Pagelkopf, Doris
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- | Doris, thank you so much for agreeing to do the interview. | 0:03 |
If you could please say and spell your name. | 0:05 | |
- | It's Doris Pagelkopf, P-A-G-E-L-K-O-P-F. | 0:09 |
B as in ball, F as in Frank. | 0:14 | |
- | Thank you very much. | 0:16 |
I have a feeling you've said this before. | 0:17 | |
- | Yes. | 0:19 |
- | And are you lay or clergy? | 0:20 |
- | I'm lay. | 0:21 |
- | And your denominational affiliation? | 0:22 |
- | ELCA. | 0:24 |
- | ELCA, great. | 0:25 |
And Doris, when and where were you born? | 0:26 | |
- | I was born in Memphis, Tennessee on October 27th, 1938. | 0:28 |
- | Great, thank you very much! | 0:35 |
And where did you go to school, | 0:36 | |
graduate or divinity school if you did? | 0:38 | |
- | The only thing I've done divinity was | 0:42 |
I started a lay school of theology in Boston. | 0:45 | |
Krister Stendahl was our first teacher. | 0:48 | |
And somebody said you can't go ask him and I said, why not? | 0:50 | |
(laughing) | 0:53 | |
- | Good for you! | 0:55 |
- | I've taken a lot of lay classes at Luther Seminary | 0:56 |
over the years, but nothing formal. | 0:59 | |
Lots of lay classes. | 1:01 | |
And as far as undergraduate et cetera, | 1:03 | |
I don't have an undergraduate or a graduate degree. | 1:09 | |
I've spent quite a bit of time | 1:12 | |
at the Humphrey Institute of, was in some of | 1:17 | |
their premiere programs and they let me in | 1:21 | |
without an undergraduate degree, 'cause I messed around. | 1:23 | |
I took lots of classes. | 1:26 | |
I went to art school when I lived in Boston. | 1:28 | |
I did all sorts of things. | 1:30 | |
And so, I went through a career development center in Boston | 1:32 | |
that the bishop of the synod sent me to | 1:38 | |
'cause he knew I was thinking about going back to work. | 1:40 | |
And I went through in a school group | 1:42 | |
and they were all clergy, six of them, | 1:44 | |
and they all had their PHDs. | 1:46 | |
And at the end, they said, don't stop and get your degree. | 1:48 | |
Just keep going. | 1:51 | |
And so I took their advice. | 1:52 | |
And I've never regretted it. | 1:55 | |
(laughing) | 1:56 | |
'Cause I keep learning and keep | 1:59 | |
taking classes. | 2:00 | |
- | You do! | |
You've done such creative and interesting things. | 2:01 | |
I can already tell, so. | 2:03 | |
- | (laughing) Yes. | 2:05 |
- | Exactly, that's great. | 2:06 |
So what work or ministry were you doing | 2:08 | |
at the time of Re-Imagining? | 2:09 | |
- | In the work world, I was vice president | 2:13 |
of regional junior achievement | 2:16 | |
and did some global work for them in Uzbekistan. | 2:20 | |
And in the church, I was chairing | 2:23 | |
the Commission for Women for the ELCA, | 2:29 | |
which was when the ELCA was formed, | 2:32 | |
they elected two commissions, one, | 2:36 | |
the Multicultural Commission and one, | 2:39 | |
the Commission on Women. | 2:41 | |
And we had six staff people in Chicago. | 2:43 | |
And our mission was to rid the church of sexism | 2:47 | |
in all of its expressions, congregations, | 2:52 | |
colleges, and seminaries. | 2:55 | |
- | So wow, so this was a national position, staff position. | 2:59 |
It was not full time, though? | 3:02 | |
- | No, I chaired the board. | 3:04 |
And we had six staff people. | 3:07 | |
- | Oh, I see. | 3:08 |
- | At the ELCA in Chicago. | |
And I was there a lot. | 3:11 | |
Lots of issues going on. | 3:15 | |
- | Actually, this is fascinating. | 3:17 |
Could you say a little bit more | 3:19 | |
about what you did as chair of the board? | 3:20 | |
This is very interesting. | 3:22 | |
- | Right. | 3:23 |
I don't recall how many times we met a year, | 3:25 | |
but we were there to do the strategic plan | 3:27 | |
and I spoke at synod assemblies as chair | 3:31 | |
and it was to plan the work of our staff | 3:39 | |
to work in all those different institutions. | 3:45 | |
Because very early on we discovered that | 3:48 | |
to help pave the way for ordained women, | 3:52 | |
because this was, they'd been ordained for a while, | 3:56 | |
but it was still really awful. | 3:59 | |
And the war stories, I kept saying I'd publish a book, | 4:01 | |
but I said then it would destroy the church | 4:04 | |
because of what I've heard is so foul, I can't believe it. | 4:06 | |
But it was really helping people experience | 4:12 | |
ordained women, because we knew that | 4:21 | |
when we came up against a congregation | 4:24 | |
that was dead set against not even interviewing a woman, | 4:27 | |
that if they began to have the experience, | 4:32 | |
that things changed. | 4:34 | |
The simplest of all things was what I believe changed | 4:37 | |
people the most and our biggest supporters | 4:43 | |
were the little gray-haired ladies | 4:46 | |
sitting in the back row, because they'd say | 4:48 | |
I always wanted to be a pastor and now we can do it. | 4:54 | |
And now we can do it. | 4:58 | |
So sometimes your allies are the least expected. | 4:59 | |
- | I just have to ask this, so how did you prepare | 5:03 |
the way for the ordained women? | 5:05 | |
What did you do? | 5:07 | |
- | It was through materials and coursework, | 5:09 |
lots of published papers, and our staff was | 5:14 | |
constantly looking for venues around the country | 5:17 | |
and around the church to speak and to engage with people. | 5:20 | |
So it was using lots and lots of media. | 5:24 | |
One of the funniest things that we did | 5:28 | |
in the church office in Chicago, | 5:30 | |
we had a cutout of a female bishop. | 5:34 | |
And you could go up and put your head in it | 5:39 | |
and have your photo taken. | 5:41 | |
- | Oh, that's great! | 5:42 |
- | So, we had humor too. | 5:44 |
- | Yes, yes, yes. | 5:46 |
So were you also going to individual congregations? | 5:47 | |
- | Yes, we'd go to individual congregations, | 5:50 |
spent a lot of time with the women's organization | 5:52 | |
of the church, Lutheran Church Women, | 5:55 | |
well, at that point it had morphed into Women of the ELCA. | 5:58 | |
But because lots of feminists there. | 6:02 | |
At least for the ones of us that came from the LCA. | 6:07 | |
Lutheran Church Women, we were trained to be feminists | 6:11 | |
that would change the church. | 6:14 | |
(laughing) | 6:16 | |
- | That is great. | 6:18 |
- | Not everybody realized that. | 6:19 |
- | Yes, really! | 6:20 |
(laughing) | 6:21 | |
And I do wanna move on, but I just am so fascinated by this, | 6:24 | |
without I guess going into real specifics, | 6:29 | |
this was 1993 that this was happening. | 6:32 | |
So when you said there were war stories, | 6:34 | |
I mean generally what kinds of things | 6:36 | |
were women experiencing? | 6:39 | |
- | I was at a Lutheran women's gathering weekend | 6:45 |
kind of conference and we always had ordained women | 6:50 | |
that were with us. | 6:54 | |
And the one that was the chaplain of the weekend, | 6:56 | |
'cause I had a lot of private conversations with them | 7:00 | |
because I was a safe person to talk to | 7:02 | |
and so I heard a lot of things. | 7:05 | |
And this one particular woman, when she went back, | 7:07 | |
got on the plane and went back to work on Monday, | 7:11 | |
she didn't have a job. | 7:13 | |
And there had been trumped-up charges about her | 7:15 | |
around sexuality in her congregation. | 7:18 | |
And she'd literally been kicked out | 7:21 | |
without any compensation say for three months or six months. | 7:23 | |
Nothing. | 7:28 | |
They had trumped-up charges and they had kicked her out. | 7:30 | |
Now, hopefully there weren't a whole lot of those. | 7:33 | |
That's the worst that I heard. | 7:36 | |
Most of the stories I heard were regular kinds of things | 7:38 | |
that you would expect as we bring about change. | 7:42 | |
But that one was the worst, right? | 7:45 | |
- | Yeah, that is, that is. | 7:47 |
So what work or ministry did you do after Re-Imagining? | 7:50 | |
- | After Re-Imagining, good grief. | 7:55 |
I've been on about five national boards of the ELCA, | 7:58 | |
very deeply involved in Ministry of the Lady | 8:03 | |
and because I believe as a lay person | 8:08 | |
I've been called to do the things that I'm doing. | 8:11 | |
But also all the social justice issues. | 8:15 | |
I've been presidents of congregations. | 8:17 | |
I think I've held every job there is for a lay person | 8:20 | |
in a congregation. | 8:23 | |
But, these days it really focuses on the justice issues: | 8:27 | |
racism, major, LBGTQ issues, because I happen | 8:32 | |
to belong to an extremely liberal ELC congregation, yeah. | 8:38 | |
- | Great, and you mentioned you were on the global board of-- | 8:43 |
- | Of the YWCA. | 8:48 |
- | Right, okay, right. | 8:50 |
- | Right, right. | |
And I, during that time, because globally | 8:52 | |
the YWCA is a Christian movement. | 8:56 | |
We aren't in this country. | 8:59 | |
But I've traveled the world for them | 9:00 | |
and I've done training on five continents, | 9:03 | |
in Asia and Africa and Australia and the Middle East | 9:06 | |
and all over North America for the World YWCA. | 9:11 | |
So, and much of that time, some of the deepest Christians | 9:14 | |
that I've worked with in the YWCA are in Asia. | 9:19 | |
- | Really? | 9:23 |
- | Yeah. | 9:24 |
- | There's so much we can talk about, I have to move on. | 9:25 |
What is your title now, your role now for the United Way? | 9:26 | |
- | Oh, I'm executive director of the statewide association. | 9:30 |
I have 40 United Ways. | 9:34 | |
And I'm their mom. | 9:36 | |
- | Okay. (laughing) | 9:37 |
- | And it's a retirement job. | 9:38 |
- | Is it really? | 9:40 |
- | Yeah, I'm 77 years old. | 9:41 |
Of course, nobody that I work for here know that I'm 77. | 9:43 | |
I'm sure they could guess, but -- | 9:46 | |
- | No, they wouldn't believe it. | 9:48 |
I can already tell. | 9:49 | |
(laughing) | 9:50 | |
- | But it just gives me a chance to again, | 9:51 |
work on justice issues in communities all across the state. | 9:55 | |
It's a fabulous retirement job. | 9:59 | |
I can't believe I'm lucky enough to get it. | 10:00 | |
I've been doing it for 12 years. | 10:03 | |
And it's part-time, it's half-time. | 10:05 | |
So I can still do all the other things. (laughing) | 10:07 | |
- | Wow, well, you're a model for retirement, | 10:11 |
let me tell ya. (laughing) | 10:13 | |
- | A scary one for some folks. | 10:14 |
- | Now, I was gonna ask how and when you first became | 10:17 |
aware of feminist theology. | 10:19 | |
Now you already mentioned the LCA. | 10:21 | |
Tell me some more about how and when you first became -- | 10:22 | |
- | Well, in the Lutheran Church in America, | 10:25 |
we lived in Boston for a few years and that was when | 10:29 | |
I took some lay classes at Harvard Divinity | 10:32 | |
and met Krister Stendahl and his wife Brita, I think it was. | 10:36 | |
And Krister Stendahl had, and this was back in 1978, '77. | 10:41 | |
And Krister, he was the Bishop of Sweden at times | 10:50 | |
and then sometimes the dean of Harvard Divinity. | 10:54 | |
He had this little, teeny book | 10:56 | |
that was about feminist theology. | 10:59 | |
And I read that and I just went nuts. | 11:01 | |
I said, I can't believe it. | 11:04 | |
Here is this incredible man from Sweden who is just, | 11:07 | |
this is who I am! | 11:10 | |
(laughing) | 11:12 | |
Yeah, that was my first introduction to feminist, | 11:13 | |
in the late '70s. | 11:16 | |
- | Oh, I love it, that's great. | 11:18 |
And you immediately resonated with it. | 11:20 | |
- | Immediately, immediately, right. | 11:22 |
- | Can we talk about relationship | 11:27 |
to the Re-Imagining community? | 11:28 | |
- | Right, right. | 11:29 |
- | Yes. | |
Now what led to your initial involvement? | 11:32 | |
- | I was involved in the Global Decade on Women, | 11:36 |
United Nations, very much so, in the Lutheran Church | 11:40 | |
through Lutheran women's organizations, et cetera, | 11:45 | |
but also at the World YWCA. | 11:48 | |
So the Decade on Women was a part of what I thought | 11:50 | |
about every day. | 11:56 | |
And I absolutely do not recall who invited me | 11:57 | |
to come on this planning committee, | 12:02 | |
'cause it could've been a vast array of people. | 12:04 | |
I don't know who it was. | 12:07 | |
Don't recall that. | 12:08 | |
- | You were involved with Sally Hill | 12:10 |
and that group planning. | 12:11 | |
- | Yes, right, exactly. | |
- | Could you tell me a little bit about | 12:15 |
what you remember about that planning process? | 12:16 | |
- | It was chaotic. | 12:20 |
In great ways because it was women's way of working. | 12:23 | |
There was no hierarchical director. | 12:27 | |
And everything that everybody said was deeply valued. | 12:30 | |
And although we came from all Protestants | 12:34 | |
and coming from similar backgrounds, | 12:43 | |
with a little different theology, | 12:45 | |
but it was still just exciting to hear | 12:47 | |
that Presbyterian women and UCC, et cetera, | 12:51 | |
they were all at the same place in their churches. | 12:56 | |
And it began to feel like this is something | 12:59 | |
that needs to be a global movement | 13:04 | |
because we can make more change that way, | 13:08 | |
if we work together. | 13:11 | |
And it was the excitement of being involved | 13:13 | |
in this ecumenical movement. | 13:17 | |
It really was incredible. | 13:20 | |
Although I must say, the meetings were absolutely chaotic | 13:22 | |
because nobody ever stood up and said, | 13:26 | |
now we've gotta get to it, we've gotta do it this way. | 13:28 | |
It just evolved. | 13:31 | |
And it worked! | 13:33 | |
(laughing) | 13:35 | |
Although I was very frustrated, 'cause I was one | 13:37 | |
of the only lay people on the committee | 13:39 | |
and the committee meetings were down | 13:41 | |
at the church center on Franklin Avenue, always at noon. | 13:43 | |
Well, I had to leave work and then I had to go back | 13:47 | |
and so it was always, but, you know, I was only one. | 13:49 | |
Maybe there were other lay women, | 13:54 | |
I don't remember other lay women, but. | 13:56 | |
- | Do you remember how it evolved to be | 13:59 |
the Global Theological Colloquium? | 14:02 | |
'Cause I think, do you remember anything about that? | 14:05 | |
- | No. | 14:09 |
It gained credibility so fast. | 14:11 | |
And then when the event happened itself, | 14:17 | |
then I think all sorts of things were written | 14:21 | |
and stated and talked about that we hadn't dreamed about | 14:25 | |
because it had so much power, positive power, | 14:29 | |
because of the people who came. | 14:32 | |
And then when you have people bashing you | 14:35 | |
with untruths, it makes you even stronger | 14:38 | |
and more determined that you know you have to make change. | 14:41 | |
- | Right, right. | 14:44 |
I know it's been a while, do you have special moments | 14:46 | |
that you remember from the '93 Re-Imagining gathering? | 14:48 | |
- | Well, this one's goofy. | 14:52 |
Walking in the door, I remember quite clearly | 14:54 | |
because I had stopped at home, I'd left my office, | 14:59 | |
I'd stopped at home, and our house had just been burglarized | 15:02 | |
and with a hold-up guy with a gun -- | 15:06 | |
- | Oh no. | 15:09 |
- | And they'd walked off with a few things, | 15:10 |
but my husband was just panicked | 15:13 | |
'cause he confronted the guy. | 15:15 | |
But anyway, I waited a while, and then I said, | 15:18 | |
I'm really late and he said, I know, you've gotta go. | 15:22 | |
It's okay, the police have been here. | 15:25 | |
But that's how I walked in the door. | 15:27 | |
(laughing) | 15:29 | |
- | Oh my goodness, Doris. | 15:29 |
- | I think there's a book written, | 15:31 |
I can't remember who wrote the book. | 15:32 | |
- | Re-Imagining and now that you say that, | 15:34 |
I remember that essay that you wrote. | 15:36 | |
- | I think I told that | 15:38 |
whole story. | 15:39 | |
- | You did, you did. | |
Absolutely, you did, wow. | 15:41 | |
- | Yeah, I remember the liturgy and the music. | 15:43 |
The liturgy was just spectacular. | 15:48 | |
I mean, I sang it for years because it was | 15:53 | |
so deeply meaningful, those words. | 15:56 | |
And the theologians. | 16:00 | |
But you know, if I think about, | 16:06 | |
it was the music and the words that were the most powerful | 16:09 | |
because now we had words, and they had been published, | 16:12 | |
that we could use all over. | 16:19 | |
And we hadn't had that before. | 16:23 | |
And then again, the ecumenism of it was so strong. | 16:25 | |
This would've been just a teeny blip in the scene | 16:30 | |
of the world if it had just been one denomination. | 16:34 | |
- | And was this your first experience | 16:37 |
of that kind of liturgy, a feminist liturgy and worship? | 16:39 | |
- | No, but that strong a feminism. | 16:43 |
Because in the ELCA, there were feminist writers | 16:47 | |
and we had music and we used to sing | 16:53 | |
some of them at Lutheran women's conventions. | 16:57 | |
Because we got in trouble with the hierarchy | 17:06 | |
of the church every once in a while | 17:12 | |
'cause we were such strong feminists. | 17:13 | |
(laughing) | 17:15 | |
- | That's great, oh my goodness. | 17:18 |
So can we talk about the backlash now? | 17:20 | |
- | Yes. | 17:23 |
- | Okay, so it did affect you directly. | 17:24 |
Could you say a little bit about how it affected you? | 17:27 | |
- | There was a person, a Lutheran pastor in Chicago | 17:31 |
who worked for the church who I didn't know well at all, | 17:38 | |
who gave me an incredible verbal tongue-lashing | 17:41 | |
without ever even talking to me about if any of it was true | 17:47 | |
that was being said. | 17:52 | |
And for me, that was just demoralizing | 17:54 | |
is too strong, disappointed. | 17:57 | |
I was deeply disappointed in her | 18:00 | |
that she didn't know that she should maybe | 18:01 | |
talk to me and some others first. | 18:05 | |
The backlash against others was so strong, | 18:09 | |
I think particularly really of Mary Ann Lundy. | 18:12 | |
'Cause I knew Mary Ann. | 18:15 | |
I had met her, we lived close together in Minnetonka | 18:17 | |
when she and her husband were at Saint Luke's. | 18:21 | |
And Mary Ann, I was in Geneva, Switzerland | 18:24 | |
at a YWCA meeting, board meeting, | 18:31 | |
and Mary Ann used to work for the YWCA. | 18:35 | |
I mean, it's all entwined. | 18:38 | |
It's hard to even remember, because it's all, you know, | 18:39 | |
all the organizations. | 18:41 | |
But I said, Mary Ann, how are you? | 18:43 | |
And she said, I'm fine, I got fired up. | 18:46 | |
And I said, what do you mean? | 18:49 | |
And she said, well, you know, the Presbyterian Church | 18:51 | |
fired me, but now I'm the deputy general secretary | 18:53 | |
of the World Council of Churches. | 18:57 | |
(laughing) | 18:59 | |
It's like, ah! | 19:01 | |
This is fabulous! | 19:04 | |
So in hindsight, it's easy to look at that | 19:06 | |
that some of that was necessary | 19:11 | |
and it's a part of the change process, | 19:13 | |
because those stories horrify people. | 19:15 | |
That, you mean it was really that bad | 19:18 | |
for women in the church? | 19:21 | |
Yes, it was really that bad. | 19:23 | |
So in hindsight, it's easy to say they had to go through it, | 19:27 | |
and it was the trumped-up charges | 19:37 | |
that were the most painful. | 19:39 | |
- | Which charges are you thinking of? | 19:41 |
- | When they talked about milk and honey and | 19:43 |
what was the name of it? | 19:53 | |
It was a Lutheran publication coming out of, | 19:54 | |
I don't know, it was Missouri senate or Wisconsin senate | 19:59 | |
and was it called Lutheran Partners? | 20:02 | |
No, I think that came out of Luther Seminary. | 20:05 | |
This was a very conservative, and I was mentioned in there | 20:08 | |
and was called a heretic. | 20:12 | |
And everybody said, well, that's a badge of courage. | 20:14 | |
Good going, girl! | 20:18 | |
(laughing) | 20:19 | |
Good for you! | 20:20 | |
I'm an activist, you can tell. | 20:24 | |
- | Yes, really. | 20:25 |
- | But the way that the reporters sat | 20:27 |
along the sides and manufactured things. | 20:32 | |
But it translates to our national politics right now. | 20:37 | |
It's just horrendous what people believe. | 20:43 | |
And how can people sit at a gathering of incredible women | 20:46 | |
who are so excited and who are so full of the Holy Spirit, | 20:53 | |
and manufacture this stuff? | 20:59 | |
But it's a part of our DNA. | 21:01 | |
We see things differently. | 21:04 | |
But that was horrifying about how we were reported on. | 21:07 | |
But we were about change and the future. | 21:14 | |
And a lot of people still, they don't want it changed. | 21:19 | |
They don't want the future. | 21:23 | |
They don't want to involve people of color or women. | 21:25 | |
It ties in directly with racism, all of it. | 21:32 | |
The homophobes, all of it. | 21:36 | |
Let's keep 'em down and if it takes lying, | 21:39 | |
then we'll do it. | 21:41 | |
- | So that's how you account for it. | 21:42 |
Part of it was this resistance to change. | 21:46 | |
- | Oh, heavens yes. | 21:48 |
- | Were there other things | |
in particular that led to it? | 21:49 | |
- | Led to that backlash? | 21:53 |
No, I think it was mostly change. | 21:55 | |
And but, at the basis of that is a deep-rooted belief | 21:58 | |
in conservative theology, yeah. | 22:04 | |
- | Yeah. | 22:07 |
- | And believing that women need to be in their place | 22:08 |
and they should be seen but not heard. | 22:13 | |
I mean, people believe that in their heart and soul. | 22:16 | |
- | Yeah, and you're Lutheran. | 22:19 |
Most of the people I've talked to are Methodist | 22:23 | |
and Presbyterian, so I wonder if you have | 22:24 | |
some insight into how the Lutheran reaction | 22:27 | |
was different than it was in the other denominations. | 22:29 | |
- | It wasn't as bad, but we hadn't put much money in. | 22:33 |
I couldn't get much money out of the church to support it. | 22:38 | |
And some of them really went out there | 22:44 | |
and they were able to raise a lot of money. | 22:50 | |
But they were also ordained women that were well known. | 22:53 | |
And I was a lay woman that was at all of those meetings. | 22:57 | |
So we didn't have as much invested. | 23:03 | |
- | Yes. | 23:05 |
- | Yeah, right. | 23:06 |
- | Yeah, yeah. | |
Makes sense. | 23:08 | |
- | Right. | 23:09 |
- | How in the end would you define Re-Imagining? | 23:11 |
- | It was a gathering of people, | 23:22 |
mostly women, whose time had come. | 23:28 | |
And we were incredibly spirit-filled. | 23:33 | |
And this was a vehicle for change | 23:43 | |
for society, for the church. | 23:45 | |
And we were lucky enough to be a part of that vehicle. | 23:49 | |
And to say yes, use me. | 23:52 | |
- | Yeah, and you were part of the Re-Imagining community | 23:56 |
that formed. | 23:58 | |
- | Right. | 24:00 |
- | What do you remember | |
about how that was formed, why it was formed? | 24:01 | |
- | Well, it was formed to continue on. | 24:04 |
I mean, we didn't wanna stop. | 24:06 | |
This was just the beginning. | 24:08 | |
And I was involved for a while | 24:11 | |
but then again, I got morphed into the World YWCA. | 24:13 | |
And it just took every single ounce, | 24:19 | |
'cause I had a very time-consuming job, | 24:21 | |
plus I had major church involvements. | 24:26 | |
(laughing) | 24:28 | |
Then I had the YWCA involvements. | 24:31 | |
And I am an activist. | 24:33 | |
And so, I just bowed out. | 24:37 | |
I wasn't mad at anybody, nothing had happened. | 24:41 | |
It was, well, what are we accomplishing now | 24:44 | |
and others can carry on. | 24:47 | |
I'm not a theologian. | 24:49 | |
And I don't see a spot for me here that, | 24:52 | |
I see other spots where I can make a bigger difference. | 24:56 | |
- | Sure. | 24:58 |
- | Right. | 24:59 |
- | Yeah, sure. | 25:00 |
Earlier you said something about | 25:01 | |
sort of that backlash makes you more determined. | 25:02 | |
Is that what you saw happening with this group? | 25:05 | |
- | Probably. | 25:09 |
It was the backlash because the backlash meant that | 25:15 | |
we had just gotten people, people were just beginning | 25:21 | |
to think about this and discuss it. | 25:26 | |
And how can you drop that when you've started it? | 25:29 | |
And because it takes a long time | 25:33 | |
for a lot of people to change. | 25:35 | |
So I think it was the will of the group | 25:37 | |
that we've got to keep going here, friends. | 25:41 | |
We've just scratched the surface. | 25:44 | |
Right, right, exactly. | 25:45 | |
- | Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
Now, you've already talked some about this | 25:49 | |
when you talk about the planning, | 25:51 | |
but how do you think feminist theology | 25:51 | |
affected the structure and functioning of the community? | 25:53 | |
- | Oh! | 25:58 |
It was, as I mentioned, that the meetings | 26:00 | |
were a little chaotic and it was moving | 26:04 | |
into women's way of running things. | 26:06 | |
(laughing) | 26:09 | |
And everything was female. | 26:12 | |
I mean, in my congregation we never say our father, | 26:20 | |
who art in heaven, it's gracious God or other things. | 26:23 | |
I mean, it changed things like that. | 26:25 | |
In my own church, which was way ahead of its time, | 26:28 | |
it always has been, my congregation. | 26:32 | |
It really, the language, which for me | 26:37 | |
has always been one of the most important pieces. | 26:40 | |
Because without the language, nothing is gonna change. | 26:43 | |
I was at an event Saturday night | 26:46 | |
when they were calling women girls. | 26:48 | |
And I had all I could do not to just slap hands. | 26:50 | |
I didn't say anything 'cause it was a fun party, | 26:54 | |
but normally I do. | 26:56 | |
I'm the one who's known for doing that. | 26:57 | |
But language is deeply important. | 26:59 | |
So I think, not just because of the music | 27:01 | |
and the liturgy, but just the use at our meetings | 27:08 | |
of feminist words, et cetera, women's words. | 27:12 | |
It was life giving. | 27:18 | |
I mean, the whole thing was life giving. | 27:19 | |
- | That's great. | 27:22 |
- | I don't know if I answered your question. | 27:23 |
I talked in circles. | 27:24 | |
- | You did, you did. | |
No, you're saying great things. | 27:25 | |
That is really helpful. | 27:27 | |
What aspects of Re-Imagining, you've already | 27:30 | |
kinda said this, it helps sometimes | 27:31 | |
when I ask the question and you come up | 27:33 | |
with a different answer. | 27:34 | |
If you've already said it, that's fine, | 27:35 | |
but what aspects of Re-Imagining were most significant | 27:37 | |
to you and why? | 27:39 | |
- | Most significant was that I was included in the church | 27:45 |
and that all women were included in the church | 27:50 | |
and that we were important and that we were theologians, | 27:53 | |
lay and ordained. | 27:57 | |
Because I had fought that forever, | 28:01 | |
as we all had in our churches. | 28:04 | |
When we moved to Boston, I was on a senate committee | 28:06 | |
and at the last, I was always the only woman | 28:09 | |
and the only lay woman in those years, | 28:12 | |
in the '60s and early '70s. | 28:15 | |
And at my last senate meeting, this pastor said, | 28:18 | |
Doris, we're really gonna miss your pretty face around here. | 28:22 | |
And a pastor friend sitting next to me, | 28:26 | |
he said, oh no, we're gonna miss your brains. | 28:28 | |
But we'd all fought that. | 28:33 | |
And now, this was a beach hat. | 28:35 | |
(laughing) | 28:38 | |
It really was a beach hat. | 28:40 | |
We are who we are. | 28:42 | |
We are. | 28:44 | |
God is not father. | 28:46 | |
All the things that we'd all been fighting all these years. | 28:49 | |
It was validated. | 28:54 | |
Yeah, the feminist way of thinking was validated. | 28:55 | |
(laughing) | 28:59 | |
- | Aw, that's great. | 29:00 |
How did your involvement in Re-Imagining | 29:02 | |
change your perspective on feminist theology | 29:04 | |
and or the church? | 29:06 | |
- | I don't think it changed my thinking | 29:10 |
about the church, because I've always sort of been | 29:15 | |
a realist and I know that it takes | 29:18 | |
lots of steps and different things to make change. | 29:21 | |
And people have to have personal experiences, | 29:24 | |
usually, before they're ever really gonna change. | 29:25 | |
It has to affect them. | 29:28 | |
And how, was the first part of the question | 29:32 | |
how did it change me? | 29:34 | |
- | Your perspective on feminist, but how did it change you? | 29:36 |
Whatever comes to mind. | 29:39 | |
- | Sure. | 29:40 |
It really didn't change my perspective, | 29:44 | |
it just confirmed what I believed. | 29:46 | |
(laughing) | 29:48 | |
And what I felt in my heart and soul. | 29:50 | |
- | Yeah. | 29:53 |
- | But it gave such validity to these thoughts that, | 29:54 |
you know, Hildegard of Bingen had. | 30:00 | |
I love Hildegard of Bingen's writings. | 30:02 | |
- | Me too. | 30:05 |
- | What a feminist out of what? | 30:06 |
The 15th century or 14th? | 30:08 | |
(laughing) | 30:11 | |
- | Even earlier than that, yes. | 30:12 |
- | Yeah, exactly. | 30:13 |
But that was another aspect for those of us | 30:16 | |
who have read about our foremothers | 30:19 | |
and I visited Katie Luther's church in Germany. | 30:22 | |
And I mean, she was a raving feminist. | 30:26 | |
But she survived! | 30:30 | |
She even made beer for Martin Luther. | 30:32 | |
(laughing) | 30:36 | |
- | Exactly. | 30:37 |
- | But it was confirmation for all of our foremothers also | 30:38 |
that we were finally getting there. | 30:44 | |
- | You know, I have to ask you, | 30:48 |
'cause some people wonder this, | 30:49 | |
you maintained your role in the church, | 30:51 | |
important roles in the church, what kept you there? | 30:53 | |
- | Wow, God. | 30:58 |
(laughing) | 31:00 | |
The Holy Spirit! | ||
Really. | 31:06 | |
I guess it came about when I wasn't going to church | 31:11 | |
and my husband was taking our little kids to church. | 31:14 | |
And we had an incredible pastor, Ron Peterson, | 31:16 | |
a fabulous man. | 31:19 | |
And I ran everything in the community, | 31:21 | |
but didn't do anything at church. | 31:24 | |
And he said, Doris, why don't you quit bitching | 31:26 | |
and get in and change the church? | 31:28 | |
And that stuck with me my whole life. | 31:30 | |
- | Wow. | 31:32 |
- | This is my church too. | 31:33 |
- | Yes. | 31:35 |
- | This is my church. | 31:36 |
And the way it is now, it's so limiting. | 31:36 | |
It isn't life giving. | 31:39 | |
It's limiting for everybody! | 31:41 | |
And so was fighting to make it | 31:45 | |
what it really is supposed to be, | 31:48 | |
a holistic place for everyone. | 31:50 | |
And here's something else that I'm very aware of. | 31:54 | |
I could easily spend 100% of my time on the church. | 32:00 | |
But I've always fought against that | 32:04 | |
because I want to be in the world. | 32:06 | |
I'm not called to be in the church. | 32:08 | |
I'm called to make the changes in the world | 32:10 | |
on racism, et cetera. | 32:13 | |
It's what's got me in the United Way. | 32:15 | |
It's what's taken me all over the world with the YWCA. | 32:16 | |
So I mean, and I deeply love the church, I just love it. | 32:20 | |
And it's where everything that I care about is. | 32:25 | |
So, but in order to be healthy, | 32:30 | |
I have to keep half of me in the world. | 32:33 | |
'Cause I don't think it counts otherwise. | 32:36 | |
I'm not here to change the church, | 32:38 | |
I'm here to change the world. | 32:39 | |
(laughing) | 32:41 | |
On a small task. | 32:43 | |
- | Well, earlier you said something about | 32:44 |
wanting to change the church. | 32:46 | |
Is it both or are you still trying | 32:48 | |
to change the church or -- | 32:50 | |
- | No. | 32:54 |
Because I'm not at the national level any more | 32:56 | |
or even at the senate level. | 33:01 | |
I'm just deeply involved in my own congregation. | 33:03 | |
And deeply involved still in the World YWCA, et cetera. | 33:08 | |
So I love my church. | 33:13 | |
I'm lucky to go to Edina Community Lutheran Church. | 33:17 | |
It just a fabulous place. | 33:21 | |
- | What do you love about it? | 33:24 |
- | I love its inclusiveness and that | 33:25 |
I can be exactly who I am. | 33:28 | |
And always my husband and I had to hide in churches | 33:31 | |
that we were the most liberal in the congregation. | 33:35 | |
We don't have to hide that any more. | 33:38 | |
(laughing) | 33:40 | |
And the other thing is that people live | 33:43 | |
their faith out there in the world. | 33:45 | |
It is, everybody there, they are deeply involved | 33:47 | |
in justice issues in the world. | 33:51 | |
They're doing what they're supposed to do. | 33:53 | |
So I know the senate and the bigger church | 33:55 | |
still needs to change and evolve, | 33:59 | |
but my congregation is fabulous. | 34:00 | |
(laughing) | 34:03 | |
- | That is wonderful. | 34:04 |
- | Never thought I'd say that. | |
Never thought I'd say that. | 34:06 | |
- | How does the national church need to evolve? | 34:07 |
If you were to reimagine it today, | 34:11 | |
how does it need to be reimagined? | 34:13 | |
- | I'm a systems and structure person. | 34:16 |
That's what I teach in the United Way. | 34:20 | |
Next two days, I'm on the road teaching board governance. | 34:22 | |
And so I look at systems and how people are governed | 34:25 | |
all the time and I suspect that | 34:28 | |
it still needs some of that. | 34:32 | |
I really, I'm not close enough, | 34:34 | |
although my best friend is still deeply involved. | 34:39 | |
She was the vice president of the national church. | 34:44 | |
And she's deeply involved, but I'm a realist too | 34:47 | |
about how fast change can come. | 34:52 | |
And I mean, the change has been miraculous | 34:55 | |
that's happened in the national church. | 34:58 | |
But I couldn't even talk in an intelligent way | 35:01 | |
about what needs to change there. | 35:04 | |
I really couldn't. | 35:06 | |
- | What is the change that happened that's miraculous? | 35:07 |
What do you point to that's changed? | 35:09 | |
- | In the national church, the growing numbers | 35:12 |
of women and people of color. | 35:15 | |
I know where it needs to change drastically | 35:19 | |
and it's around inclusion and diversity. | 35:21 | |
And I guess I could speak about that, | 35:25 | |
'cause it's through the YWCA. | 35:30 | |
It really is my number one issue that | 35:31 | |
I've worked on for years is the elimination of racism. | 35:33 | |
And the church does have a long way to go there. | 35:36 | |
They may care and believe, but they have to make | 35:41 | |
a lot of changes in order to be welcoming | 35:44 | |
and inclusive and they don't know how. | 35:47 | |
- | You mean at the national level | 35:51 |
and individual congregations | 35:52 | |
or senates? | 35:54 | |
- | I think all of us. | |
All of us, yeah. | 35:56 | |
We may have the will, 'cause a lot of people have the will, | 35:57 | |
but it's tough to do. | 36:01 | |
Just like society. | 36:03 | |
How do we get rid of racism in the workplace? | 36:04 | |
Yeah, it's tough work. | 36:08 | |
- | It is, it is, yeah. | 36:10 |
In the end, what do you think is | 36:12 | |
the greatest legacy of Re-Imagining? | 36:13 | |
- | A legacy of hope. | 36:23 |
Because at a time when it was much tougher | 36:28 | |
for lay women and ordained women in the church, | 36:33 | |
a group of volunteers came together | 36:37 | |
and made a major impact that's still alive. | 36:40 | |
And that gives great hope. | 36:46 | |
Yeah, I think that's the biggest legacy, | 36:49 | |
along with the change that it certainly made for women. | 36:51 | |
- | What do you think Re-Imagining helped with? | 36:55 |
What did it change? | 36:58 | |
- | It brought people's attention to how it could be. | 37:00 |
And here's how I think about that. | 37:07 | |
Because in the World YWCA, we're closely aligned | 37:13 | |
with the United Nations, and whatever the decade, | 37:16 | |
whatever the goals are, we're always working on those goals. | 37:19 | |
And I remember at one point a while ago, | 37:23 | |
quite a while ago, saying why do we even care | 37:27 | |
or push some of these goals because | 37:32 | |
we're just not able to make some of those changes, | 37:38 | |
let alone the United Nations make those changes | 37:41 | |
around the world. | 37:43 | |
And then somebody said, but remember, Doris, | 37:45 | |
this is why we push them, because say for a woman | 37:48 | |
in Bangladesh who sees these goals, | 37:52 | |
she's lived a life of servanthood and obedience. | 37:56 | |
She doesn't know that anything can be different. | 38:02 | |
And when she sees the United Nations' goals | 38:05 | |
that say women should be paid equal, | 38:08 | |
women should be regarded well, | 38:11 | |
this was what should happen for women, | 38:15 | |
it's the first time they ever knew | 38:17 | |
that there was a place in the world that that happened. | 38:19 | |
And so, it's hope. | 38:22 | |
And that's incredibly important. | 38:26 | |
I just went to, last fall, October, | 38:29 | |
a World YWCA Council meeting in Thailand. | 38:31 | |
And it's there that we encounter women | 38:37 | |
from 120 countries that are at all different places, | 38:41 | |
but their stories are just incredible. | 38:45 | |
The child marriage and the human trafficking | 38:48 | |
and all of that, but they see hope when we come together. | 38:50 | |
They have sisters around the world | 38:56 | |
that are gonna work with them, so it's hope. | 38:58 | |
It's written down, it's just amazing. | 39:01 | |
Now I totally buy into those goals, | 39:03 | |
the decade goals that the United Nations puts out. | 39:05 | |
'Cause if you don't know that something can be better, | 39:09 | |
yeah (laughing). | 39:13 | |
- | Yeah, yes, that's great. | |
Well, I'm getting near the end here, | 39:15 | |
but some of the goals of Re-Imagining was to bring | 39:17 | |
inclusive language and feminist theology to the churches. | 39:20 | |
Sounds like your church is doing very well on that. | 39:23 | |
- | Very well, very well. | 39:26 |
- | And what is your sense | |
of the ELCA as a whole? | 39:28 | |
- | There's pockets, there's a lot of people | 39:35 |
that are just like we are at ECLC. | 39:38 | |
But there's still a lot of, | 39:42 | |
I mean when you go to other congregations | 39:48 | |
and you say, oh, this is what, this worship is like | 39:50 | |
what it was in 1980, I can't believe it. | 39:54 | |
So there's a huge amount of change yet to be made. | 39:58 | |
Although a lot of us have come a long way. | 40:02 | |
There's still great, you know, and I think about | 40:07 | |
why all of our denominations are shrinking. | 40:09 | |
And I think that not being in tune | 40:14 | |
with the changes along all the avenues. | 40:18 | |
It's like, why would young people go to that church? | 40:23 | |
I would never go back to lots of 'em, | 40:25 | |
lot of Lutheran congregations. | 40:28 | |
I just couldn't do that any more. | 40:30 | |
And so certainly that's the way young, | 40:32 | |
I mean, yeah, that's why my congregation is growing. | 40:34 | |
We're putting on -- | 40:40 | |
- | Is it, wow. | |
- | a $5.5 million addition. | 40:41 |
- | Oh my goodness! | 40:43 |
- | 'Cause we're busting | |
out of the seams with kids and young people | 40:45 | |
and LGBTQ people and -- | 40:48 | |
- | That's so good to hear. | 40:52 |
- | And we have incredible music and theology, | 40:53 |
feminist theology. | 40:57 | |
So it's working for us. | 40:58 | |
(laughing) | 41:00 | |
- | Yes! | |
Oh, that is wonderful. | 41:02 | |
I have one last question, a very specific one. | 41:04 | |
We are working on a Re-Imagining website, | 41:07 | |
and part of it will be kind of archival. | 41:09 | |
We'll put on the digitized versions of the conferences, | 41:13 | |
other things -- | 41:16 | |
- | Oh, fabulous. | |
- | Yeah, yes. | 41:17 |
And then some of it we're hoping to use | 41:18 | |
for resources and networking. | 41:20 | |
- | Sure. | 41:22 |
- | So I wondered if you had any thoughts, | 41:23 |
we're just looking for thoughts | 41:24 | |
about what would be helpful to be on that website? | 41:25 | |
If you were to look for it, what would you wanna see? | 41:27 | |
- | I'd wanna hear some stories. | 41:30 |
I'd want, maybe it would be a story about, | 41:33 | |
because some of them I'm sure are very articulate, | 41:37 | |
the ones that are still deeply involved, | 41:39 | |
on what changes need to still take place. | 41:43 | |
Where can they plug in? | 41:46 | |
Can they just look at this website | 41:48 | |
or is there a gathering that they can go to? | 41:49 | |
- | Oh, a gathering like a conference? | 41:53 |
- | Right, right. | 41:55 |
- | Plans are in the works for that too, | 41:56 |
but it's not finalized. | 41:57 | |
2018 is the 25th anniversary. | 41:59 | |
- | Yeah, I saw that article in Minnesota Women's Press. | 42:01 |
Right, just before you called. | 42:05 | |
- | Oh, did you? | 42:07 |
- | And I thought | |
ooh! | 42:07 | |
- | Perfect timing, yes. | |
Is that something you would be interested in going to? | 42:09 | |
- | Oh, heavens yes. | 42:12 |
- | Okay, good. | 42:13 |
- | Oh, yeah. | |
- | And what would you want at a gathering like that? | 42:14 |
'Cause we're still in the planning stages. | 42:16 | |
- | Just I'd wanna see friends. | 42:18 |
- | Yes. | 42:20 |
- | But, and I wouldn't wanna hear much history. | 42:22 |
I'd wanna hear about the future. | 42:26 | |
- | Yes, yes. | 42:27 |
- | And -- | 42:28 |
- | That's what we're workin' on. | 42:29 |
- | And what can we work on in the future? | 42:30 |
- | Yes. | 42:32 |
- | Yeah, much more so. | 42:33 |
- | That's good to hear. | 42:35 |
- | Yeah, exactly. | 42:36 |
- | Yeah, good. | |
- | Because it would be just awful if we'd spent | 42:38 |
all that time and then it stopped there. | 42:40 | |
- | Right. | 42:43 |
- | Yeah. | 42:44 |
- | Exactly. | 42:45 |
- | Needs to keep moving. | 42:46 |
- | Doris, this was wonderful. | 42:47 |
Is there anything we haven't discussed | 42:48 | |
that you would like to add? | 42:49 | |
- | No, because you triggered things that | 42:51 |
(laughing) I had been thinking about. | 42:53 | |
- | Oh, I'm so glad. | 42:55 |
- | Especially that it wasn't as bad for me or the ELCA. | 42:57 |
I mean, some of the women it was horrid. | 43:00 | |
It did awful things to their lives and, | 43:03 | |
but for me, 'cause I care so deeply | 43:08 | |
about this upcoming election and getting Hillary Clinton | 43:11 | |
elected that I thought (laughing) | 43:14 | |
I should speak about, you know, people's lives | 43:17 | |
are being destroyed in the election, | 43:20 | |
but it's even more hurtful when it's the church. | 43:21 | |
- | Yes. | 43:24 |
- | But we aren't any different than society. | 43:25 |
- | Yes. | 43:27 |
Well, thank you so much. | 43:28 | |
- | Oh, you're welcome. | 43:30 |
- | I'm gonna turn this |
Item Info
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