioned

8:33

Mary Magdalene too, that's right.

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But do you recall at all your process of choosing

8:37

those women, or how you designed that, or has it been

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a little too long?

8:43

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Well I look back at that too, because I was trying

8:47

to think what I had said.

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I mean, I think it was kind of in three parts,

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I started with this long poem which I love,

8:56

at the Smith Methodist Church, which you know,

8:59

is people really trying to parents in this poem

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clearly sent their little daughter to vacation Bible school

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and you know, all of a sudden she was talking about

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Jesus, and they sort of freaked out, 'cause Jesus they

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thought was like Thomas Jefferson, and you know,

9:13

George Washington that children would think of that

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he was a figure from the past, and all of a sudden

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they they had to kind of come to grips with who

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is this Jesus.

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So it was sort of a way of introducing the whole topic

9:25

of reimagining Jesus, because I think a lot of

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people that would walk by the church in New York

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would say, "Oh, you know, Reverend, we all have

9:35

the same God, don't we," and I can translate that as,

9:37

"You'll never see me in church."

9:40

(laughing)

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But I think God is kind of general, and Jesus

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is very specific, so I mean I think there was that

9:47

feeling, like what are we gonna do about reimagining

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Jesus, he's very particular, he's a man,

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he lived a human life, if you're going to talk about

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incarnation, he's still a man, and you can't turn

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him into a woman and so how do we reimagine him,

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and so I think one of the things that I was aware

10:06

of was the kinds of questions that people have asked.

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I mean, I think the first section of that talk was

10:13

gasping for breath, and it was really based on my

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conversation with a friend of mine who's a rabbi,

10:19

who when Jewish women were reading the story of the

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almost-sacrifice of Isaac, and those women, this was

10:30

always read at Rosh Hashanah, so women knew this text

10:34

very well, but they came to that part, where Abraham

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raised his knife to kill his son, and everybody in

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that circle just went, (gasps), like that.

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And I think that Christian women have done something

10:49

similar in talking when they hear God loved the world

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so much that he gave his only son, and they put the

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words in "to die for us" even though that's not in

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the John text, but I mean I think that that first kind

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of impulse that feminist theology has suddenly,

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you think, "Something is wrong, here."

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there's a kind of gasping for breath, and I think

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that that was a kind of impulse that didn't take

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us far enough, because you don't wanna just have your

11:24

breath taken away all the time, so I think then

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the other parts of the talk, I can't remember the

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exact order, but one of them was writing on the ground,

11:33

which was picking up from that story of Jesus and the

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woman accused of adultery.

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And I think there, that women have begun, I think I

11:40

talked about women's experience as a resource in way

11:45

that Elizabeth Johnson and other feminist theologians

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have talked about it.

11:52

I think I must have just fairly recently read

11:54

Elizabeth Johnson's book, because I was so taken

11:56

with it that I quoted her a lot, but I mean I thought

11:58

she has such a good grasp of traditional classical theology,

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and yet she can make this turn and say, "Well, here's some

12:12

things that Aquinas didn't get quite right,"

12:17

and so she has this respect, but also she wants to

12:20

move things in a new way, so.

12:25

So that was one section on that talk, of just what do

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women say when we write on the ground, when we really

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speak out of our own experience, and we come from

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the margins, even that text in John eight is kind of

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in the margins, and it's sometimes in italics,

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or it's at the bottom, or those scholars say it was a

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late edition, but I mean, what does it mean for us

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as Lutherans, you see, it's in the same chapter as

12:49

our great reformation gospel, "You shall know the truth,

12:52

and the truth will make you free, and the son sets you

12:57

free," and I mean we read it every, it was last Sunday,

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we read it every reformation Sunday.

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So not every denomination is quite so crazy about

13:06

the reformation as the Lutherans, but so what kind

13:10

of truth is that, that starts with that woman

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accused of adultery, when all the written laws were

13:17

on the side of the people who brought her.

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So that was another part of it, and I can't remember

13:24

exactly everything else.

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I do remember, I was the third one to speak

13:30

on that pane, and after Delores spoke and

13:33

Guap Pilan spoke, I started out by saying,

13:36

"That isn't in any written text, now for something

13:39

completely different," (laughing)

13:43

so there was great laughter, both because I was gonna

13:46

speak, as the only white woman there, and the only

13:50

sort of non-academic, and Tribe. (dog barking)

13:53

So anyway, it went on from there, and there were

14:09

various places where people laughed, and I mean

14:14

one of the places where somebody shouted out,

14:18

at one point toward the, I had said, no,

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I had said something like, that I lived in the world

14:37

of man and the poem, where people don't wanna talk

14:39

about Jesus, but then I also said, "But I am also

14:43

a parish pastor, and I live in a world where the

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language is really set in the book, and also that,

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what about the time that we had been together."

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No, you're gonna go in there.

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I don't know why I try to explain this to him.

15:07

(dog barking)

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I said, "We have not yet begun any of our sessions

15:11

in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit,"

15:14

and somebody there said something, maybe they said

15:17

"Thank goodness", or maybe they applauded, or,

15:22

but whatever that was, it was when people began to

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really push this terrible backlash against reimagining.

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It was that moment that was picked up in terms of what

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I had said, so people wrote things like,

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"Barbara Lundblad spoke out against the trinity,"

15:43

or something like that, or "said the trinity wasn't

15:46

true," or "laughed at the trinity."

15:49

So I don't know, what I was saying was simply

15:52

a statement of fact, really.

15:57

We hadn't yet begun any session in the name of the

15:59

father, son and holy spirit, just to try to

16:02

set up what is the world that we're living in?

16:04

There's this world that we are living in,

16:07

these few days, and there's the world that most of

16:09

us have come from, which that isn't the case at all,

16:12

so I wasn't saying "This is good and that's bad," even,

16:14

but of course that's what people heard, and they tried

16:19

then to just pull things apart and find, you know.

16:23

You could find in almost any speech something that

16:29

doesn't sound right, but so I was trying also to be mindful

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of, there were a number of people there from parishes,

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laypeople and pastors, and what does all this mean,

16:45

when we go back home, so I was trying to talk about

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I think the questions that ordinary women have in

16:55

congregations, that one day you wake up and you say,

16:58

"This is just can't be true, if this is who God is,

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this is awful, I mean, I can't abide this," so.

17:05

I think the gasping for breath part I think was important

17:08

for me to acknowledge, but also, you don't wanna stop there,

17:13

so you wanna, what is that we can say, what is it that's

17:16

good and true and so the rest of the talk was more

17:20

about that, more a constructive kind of piece, but.

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And I think it was nothing radical, I mean I wasn't

17:32

disavowing the resurrection, or the kinds of things

17:37

that surely have been much more radical in terms

17:41

of theological questioning and deconstructing

17:45

and I wasn't saying that I thought Jesus should

17:48

be a woman, I mean Elizabeth Johnson talks about that,

17:53

a servant woman, yeah, everybody's seen that before.

17:56

So it was different to see a different kind of man,

17:59

so I mean I think I said something about that,

18:03

and I did, I just thought her writing was so important,

18:06

and at one point in there, I had sort of an aside,

18:11

just giving thanks for women who do this kind of

18:13

writing, like thanking Delores and Guap Pilan,

18:16

because those of us who are in parishes and

18:19

don't either know how to do that kind of writing,

18:23

have not had the training to do it, don't have time

18:25

to do it, but I said, "I feel like when these books

18:28

come out, it's like receiving a letter from St. Paul,"

18:31

like the early church must have waited to hear,

18:34

"What is he going to say about our troubles here

18:37

in Corinth," so I mean I think when I read,

18:39

I was so taken by that book by Elizabeth Johnson,

18:42

I read it one summer when I was on vacation,

18:47

and it just was sort of like water in the desert,

18:50

that sort of feeling.

18:54

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Yeah, how was the whole, if you remember,

18:56

the whole experience of that whole

19:00

reimagining gathering for you?

19:02

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Well, it was very affirming, it was fun to explore

19:05

different ways of speaking, and I think that

19:08

the planners had said, "We're going to have this

19:11

time together to really hear new language for God

19:14

that we don't always hear, that we won't be using

19:18

male language for God," I can't remember if they

19:21

said it so explicitly, but it might had been in some

19:24

of the publicity that came out.

19:27

I think it was originally meant as kind of a local event,

19:29

and then all of a sudden, you can see people all

19:32

over the country, mainly women, but there were men

19:36

in the planning committee, a friend of mine who

19:39

was a man who teaches at Texas Lutheran University,

19:42

he came, and I had forgotten that until he sort of

19:46

responded to something on Facebook that I had

19:49

put about that article about what has happened

19:52

to language, somebody I think from the committee

19:55

put that up there, and I just said, "Some of you

19:59

may remember similar themes from reimagining,"

20:03

and so everybody who had been there started

20:06

responding, "I was there," and Phil responded,

20:09

I had forgotten that he was there, but yeah,

20:12

I think at the time, none of us, I mean none of the

20:16

people around me, at our table, we were seated at

20:21

these round tables, and nobody thought of it as a

20:24

crazy event, in any way.

20:27

It wasn't even as radical as someone like Mary Daly,

20:31

I mean it wasn't male-bashing in any way that I can

20:36

remember, it was very positive.

20:40

The one issue that I remember coming up toward the

20:44

end was really the lack to the presence of,

20:48

it was a very white gathering, and there was,

20:51

I remember somebody asking, I think Joan Martin

20:55

was standing there, I was toward the back at that point,

21:00

you know, Joan Martin wasn't gonna get up and say that,

21:05

and my friend Melanie had already planned to do a

21:12

kind of gathering of lesbian women who were there to

21:16

call anyone lesbian to come forward and so they

21:19

asked Melanie if she would do that, and says,

21:22

"It's not my place to do it, I don't know that people

21:26

are gonna conflate these two issues then, about

21:28

racism and sexism," so that was one thing that was,

21:31

that's often a problem at these; I've been at other

21:36

feminist conferences which end up being very white,

21:40

and you have to really intentional about doing things

21:42

in a different way, and we just, I think the planners

21:46

probably were mainly white, I mean I don't know,

21:50

since I hadn't been part of that committee, but I think

21:53

most of us there had just had a wonderful time.

21:57

I mean, we had a wonderful time, and there were all

22:01

these things going on, and the artist was painting

22:04

at every session, and there was lots of different

22:07

kind of music and songs that we had never learned before,

22:10

and wonderful groups leading the singing, and we were

22:14

invited to write things on the tablecloths, they had

22:17

white paper on the tables, and so there were crayons there,

22:21

there was dancing, I mean, just a lot of wonderful

22:25

things going on, and these really wonderful speakers.

22:28

I mean, I remember particularly, Rita Nakashima Brock

22:35

really talked about her own experience growing up,

22:39

and she was wonderful.

22:42

I mean, there were big plenary sessions in the

22:45

convention center, and then there were these

22:48

separate sessions, and then there were small kinds of

22:51

workshops as I remember, but I can't even remember

22:54

what some of them would have been.

22:58

But yeah, none of us thought of it as anything

23:02

other than a very positive woman-affirming exploration

23:04

of how we might reimagine very different areas of theology.

23:08

But we didn't see it having any kind of

23:15

ecclesiastical authority, for example.

23:17

I mean, some Methodist bishop I had heard quoted,

23:21

"It was the greatest heresy since the Reformation,"

23:24

which was odd kind of statement, it almost makes it

23:26

sound like he thought the Reformation was heresy, but.

23:30

(laughing)

23:32

But I think none of us, we didn't think it would

23:35

have any kind of big impact, I don't know.

23:38

I mean I think there were lots of Lutheran women

23:42

there and I mean, obviously if it was in Minneapolis,

23:45

you can get a lot of Lutheran women, but there were

23:50

Roman Catholics, and across the board, denominationally.

23:53

I'd say it was mainly mainline Protestants,

23:58

probably not a lot of evangelicals,

24:00

but we thought it was a wonderful event.

24:02

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Yeah, and you started talking about the backlash.

24:06

You mentioned a little bit about this, so did it

24:09

affected you directly, because of that comment,

24:14

could you say it--

24:17

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Well the thing that happened, and (dog barking)

24:18

the thing that happened was that just about

24:24

a week before, Tribe, no.

24:31

(dog barking)

24:43

Just about a week before reimagining, the ELC,

24:48

the ELC had a sexuality study that had been going

24:51

on for awhile, the first report of that unfortunately,

24:55

it was released to the press before pastors received it,

25:00

and it caused a huge uproar.

25:04

I mean, the Lutherans were on nightly news talking

25:06

about masturbation, and you'd hear

25:10

"The Mighty Fortress" playing on national news.

25:12

And it caused a huge uproar, Karen Blomqvist who had

25:17

been the director of the study badly castigated by

25:24

people talking, I mean it was vicious, vicious response,

25:28

and I can remember during (dog barking)

25:32

during the conference itself, the woman who was the

25:37

head of that Church and Society Commission actually

25:41

called the Lutheran women who were there to come

25:45

to a meeting over at Central Lutheran Church,

25:49

and the purpose of that meeting was to say,

25:52

"We need to stand behind Karen Blomqvist, she's being

25:56

completely attacked by these very conservative forces

25:59

in the church who are so angry about this sexuality

26:02

statement, saying some positive things about masturbation

26:05

and gay people," I think at the time.

26:08

And secretaries, they had to call in a therapist because

26:11

secretaries were answering the phone, and had somebody

26:16

just screaming at them.

26:19

So this woman, who was the chair of that committee,

26:21

said, "We've got to do something to be supportive

26:25

of Karen, and just want you to know that this

26:28

is happening," so I actually made reference to it

26:30

in my talk, because I was talking about anytime

26:33

voices come from the margins, it was that same section

26:37

about the woman accused of adultery.

26:40

But, where it relates to backlash is because that

26:42

happened so close to reimagining, most of the people

26:46

who would have been outraged about reimagining were

26:50

already so outraged about that that they just

26:54

didn't get to reimagining, but they were so,

26:57

so we were saved by sex, actually, is what

27:00

I've said to people.

27:04

Because they were so angry about that, they didn't

27:05

really get any kind of anger toward those of us

27:09

who were visible speakers.

27:16

There weren't so many Lutheran speakers, and the

27:18

Lutheran church, like the Commission for Women,

27:21

did not give money to people, that was the huge

27:26

issue for the Presbyterians and the Methodists,

27:29

so while there were staff people there,

27:33

national churchwide staff people, at number of

27:36

them were at reimagining.

27:39

We did not give any money to it, so eventually the

27:41

Commission for Women did get some attacks from people.

27:47

I got personal letters from people around the

27:52

country, mainly men, some anonymous, some signed

27:57

by people that actually knew.

28:03

Hello.

28:10

-

Hi, how are you.

28:11

-

Hi, this is Nicole.

28:12

-

Hi, good to meet you.

28:13

-

And this is Sherry.

28:15

-

Hi.

28:16

-

And the puppy probably needs to either go in a separate

28:17

room, or he's been okay, but every now or then

28:19

he gets a little barky, so.

28:22

-

Okay, he's a little barky.

28:24

-

Yeah, but some of those letters were pretty vicious,

28:33

pretty angry, and I think, I had a whole file

28:36

of reimagining materials that are either at Union

28:39

with the reimagining stuff, or they're in my,

28:43

all of the stuff that I gave to the library there,

28:47

because they wanted, they had asked several of the women

28:51

years ago if we would give things to the library,

28:54

so anyway, it may be there, so when you're there,

28:57

if you talk to Ruth Cameron, it would either be

29:00

there in a separate file, or some of these, I think some

29:04

of the letters might even be there, but finally I wrote

29:06

a letter (dog toy squeaking)

29:11

(laughing)

29:18

He likes squeaky things.

29:20

I wrote a letter, not a form letter, but a letter

29:21

that I used over and over again to write to people

29:25

who were upset about it.

29:28

For one thing, people had so much misinformation,

29:30

almost all of them referred to thing about the

29:34

trinity, that I had made fun of the trinity,

29:36

and so I included something specific about that,

29:38

I talked about the purpose of reimagining and

29:41

I mean, just write.

29:45

A lot of people then were absolutely grateful,

29:47

I mean they wrote back and said, "Thanks so much,"

29:50

even Christian Century had a very bad article

29:52

about reimagining, I mean they really all played

29:56

off of Parker, whatever his name was, from the

29:59

Presbyterian church, and he was the really the

30:03

one who got to describe reimagining, so after that,

30:07

even a respected journal like Christian Century

30:11

should have known better than to just go with

30:14

what his description was, so I do think that

30:16

there probably were groups that wouldn't invite me

30:20

to speak, because I had been at reimagining.

30:25

I know there were Lutheran seminarians, women,

30:29

who had a hard time getting calls because they had attended

30:34

reimagining, and the repercussions, I think, have gone on

30:36

up to this time.

30:43

I know the Commission for Women, for example,

30:47

in the ELCA, whenever they planned a churchwide gathering,

30:50

rather than print out a bulletin or a program for a

30:54

worship service, they would put everything up on the

30:58

screen, because anything in print had to be approved

31:01

by the secretary of the church, who was an ordained man,

31:05

at that time.

31:09

And a lot of that goes back to reimagining, they didn't

31:10

want any female language, they surely didn't wanna

31:14

have Sophia blessing anything.

31:17

They didn't wanna have any of that going on.

31:19

So I think in that sense, the repercussions,

31:24

more than, I don't think any of the Lutheran

31:29

women who participated or who were speakers

31:32

got badly beaten up.

31:35

Delores Williams really got, she was at Union,

31:38

so Union was gonna be supportive of her,

31:41

but her words got taken out of context, everybody's words

31:43

got taken out of context,

31:48

I mean, I think she said something

31:50

about "We don't need anymore bloody bodies dripping

31:51

around," she was talking about violence against people,

31:54

in our time, but then and people heard her talking,

31:57

saying she didn't believe in the crucifixion or the

32:03

atonement, or whatever, so I mean everything got

32:06

out of whack, out I think think I've said this,

32:11

when I was teaching in Chicago, when they were

32:16

talking about language, I said, "The issue of language,

32:21

what we at Union call 'expansive language for God,'"

32:26

not getting rid of male language, but adding explicitly,

32:30

openly, female language, not just neutered language,

32:34

but there is so much fear of that, that in our newest

32:40

worship book, which is maybe probably now five years old,

32:45

but there are 10 settings of the liturgy,

32:49

of the communion service, and not one of them has

32:53

female language for God.

32:58

I wouldn't expect that one whole setting would be

33:01

only female language, but I would expect that maybe

33:05

one setting would have had some female language for God,

33:08

but the explanation that I've heard is that they

33:13

wanted all 10 settings to have the same text

33:17

across all musical settings, but indeed, one of them

33:20

has a very different text, and it's just not true.

33:24

It think that reimagining really scared particularly

33:31

the male leaders of the church and any kind of

33:36

female language was just gonna be impossible,

33:40

just wasn't going to be allowed, and so we had this

33:46

new book, which in many ways has some wonderful things,

33:49

I mean the salter has really changed a lot of male pronouns

33:53

to second person, so "you" rather than "he",

33:57

all over the place, but even at a conflict.

34:03

But when that book was introduced, I was at a churchwide

34:06

assembly and there were hearings, you know they

34:09

had hearings anytime there was something contentious

34:11

coming before the board, before the body, and

34:14

I remember one man standing up and saying, "This translation

34:17

castrates men", and this was from someone who is a

34:22

professor, I mean, he's taught ethics for many years

34:27

at a seminary level, and so even that small,

34:33

what I would consider small change, it doesn't call

34:39

God "she" in any of the psalms, but.

34:42

-

So how do you account for that fear?

34:45

-

I think it's just something deep, deep and primordial.

34:52

I mean, I think it's about power, I think Mary Daly

34:55

was on to something.

35:02

Years ago, if God is male, then male is God,

35:04

and I think that if you're God, why would you

35:07

want to change anything, so I think that's part of it.

35:10

I think it's something, I think it's a deep as a sense

35:14

of awe and fear of women being able to bear children,

35:22

so that over against that power, you have this

35:26

male power, in the name of the father, son, and holy spirit

35:33

to give new life, the eternal life, so all you can do,

35:37

all we can do is give earthly life, but men,

35:41

this male god, can give eternal life.

35:47

I mean, I think it's as deep as that, but I think it's

35:50

very hard to, you read Elizabeth Johnson's book

35:56

and you say, "Yes, exactly, this is what we have to do,"

36:03

and then in congregations, I think congregations themselves,

36:06

like where we'd go to church now, we pray always,

36:13

our mother, our father in heaven, hallowed be your name,

36:18

but baptisms are in the name of the father, son,

36:22

and holy spirit, one god, mother of us all,

36:26

but that wouldn't be in any worship book, and I don't

36:28

think it's the only congregation here that does that.

36:34

But in New York, that would have been very rare.

36:37

-

Really?

36:41

-

New York, I think liturgically, is much more

36:42

conservative than Minnesota.

36:45

-

Oh, that's interesting.

36:47

-

Well I think here you've got so many Lutheran churches,

36:49

that some of them, in sense, can afford to do something

36:52

different and in New York it's very, very hierarchical,

36:56

I would say, moreso, even though in some ways they

37:02

think of themselves as being on the cutting edge

37:05

in terms of liturgical reform they are definitely not.

37:07

And I think they're also very much shaped by

37:12

particular teachers at the Philadelphia Seminary,

37:16

and then a sense of being part of a Roman Catholic culture,

37:19

where the mass has a certain order and you

37:23

don't change it, but.

37:28

-

You know, I feel like you've said quite a few facts,

37:30

but I wonder if you could say, are there other specific

37:33

things about the reimagining conference or gathering

37:36

that you think caused the backlash?

37:40

-

Well, anything about women's bodies, there was a

37:43

whole liturgy at the end, that really celebrated in very

37:46

erotic language, I would say, women's bodies,

37:48

the "nectar between our thighs", I mean I can't remember

37:54

at all, but I think I do remember thinking,

37:57

"Wow, this is really something, I've never heard this."

38:00

I myself thought, "We couldn't do this in the parish,"

38:03

but it was also really wonderful, just that there was

38:08

that kind of affirmation of sexuality and bodies,

38:14

and I think that hasn't gone away.

38:18

I mean, I think there were some things at reimagining

38:23

that really gave women courage to stand up and say,

38:26

"You know, yes, our experience is important."

38:29

I mean, there were other thing going on at the time, too.

38:31

You think of the '90s, almost all the feminist theology

38:35

and biblical criticism in this country anyway,

38:40

has been written since I was in seminary.

38:43

I was in seminary from '76 to '79, and almost

38:46

everything Phyllis Trivel, wrote for example,

38:50

is after '78 or look at all the, I mean surely,

38:53

Elizabeth Johnson, we hadn't heard of her at all,

38:55

we had a few thing by Rosemary Radford Ruther

38:58

and some very gentle kinds of biblical things

39:03

about "lets remember all these women in the Bible,"

39:07

but nothing like now, we've had attacks of terror

39:10

and the kinds of biblical criticism that very few

39:14

Lutheran women were included in these volumes, either,

39:17

and I think it was because sort of the fear that

39:21

Lutherans being a confessional church, you could say

39:24

things that would get you out of line, different from

39:29

say the Episcopal church, or even the Roman Catholic church,

39:33

a lot of these writers were Roman Catholic,

39:37

and how did that happen?

39:39

I think the church is so big, they thought, "Well,

39:42

we can do some things here around the edges," but I think

39:45

reimagining was one of the things that really

39:48

empowered women to believe we need to say

39:52

some different things, and there were other things going

39:56

on in the culture too, I mean surely other parts

40:00

of the feminist movement were alive and well,

40:03

so it wasn't just reimagining,

40:06

but I think that women's studies departments in

40:08

various colleges and universities and there are more

40:12

and more women teaching in seminaries,

40:16

you figure that many of the men had never been taught

40:19

by women, I mean many of the male clergy.

40:22

And if these books weren't even written until '78 and on,

40:26

there some exceptions, but men had also, and women

40:34

had only read male theologians and biblical scholars,

40:38

so that was a huge part of the church, when women started

40:43

being pastors, they too had never studied with women.

40:50

-

So would you say that in one way, reimagining had

40:54

created fear and at the same time it also

40:59

made women more courageous?

41:04

-

Oh yes, yes.

41:07

-

Would you say about, it seems almost paradoxical,

41:08

in a way, but.

41:10

-

Yeah, I think that women learned to do things around

41:11

the edges, sometimes, and like the Commission for Women

41:14

putting worship services on the screen rather than

41:17

in print, I think that we had to do some things in

41:21

a sense, surreptitiously, but I think now, there's been

41:24

a big change in many more Lutheran women writing

41:29

theology, and challenging traditional theology,

41:33

so you can see that happened really after reimagining.

41:38

Now whether they would say, "Oh, I was at reimagining,"

41:44

I don't know that that the case, but I think reimagining

41:48

cracked something open for a lot of women,

41:51

and even though there was backlash, I think that

41:54

the overall, the overall impact for women who

41:58

were there, and even women who weren't, was that we

42:01

have a voice and we need to say something now,

42:05

in our churches, and I think that the treatment

42:08

of women, the backlash against some women,

42:12

particularly in the Presbyterian church.

42:15

I think women then really said, "This is wrong,

42:17

this should not be happening, we should be able

42:22

to talk about thing without firing people

42:24

or without writing."

42:27

I mean Joyce Soul from the Methodist Women's Division

42:29

got horrible letters, and I think it just gave those

42:33

women more courage, and several women in that church,

42:37

I can't remember, there was a statement that they

42:41

put together, and sort of like the 95 Thesis,

42:44

but I think that women were encouraged by it,

42:50

I think that people began to say, "Well do we have

42:57

to have this male language about people and hymns,

43:02

at least" there was kind of awareness, so lots of

43:04

hymnals have been published since reimagining and

43:08

there are some liturgical resources, not in say,

43:11

our cranberry book, what we call our cranberry book,

43:17

but even in that book, you look around, and there are

43:21

hymns that, they really made an effort to change

43:26

the language, it was all male, to at least for people,

43:29

an there will be hymns like "Mother and God," "Mother and

43:32

Christ", that would probably have never

43:36

been included before.

43:39

And I just think the presence of women now, teaching in

43:43

almost every seminary, we have women who are presidents

43:46

of our Lutheran seminaries, and presidents of college,

43:49

and nine women are bishops and our presiding bishop

43:53

is a woman so was that because of reimagining?

43:57

Probably not, but it's one thing among many other things

44:01

that I think did help people reimagine, and just the

44:05

very term, I think, has been helpful.

44:09

-

Why, what about that term?

44:12

-

Because it says we can do something new,

44:14

and in fact, we need to do something new,

44:19

we need to reimagine, because in a sense, things have

44:23

been imagined before, they haven't been given to

44:26

a set in stone by God, or they have been imagined

44:32

through our human reasoning, and resources,

44:36

and metaphors, and the way we talk about things

44:40

on earth, and so in a way we know how to talk.

44:43

So now we need to reimagine, because we have had

44:46

different experiences, and if the UCC's fond of

44:54

saying, "God is still speaking," well, I mean,

44:58

I think all of us ought to believe that,

45:01

because otherwise, we would just basically say

45:04

"God is dead," so I think that women have really

45:06

written and spoken a lot since reimagining,

45:11

in ways that have really forced seminaries to

45:19

reconsider what's offered in the curriculum,

45:24

who can teach here, what do we need.

45:27

You look at searches now, and almost every search

45:31

will say, "We are particularity interested in

45:37

candidates of color and women," so I think some

45:40

seminaries, some men have really been angry about

45:46

that, because they feel like they don't have a chance

45:51

to get a job if you're a white, straight man,

45:55

you don't have a chance to get a job, but it's opened

45:57

things up, surely in seminaries and colleges,

46:01

and I think it's in secular fields too, but I think

46:05

it's really changed the face of theological education.

46:09

-

Yeah, yeah.

46:14

There are several questions that are kind of related

46:16

here, so I'm wondering if there's something that you

46:19

would want to particularly talk about.

46:22

What aspects are most significant to you about

46:24

reimagining, or how did your involvement change your

46:27

perspective on feminist theology or the church,

46:30

do you think there was a great legacy?

46:33

I mean, is there is a way that one of those questions

46:35

resonates, 'cause you've been talking some about

46:38

those issues, for sure.

46:40

-

Yeah, I mean I think

46:42

because of the particular Lutheran convergence

46:44

of this sexuality report and reimagining,

46:47

and because of the kinds of critique, the really

46:54

vicious critique of reimagining brought together

46:57

women and sexuality, almost always, it was that

47:01

closing litany about women's bodies, and when the

47:04

Presbyterian layman magazine came out, they took just

47:08

one tiny piece of this big artwork, which was a picture

47:15

of a woman giving birth, and putting that together

47:22

with this liturgy about women's bodies, and then the

47:26

call at the end of reimagining for lesbians to come forward,

47:31

then it was like women, sexuality, lesbianism,

47:34

all these things got all tangled up and I think it made

47:41

many of us aware, if we weren't aware before,

47:49

was that one easy way to put down women, at that time,

47:52

anyway, was the charge that you're a bunch of lesbians.

47:57

So it was a negative kind of threat, so these women,

48:01

like the women who didn't get calls, there was always

48:07

a kind of a assumption that maybe they were lesbian,

48:10

if they were single, particularly, or women who participated

48:13

in any way, well, they must be lesbians,

48:17

which would be like saying they must be witches or

48:19

at that time, I mean particularly in '93.

48:22

So I think that these issues about sexuality and

48:25

women's lives, women's bodies, language, all I think,

48:33

I don't know how to untangle it all, Sherry,

48:42

I just think that you see it now in the kind of

48:45

vitriol against Planned Parenthood, anything having

48:48

to do, that's much more about women and sexuality

48:53

than it is about saving the life unborn fetus,

48:58

because there isn't nearly the concern after that

49:04

unborn child is born, I mean then that unborn child

49:06

would be better off never being born,

49:11

but I mean, how we untangle all of that,

49:13

but I think it's really that there is a fear of

49:20

female sexuality, there is a way to charge women

49:23

with being out of line, or something.

49:27

It's old, it's as old as the Bible, surely,

49:30

but I think that it's hard to even talk about it,

49:33

because it think it's so deep within people,

49:38

that it goes back.

49:42

I'm not not a Freudian or a Jungian, but I think

49:44

it needs somebody to unpack all of that,

49:46

what that kind of fear really is, and whether or not

49:50

can you ever get beyond it?

49:54

If you look at rape as an instrument of war,

49:58

and almost anything that we can look around

50:04

what's happening in the larger world, you just see

50:06

these things coming together.

50:09

So what I learned I think, in may ways, after reimagining

50:13

was that deep connection between sexuality and

50:18

women saying anything, doing anything, believing anything,

50:21

because of how those two events happened within

50:27

the Lutheran church at that time, the sexuality report

50:30

and reimagining.

50:34

But also, I think it was very empowering, that event,

50:37

and often I would go for years afterward,

50:43

I would be at some event, and people would come

50:46

up and say, "I was at reimagining, just like,

50:49

I was there when it all happened," so there was a

50:51

sense of real positive energy and I think now,

50:55

a lot of the people, I think we know this now,

51:02

a lot of the people that were at reimagining

51:05

are old now.

51:08

They're retired, many of them, many of some have died,

51:09

so how that energy is carried on into the future

51:14

is one thing that people are thinking about now.

51:22

-

Exactly, and I'm wondering what thoughts you have,

51:25

I mean what, then the 10 years of the reimagining

51:28

community, as you know, working on a website,

51:31

and reconstituting, what do think that has to

51:34

say today, to a younger generation,

51:37

what does reimagining community have to say?

51:40

-

Well I mean in some ways, I would say that

51:43

a lot of the same things that we said then,

51:47

but we need reach women who just don't know

51:50

anything about it, and I've talked to younger women

51:54

like students that when I was in Chicago,

51:58

and I think men too, I think there's some men

52:00

who would really like to know more about reimagining.

52:03

I think we have to get beyond it being such

52:12

a white conversation and really be aware of,

52:15

if we have other conferences, I think that those of

52:20

us who are say, retirement age, if we're going to,

52:27

it would be fun to have conference where you couldn't

52:31

come unless you brought somebody who was,

52:34

if you were coming as a young person, you'd have to

52:36

bring an old person, or if you were an old person,

52:39

you'd have to bring someone who's a young person.

52:41

Or if you're a white woman, you need to come with

52:43

a woman of color, I think that we have to be that

52:45

intentional, or it just doesn't happen,

52:48

because you say, "Oh, let's have a variety of

52:51

speakers," well you can easily have a variety of

52:53

speakers, it's much harder to have a variety of

52:55

attendees, so maybe we need to have smaller gatherings,

52:57

I think people do like the idea of coming together again,

53:05

and I think there would be some younger women who

53:11

would really be excited about it.

53:16

I think sometimes they don't think there's any problem

53:20

and then they get out, and either if they're ordained,

53:26

they face real problems in terms of call processes,

53:31

and you often hear things like, "Well, we had a woman,

53:34

but she was not very good, and so I don't think

53:38

we'd ever call a woman again."

53:43

Now, you don't ever hear people say, "We had a man

53:46

as pastor, and he wasn't very good, but I don't

53:49

think we'd ever consider another man", that just

53:52

isn't the case, so some women, once they're out working,

53:55

not just in ministry, but in other fields,

54:00

then they really do run up against a lot of roadblocks,

54:06

and even though women, I think have had more chances

54:09

in the academy, and like I said before, searches often say,

54:13

"We're really interested in women applying," you still

54:16

will hear things, "Well, there just isn't any woman

54:21

who's well-known in the field of early church

54:24

history," let's say, or whatever field it would be.

54:28

For a long time, it was, there aren't any women who

54:32

can be part of say, Lutheran/Roman Catholic dialogues,

54:35

because there just isn't any woman who has as much

54:38

experience as George Lindbeck, fill in the blank.

54:42

Elizabeth Johnson said, some of us had breakfast with her

54:47

when she was here, and she was on one of the early

54:51

Lutheran/Roman Catholic dialogs, and there were

54:56

no Lutheran women, and that's what the reason,

54:59

was that there weren't any qualified women,

55:02

and she was, so the only women on it

55:08

were Roman Catholic women.

55:10

So I mean I think some women don't realize that until

55:12

they get out of seminary, or get out of college,

55:19

or whatever, but, and I think there are more opportunities

55:22

for women, I think that's surely true.

55:25

You look around the Lutheran church, and you do see

55:28

women who are in large congregations, and women

55:31

who are bishops and presidents and teachers,

55:35

and that kind of thing, but I think you also

55:38

have women who really are disparaged because they

55:42

are women, and not promoted, not given opportunities,

55:45

whether it's people will say, "Well, we can't hear them,"

55:50

whatever it is.

55:55

And I think some women are still afraid to say

55:58

anything too contrary to tradition, so I don't know

56:01

if something were on a website, what should be there.

56:09

I do think just the writings from reimagining,

56:16

I think are still valid, and some of the ideas

56:21

that were generated over that 10 year period,

56:28

I don't even really know myself, some of the things

56:31

that happened after say, those two big events.

56:34

But I think it could become eventually, I think a

56:38

gathering place for resources that women have written

56:45

out there now, because I think there are women,

56:51

like we have a church in San Francisco called

56:56

Her Church, I mean who could imagine that still

56:59

wasn't kicked out of the ELC?

57:01

But they have a lot of liturgies that are very,

57:04

very feminist, and then I think there are lots of

57:08

people out here that are doing things that

57:12

could be shared, a part of the website could be

57:15

in a sense, looking back, and seeing where we've

57:18

been, but also sharing resources that are available

57:21

now, because I think there are some of those things.

57:25

And I think there's just also new forms of church

57:33

that are being explored, we have a woman in the

57:35

Lutheran Church called Nadia Bolz-Weber,

57:38

do you know of Nadia?

57:41

-

I do, I've heard her speak, I've read her books, yeah.

57:42

-

Yeah, so would you say Nadia's a feminist?

57:45

In some ways yes, in some ways she's

57:47

very traditional, theologically.

57:50

So there are younger women who are in a very different

57:53

place, they'll raise questions about certain things,

57:57

more in terms of like worship culture, but probably

58:02

would not question the Trinitarian formulation,

58:06

so I think it would be interesting to have that

58:10

kind of conversation among, in a sense,

58:13

probably older feminists and younger women who

58:16

are raising different questions,

58:21

and I think they're raising important questions,

58:26

and they're really trying to reach people also,

58:30

who just have nothing to do with church.

58:32

And their questions aren't really about language

58:36

or they're just questions about why should you

58:39

believe anything, or the church is too judgemental,

58:42

or whatever it is, so I think there are women like

58:48

Nadia who are reaching people in a different kind

58:51

of group than say, the people that usually have come

58:56

to churches when I've been part of churches, but.

58:59

So that would be an interesting kind

59:02

of conversation, I think.

59:04

Nobody's gonna shut her up because she's a woman,

59:09

I think she surely would say that,

59:12

and it's interesting, my guess is that men, also are

59:15

very taken with her, not just women,

59:22

and what does that mean?

59:26

I don't just mean her, but maybe some others too,

59:29

but there's this whole thing of this big wide

59:32

Christian conference that happened here,

59:34

sometime early September, I wasn't here at the time,

59:36

but there's gonna be another one in Chicago

59:40

next year at Fourth Presbyterian, and it's Nadia

59:42

and a woman named Rachel somebody.

59:46

-

Held Evans?

59:49

-

Yup, yup, they're very involved in that,

59:50

and I think that's interesting, there have been surely

59:54

men, part of that new kind of emergent church,

59:57

like Rob Bell, but there's these woman that are

1:00:00

having as much of a voice in that movement as anybody else,

1:00:04

so that's an interesting conversation too,

1:00:07

'cause I don't really know if they pushed the envelope

1:00:14

at all, in terms of language or theology, even.

1:00:17

'Cause Nadia's pretty orthodox, I mean, I don't know Rachel,

1:00:26

so, but that would be a sort of interesting conversation.

1:00:29

-

I have so appreciated this.

1:00:36

Is there anything that we haven't discussed,

1:00:38

that you would like to add?

1:00:40

-

Well not that I can think of.

1:00:47

I mean, so much of this gets involved in things

1:00:58

beyond the church, the current political campaign,

1:01:00

for example, I think there are things like that that

1:01:04

the church doesn't know quite how to deal with,

1:01:10

we don't wanna say too much about politics,

1:01:15

but I think Hillary Clinton as the first woman president,

1:01:17

possibly, I think there's gonna be certain amount

1:01:22

of backlash against her in that way, there already has been,

1:01:26

but I think we'll hear more of that.

1:01:31

I'm really grateful to the people that are working

1:01:41

on this, the website, and getting it up and running,

1:01:45

and making it available.

1:01:50

It's something that I would have surely made use

1:01:52

of as a teacher, and I think that it would be

1:01:54

wonderful if we had, there are all kinds of

1:02:00

websites out there, about say preaching helps,

1:02:05

it would be a wonderful thing if at least one of them

1:02:08

were looking at text from a feminist perspective.

1:02:11

There have been books that look at things from

1:02:18

a justice perspective, from a world hunger perspective,

1:02:21

but not always from a feminist perspective

1:02:25

and I think that it could reignite some people

1:02:30

to think about things that they haven't thought about,

1:02:35

or to come together.

1:02:39

I mean I love this German idea of this kierkentag

1:02:42

that happens every, I don't know, how many years,

1:02:45

that people really do come together in a big group

1:02:48

to have kind of encouraging worship and challenging

1:02:51

lectures and I think that kind of event is very energizing,

1:02:57

and now that we have this big stadium here now, even.

1:03:04

-

There you go. (laughing)

1:03:07

-

We can have such a big event.

1:03:10

I don't know where it would be, but I do think

1:03:12

that gatherings like that have their own kind of momentum.

1:03:15

-

Thank you, Barbara, I really appreciate it,

1:03:24

thank you so much.

1:03:26

-

Really, it's fine.

1:03:27

-

Thank you so much, that was great.

1:03:28

Lundblad, Barbara

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