Craig, Susan
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| Interviewer | Susan, thank you very much | 0:05 |
| for being interviewed | 0:06 | |
| If you could please say your full name? | 0:08 | |
| Susan | Susan Halcomb Craig | 0:12 |
| Interviewer | Thank you! | 0:14 |
| Susan | Middle name h-a-l-c-o-m-b | 0:16 |
| Interviewer | Thank you for spelling that, that's helpful. | 0:22 |
| And are you Lay or Clergy? | 0:24 | |
| Susan | Clergy. | 0:26 |
| Interviewer | And your denomination affiliation if any? | 0:29 |
| Susan | Presbyterian Church, USA. | 0:33 |
| Interviewer | Thank you! And Susan, | 0:36 |
| when and where were you born? | 0:37 | |
| Susan | I was born in 1941, at what is called | 0:41 |
| Yale New Haven Hospital, in New Haven, my dad was at Yale. | 0:45 | |
| Interviewer | Oh, really? Okay! | 0:50 |
| And where did you go to school? | 0:52 | |
| Susan | (mumbles) | 0:54 |
| Interviewer | Oh go ahead, sorry. | 0:55 |
| Susan | I went to Stanford. Stanford and then | 0:56 |
| Princeton Seminary, Theological Seminaries. | 1:01 | |
| And then (mumbles) Theological Seminary. | 1:05 | |
| Interviewer | Oh wonderful, I interrupted you earlier. | 1:09 |
| What were you going to say about your father at Yale? | 1:11 | |
| Susan | Well it doesn't matter. | 1:14 |
| Interviewer | Okay. | 1:16 |
| (laughs) | 1:17 | |
| The problem with the phone is that I'm not getting all | 1:18 | |
| the non verbal cues, so I apologize. | 1:19 | |
| Susan | Yeah. | 1:21 |
| Interviewer | Susan, what work or Ministry were you doing | 1:23 |
| at the time of Re-Imagining? | 1:26 | |
| Susan | I was... | 1:30 |
| The Chaplain and a professor at Rollas College, | 1:34 | |
| a Methodist College. | 1:40 | |
| Where I was teaching (mumbles), which is spelled | 1:41 | |
| which is spelled t-h-e-o-l, wait a minute, theology, | 1:45 | |
| t-h-e-a-l- (mumbles). | 1:50 | |
| Interviewer | Oh. | 1:54 |
| Susan | That's where I was at the time of Re-Imagining. | 1:55 |
| Interviewer | Okay. And what work or ministry did you do | 2:01 |
| after Re-Imagining? | 2:02 | |
| Susan | I went to Mary Anne Lundy's, | 2:06 |
| a women's ministry unit. And we were involved in the | 2:13 | |
| Presbyterian Church, and then I became the Pastor of the | 2:17 | |
| Universative Church, at USC. | 2:20 | |
| Interviewer | Okay that's wonderful. Do you know about | 2:24 |
| the time you would have become the Director of the | 2:28 | |
| Women's Ministry Unit? | 2:31 | |
| (long pause) | 2:33 | |
| Susan | Re-Imagining was in '93. | 2:38 |
| It was probably '92. | 2:43 | |
| Interviewer | Okay. Right around that time, | 2:46 |
| that's what I thought. Good. | 2:47 | |
| Susan | Yeah, because in '96 I went to USC. | 2:49 |
| Interviewer | Okay. | 2:53 |
| Susan | That was three years. At Marry Anne's. | 2:54 |
| Interviewer | Susan, how and when did you first become | 2:58 |
| aware of feminist theology? | 3:01 | |
| Susan | It was at least 1980. | 3:05 |
| Various ways, | 3:10 | |
| Somebody from the, I was at Hamilton College and | 3:16 | |
| (mumbles) | 3:21 | |
| at a group where I was. But I would go to work in the Chapel | 3:31 | |
| at Hamilton College and would immediately (mumbles) | 3:36 | |
| Interviewer | Susan I'm sorry to interrupt, I'm going to | 3:44 |
| pause this for just one minute. | 3:49 | |
| Sorry about that. | 3:50 |
| - | So, I'm sorry, if you could pick up again | 0:02 |
| with the feminist theology, I'm not sure we | 0:04 | |
| got all of that. | 0:06 | |
| - | Okay. | 0:08 |
| I was in Hamilton College, and a woman | 0:10 | |
| who had been a feminist in this red stocking | 0:15 | |
| group they called me at University, | 0:19 | |
| came to campus and formed a consciousness-raising group, | 0:22 | |
| which I joined. | 0:27 | |
| And we got very active. | 0:30 | |
| I was serving in the chapel in Hamilton College, | 0:32 | |
| and we started using inclusive language right way. | 0:36 | |
| And decided the connection was just obvious | 0:41 | |
| that it was true for much more than | 0:47 | |
| just Columbia University. | 0:52 | |
| They don't have you go into the church. | 0:57 | |
| And got Mary Ruther started writing in 83, | 1:02 | |
| I just started eating up whatever I could find to read. | 1:07 | |
| - | That's wonderful, and I can hear it better. | 1:13 |
| I'll be honest with you, I'd heard of | 1:15 | |
| consciousness-raising groups. | 1:17 | |
| Would you mind saying a little bit about | 1:18 | |
| what that meant, what you did? | 1:20 | |
| - | If you were in a small group, | 1:25 |
| there are lots of people that are interested | 1:28 | |
| in (mumbles) you do, get into several small groups, | 1:31 | |
| not one large group. | 1:36 | |
| And they talk about life using a feminist lens, | 1:39 | |
| in a way that means all the minds in a group | 1:48 | |
| can begin to work on it. | 1:52 | |
| In our situation, we were all in a boy's college, | 1:56 | |
| and as we continued to talk, we got (mumbles). | 2:00 | |
| There ought to be a women's college. | 2:04 | |
| And that kind of thing, and actually, one came. | 2:07 | |
| We didn't help that. | 2:12 | |
| We became an activist group as people grew into it. | 2:15 | |
| At that time, I also did not- | 2:22 | |
| I was going to go to a seminary, | 2:24 | |
| but I made a pact with my girls that I would | 2:26 | |
| leave if I did not discover a redeeming potential | 2:30 | |
| for women in Christianity. | 2:33 | |
| - | Wow. | 2:40 |
| And what was the ... I know this was a huge question | 2:41 | |
| but briefly, what was your seminary experience like? | 2:43 | |
| Did it help with that? | 2:47 | |
| - | I had a wonderful time because I was 42 | 2:50 |
| when I went to the seminary, | 2:54 | |
| and I was as old as many of the professors, | 2:57 | |
| and I was very persuasive at (mumbles). | 3:03 | |
| So I actually was able to invent classes | 3:08 | |
| to take classes at the University, Princeton University. | 3:14 | |
| To do individual reading projects with people. | 3:21 | |
| So if they were teaching hermineutics, they would | 3:25 | |
| do reading projects with me on feminist hermineutics. | 3:29 | |
| And they let me do my big project, | 3:34 | |
| you had to do a sort of education on conversations | 3:40 | |
| and a feminist model. | 3:47 | |
| Which was a lot of fun. | 3:52 | |
| - | Oh, interesting. | 3:54 |
| Could you say a little bit about that? | 3:56 | |
| - | Yeah. | 3:59 |
| I was talking about inclusive conversation | 4:01 | |
| of women of all colors and (mumbles) and | 4:05 | |
| different sexual orientation. | 4:13 | |
| And Lannie Russel, do you know her? | 4:15 | |
| - | Yes. | 4:18 |
| - | Her name? | 4:19 |
| Lannie Russel begun something called the | 4:20 | |
| Women's Interseminary Conference. | 4:24 | |
| And she brought it to Princeton while I was there | 4:27 | |
| and worked with my conversation model. | 4:31 | |
| So we had Lannie and Ave Maria, (mumbles), | 4:36 | |
| and Clock (mumbles), and not absolutely certain | 4:41 | |
| knew who the woman was. | 4:48 | |
| But we had a wonderful time. | 4:50 | |
| And she wrote a book from that conference called, | 4:53 | |
| Inheriting Our Mother's Burden. | 4:57 | |
| - | Oh, okay, I read the book, but I didn't know. | 5:00 |
| That's a fascinating history, yes. | 5:04 | |
| - | Yeah. | 5:06 |
| Plus, my name is in the presses. | 5:08 | |
| - | Oh, Susan, that's really wonderful. | 5:10 |
| Sounds really exciting. | 5:12 | |
| - | Yeah, Lannie is fabulous, she always giving, or was. | 5:15 |
| Always giving credit to other people | 5:19 | |
| in the (mumbles) church, along other things. | 5:21 | |
| - | Yeah. | 5:24 |
| So what was your relationship to the re-imagining community? | 5:27 | |
| - | Well ... | 5:32 |
| Oh you mean after I went to school? | 5:35 | |
| - | Yes. | 5:38 |
| - | The Women's Institute? | 5:39 |
| I'm just looking, I wrote something down here. | 5:43 | |
| I just knew all kinds of people that had been | 5:52 | |
| and also a number of the presenters. | 5:55 | |
| So I stayed close that way. | 6:01 | |
| And we had everything, it was like a breeding | 6:07 | |
| place for more feminist theology. | 6:11 | |
| So I stayed up that way. | 6:16 | |
| Also, Marianne was moved to a different office | 6:19 | |
| after (mumbles) centers, so she and I | 6:25 | |
| could collaborate then sort of sub-rota. | 6:28 | |
| Let's see. | 6:38 | |
| I had already worked with her and found the | 6:41 | |
| network of Presbyterian College Women, | 6:45 | |
| so I knew her pretty well by then. | 6:49 | |
| I'm trying to see if that really answers your question. | 6:54 | |
| - | Sure, well you were saying earlier that | 6:57 |
| you weren't able to attend the 93 conference, | 7:00 | |
| 'cause you had a previous commitment. | 7:02 | |
| - | Right. | 7:04 |
| Yeah, that's right. | 7:06 | |
| I just wanted to say, though I don't remember | 7:12 | |
| which year I was able to go. | 7:15 | |
| Obviously I couldn't, I would have had to go | 7:18 | |
| with a paper bag over my head if I went publicly | 7:22 | |
| from the Presbyterian Center. | 7:27 | |
| So it was within the first five years | 7:32 | |
| that I did just go on my own. | 7:34 | |
| And of course, Rebecca Walker. | 7:37 | |
| And Chris Spence and Mary Daley were there, | 7:40 | |
| that might be a way of figuring out | 7:44 | |
| what year it was. | 7:46 | |
| - | That was 2000. | 7:47 |
| - | I wasn't doing anything, writing anything, I just went. | 7:51 |
| - | What were your memories of that conference? | 7:59 |
| - | The issue that seemed to come up with | 8:04 |
| the first and second generation feminists. | 8:07 | |
| What were the lines between younger feminists? | 8:10 | |
| And they were already there, and having | 8:15 | |
| a new generation of feminists. | 8:18 | |
| And Rebecca Walker, I don't remember this | 8:23 | |
| well enough to say very much, but Rebecca Walker | 8:26 | |
| is the daughter of Alice Walker, and she | 8:30 | |
| had written about the second generation | 8:33 | |
| had some complaints I think, about her mother. | 8:35 | |
| And then, Mary Daley, who hadn't bothered | 8:42 | |
| to go to Rebecca Walker's presentation, | 8:45 | |
| showed up and did something where she totally | 8:48 | |
| braised out Walker, which is what you do. | 8:51 | |
| But it seemed very insensitive after Rebecca's | 8:55 | |
| sensitive discussion. | 8:58 | |
| And then Chris Spence who is a good friend | 9:05 | |
| from the seminary. | 9:08 | |
| In her address, she said "Well Mary Daley, | 9:12 | |
| "as usual, you have not ceased to astound | 9:15 | |
| "and annoy and anger and excite us" | 9:19 | |
| It was a very awkward moment. | 9:26 | |
| - | Yes. | 9:28 |
| Well, do you recall what your experience | 9:32 | |
| with that was like? | 9:34 | |
| Of the whole conference or of that in particular? | 9:37 | |
| - | That in particular was very uncomfortable. | 9:41 |
| I was annoyed with Mary Daley, because in the end | 9:45 | |
| she hadn't done her homework. | 9:50 | |
| - | Yes. | 9:53 |
| - | I think I enjoyed it once since I went with | 9:55 |
| my current spouse. | 9:58 | |
| And I'm married to a woman. | 10:00 | |
| And we liked it very much, and it was good to see | 10:06 | |
| the people of the community there. | 10:12 | |
| Good to be back in touch with Chris Smith | 10:15 | |
| and folks like that that I knew. | 10:18 | |
| - | Excellent, yes. | 10:23 |
| Well, I know you were aware of the backlash | 10:25 | |
| after the 93 conference, being in Loorval, | 10:27 | |
| so I'm curious, first of all, did it effect you directly? | 10:30 | |
| - | Yes. | 10:34 |
| I sat in the office, then all this really | 10:39 | |
| ugly mail came in. | 10:42 | |
| And we worked it there and discussed it a lot | 10:45 | |
| in our big meetings. | 10:49 | |
| And we took together a packet of articles | 10:56 | |
| and then we made distinctions between | 10:59 | |
| people that wrote letters that seemed | 11:03 | |
| to ask for more information or explanation, | 11:06 | |
| people that wrote letters to us that | 11:11 | |
| seemed to want more contact, and we sent | 11:14 | |
| those folks the packs and wrote them nice letters. | 11:19 | |
| I'm not aware that we heard of any of them again, | 11:25 | |
| from any of them, but I was chastised | 11:28 | |
| by the General Assembly Council for doing that | 11:33 | |
| without asking their permission. | 11:37 | |
| - | Really? | 11:40 |
| - | Yeah. | 11:41 |
| We also got some really ugly letters. | 11:44 | |
| And I'm trying to remember, I know we | 11:48 | |
| decided we'd just throw those away. | 11:50 | |
| Not try to deal with them, but we may | 11:54 | |
| have decided to send out one line answers | 11:56 | |
| saying "We have received your letter" | 11:59 | |
| - | Right. | 12:04 |
| - | But I'm not sure. | 12:05 |
| Oh, we had to make decisions because | 12:06 | |
| (mumbles) for women should be end. | 12:09 | |
| - | And I'm curious, you probably don't wanna | 12:14 |
| particularly remember this or some of it | 12:16 | |
| you may not be able to say, but just to | 12:18 | |
| get the tenor when you said they were unpleasant, | 12:20 | |
| what kinds of things are we talking about | 12:23 | |
| for the sake of the historical record? | 12:25 | |
| - | Some of the ugliest. | 12:30 |
| They were always very brief. | 12:32 | |
| And just very ugly comments about women | 12:36 | |
| trying to change for church. | 12:39 | |
| And how could we have imagined doing that. | 12:42 | |
| Blah, blah, blah. | 12:48 | |
| - | Yes. | 12:50 |
| - | And they really were not kind of things | 12:51 |
| that we would answer. | 12:53 | |
| Wait a minute, I have a (mumbles). | 12:55 | |
| Did I tell you that the Presbyterian Church | 12:59 | |
| did not send its (mumbles) people? | 13:01 | |
| Its reporters to the re-imagining? | 13:06 | |
| - | Oh. | 13:09 |
| Say some more about that. | 13:10 | |
| - | It was a huge mistake. | 13:11 |
| Though in women's ministries we always assumed | 13:16 | |
| that they just blew us off, | 13:19 | |
| they thought it was just gonna be | 13:23 | |
| a little women's conference or something. | 13:24 | |
| So they didn't go, whereas the Methodists | 13:30 | |
| and the Lutheran physical presence were all there | 13:35 | |
| writing very negative comment and commentary | 13:40 | |
| on the conference, and that was the sorts of | 13:47 | |
| problems to Presbyterians, that | 13:52 | |
| their folk hadn't been there. | 13:55 | |
| - | You think it really would have helped | 13:58 |
| if they had their press there? | 14:00 | |
| - | Probably, I think the Presbyterians | 14:05 |
| thought they had egg on their face, | 14:07 | |
| and shouldn't have been there. | 14:10 | |
| I'm certain that the press weren't as angry as others, | 14:13 | |
| but at least we would have had the possibility | 14:18 | |
| of being in direct contact in conversation | 14:23 | |
| with our own people. | 14:28 | |
| - | Yes. | 14:30 |
| And how did you react to this whole situation? | 14:33 | |
| - | Well I thought it was great. | 14:38 |
| I followed the conference, I was totally | 14:39 | |
| in support of it, while I was there. | 14:44 | |
| I was a follower of the Ecunemical Decade. | 14:49 | |
| I had been throughout the decade. | 14:53 | |
| This was re-imagining what the mid point, I guess, you know? | 14:55 | |
| But we knew by then that the Ecunemical Decade | 15:00 | |
| wasn't going very well, wasn't accomplishing its goals. | 15:04 | |
| I guess it was the World Council of Churches, | 15:15 | |
| sent out teams to go to different parts of the country | 15:18 | |
| and check in the congregations, | 15:22 | |
| then councils and churches and that was | 15:25 | |
| their report in general. | 15:32 | |
| But I had been in a place where there was | 15:34 | |
| one of those groups from the WTC. | 15:37 | |
| I also took a group of Presbyterian women | 15:43 | |
| to the Beijing Conference in 1996, | 15:46 | |
| which was a group of Presbyterian women, | 15:52 | |
| which was another part of the decade. | 15:55 | |
| It's where Hillary Clinton gave her speech | 16:02 | |
| and said, "Women's rights are human rights". | 16:03 | |
| - | Yes, and you were there, wow. | 16:07 |
| - | Yes. | 16:11 |
| - | When you say the goals weren't being accomplished | 16:12 |
| for the Ecunemical Decade, what did that mean? | 16:14 | |
| Did that mean people just weren't organizing things? | 16:18 | |
| Or what did that mean? | 16:21 | |
| - | My understanding was that the goals were, again, | 16:25 |
| for women for power in the church, | 16:32 | |
| equal representation in leadership, | 16:36 | |
| but also outside of the church. | 16:39 | |
| And that and several others which, | 16:45 | |
| women weren't being paid as much, that kind of thing. | 16:51 | |
| And the hope was that the Ecunemical Decade | 16:56 | |
| would bring about the changes in the church | 17:01 | |
| and especially to denominations that didn't | 17:04 | |
| allow women to be ordained. | 17:07 | |
| But also then it would accept more broadly | 17:13 | |
| the lives of women outside the church. | 17:18 | |
| - | Yes, and- | 17:30 |
| - | (mumbles) | 17:31 |
| - | Oh, I apologize, I thought were done, go ahead, yes. | 17:34 |
| So was it meeting those goals? | 17:37 | |
| - | The other thing under the backlash | 17:39 |
| was that we did put out the Church and Sobriety Magazine | 17:42 | |
| which I really think is good. | 17:47 | |
| - | Yes. | 17:49 |
| I've read that and it's very impressive. | 17:51 | |
| Lot's of the speeches are in there. | 17:53 | |
| - | Most. | 17:56 |
| But it also goes through the goals and things. | 17:58 | |
| - | Exactly, it puts it in context. | 18:01 |
| - | Yeah. | 18:05 |
| - | How would you describe the mood | 18:07 |
| in the Women's Division while all this was happening? | 18:08 | |
| - | I think we often felt beleaguered. | 18:15 |
| But it didn't seem necessarily because of re-imagining. | 18:22 | |
| It felt bold, the way it has always been in the church | 18:27 | |
| and stuff, but just kind of a reflective | 18:35 | |
| lack of interest, and reflective attempt | 18:42 | |
| to keep us from making much change. | 18:47 | |
| We sapped our energy, and enjoyed ourselves | 18:53 | |
| but we didn't get all that far. | 18:58 | |
| At some point, we actually really (mumbles). | 19:02 | |
| - | Yeah. | 19:07 |
| Well I'm curious, were you or other people | 19:09 | |
| surprised by the backlash to re-imagining? | 19:11 | |
| - | No. | 19:19 |
| I don't think so. | 19:22 | |
| It happened so quickly that I can't remember | 19:28 | |
| a time when I didn't know about it. | 19:30 | |
| I did want to tell you that (mumbles), | 19:35 | |
| and her mother and best friend did go to re-imagining. | 19:40 | |
| And they loved her. | 19:45 | |
| And when they came back, they wrote a report | 19:49 | |
| to their Presbytery, and they were called | 19:53 | |
| on the carpet side to man in the Presbyterian question | 20:00 | |
| about what they had done there and what it was like. | 20:05 | |
| So that premise stuff was going on as part of the backlash. | 20:08 | |
| - | I'm glad they went and they | 20:15 |
| had such a positive experience. | 20:16 | |
| - | Yeah, 'cause Bear wasn't able to go, | 20:19 |
| and I wasn't, as I said. | 20:21 | |
| So I'm so glad they were. | 20:25 | |
| - | And I think you were starting to answer | 20:29 |
| this already, but just to ask, so how | 20:30 | |
| do you account for this backlash, | 20:33 | |
| you said it seemed part of a longer event | 20:35 | |
| or process, but how would you account for it? | 20:39 | |
| - | I think re-imagining was explosive. | 20:46 |
| I think it was, I suppose that's maybe | 20:54 | |
| the next question, but it was a huge turning point. | 20:56 | |
| And I think that the misogyny and the male | 21:02 | |
| theology of the churches, although it was | 21:10 | |
| being challenged everywhere, there wasn't a focal point. | 21:14 | |
| And it wasn't all that scary, but after re-imagining, | 21:21 | |
| I think the people who benefited from | 21:24 | |
| male theologies knew that their time | 21:29 | |
| in charge was up. | 21:36 | |
| And they wanted to fight to see if that | 21:40 | |
| they could tamp it down, but there was no way, | 21:43 | |
| the genie was out of the bottle. | 21:48 | |
| - | What about re-imagining made it | 21:52 |
| such a turning point, and so explosive? | 21:53 | |
| - | I think the fact that it was global, | 22:02 |
| that it was ecunemical, that it was very public, | 22:06 | |
| that it was very publicized. | 22:11 | |
| You can't deny something that's that big, I think. | 22:16 | |
| You can't say, "Oh, that's just the Luterhans". | 22:22 | |
| It was all the women who knew and cared, | 22:28 | |
| and it was sponsored by the World Council of Churches. | 22:34 | |
| I think the global aspect was very important. | 22:39 | |
| - | You know, before you move on, I did wanna ask you | 22:45 |
| if you were at the general assembly | 22:47 | |
| that discussed re-imagining, and or what you thought, | 22:50 | |
| if you remember, about the report, or what | 22:54 | |
| your reaction was to what happened there? | 22:56 | |
| - | Wow. | 23:00 |
| I must have been there and I haven't thought about that. | 23:06 | |
| I don't have answers. | 23:11 | |
| I will think about it, and if I ... | 23:14 | |
| I'll talk with Claire about it. | 23:19 | |
| And if I can come up with anything, I'll write you. | 23:26 | |
| - | Thank you, I appreciate that. | 23:29 |
| Well it has been a long time now (laughs). | 23:31 | |
| But thank you. | 23:33 | |
| - | Yeah. | 23:35 |
| - | Susan, how would you define re-imagining? | 23:38 |
| - | I think it's so obvious that it's hard to say. | 23:44 |
| I like the story on Sally Hill. | 23:48 | |
| Sally Hill's typo? | 23:51 | |
| - | Yes. | 23:52 |
| - | When it was supposed to be "re-imaging". | 23:53 |
| As you know that's "re-imagining". | 23:59 | |
| Do you have that story? | 24:01 | |
| - | I do, and several people have told it. | 24:02 |
| It is so important, and I wanna know | 24:04 | |
| why you love that story. | 24:06 | |
| - | Well, because she told it in a very funny way. | 24:11 |
| But I like Sally Hill. | 24:15 | |
| I know I don't have anything much bigger than that, | 24:21 | |
| but re-imagining is about re-imaging. | 24:25 | |
| And re-imagining, both of which are theological/spiritual, | 24:31 | |
| (mumbles), and explorations, and that's | 24:39 | |
| what it means to me, just looking at it all. | 24:45 | |
| Looking at everything we've been taught, | 24:50 | |
| and told and seeing whether it conveys | 24:53 | |
| a redeeming potential for women, or requires | 25:00 | |
| that it be re-imagined so that it does. | 25:05 | |
| Is that helpful? | 25:09 | |
| - | It is, that's excellent, that's a great way to put it. | 25:10 |
| Absolutely. | 25:13 | |
| And every time I ask, I get a slightly different answer, | 25:14 | |
| and that's really helpful, that's good. | 25:16 | |
| - | Yeah, you have to look at everything they do. | 25:19 |
| - | Say some more about that. | 25:24 |
| - | Well, I'm thinking of things that work with | 25:27 |
| other inclusivities, like racism | 25:30 | |
| and then Black Lives Matter. | 25:35 | |
| We have to look at everything. | 25:38 | |
| We white people have to look at everything | 25:40 | |
| that reviews not just human rights for gender, | 25:44 | |
| or who we vote for. | 25:48 | |
| And I think as time goes by, it's also true | 25:52 | |
| for sexuality, it's got ... | 25:57 | |
| You have to look at those whole, | 26:03 | |
| across-the-board things in order to | 26:05 | |
| make new and make deliberative what we | 26:08 | |
| used to think what were the good old days. | 26:12 | |
| - | Do you think re-imagining was doing that? | 26:17 |
| Or is it something that needs- | 26:20 | |
| - | Oh yeah. | 26:21 |
| - | Yeah? | 26:22 |
| - | I think it did as much as you can do in a few days. | 26:24 |
| But that what it set in motion ... | 26:31 | |
| All of this stuff was in motion was before, | 26:38 | |
| but it brought so much together, and named it, | 26:42 | |
| that I'm forgetting the end of my sentence! | 26:50 | |
| (interviewer laughs) | 26:52 | |
| - | It brought so much together and named it, | 26:54 |
| and I'm curious, what are you thinking of | 26:57 | |
| when you say that? | 26:59 | |
| You're on to something (laughs). | 27:01 | |
| - | Well I think it goes back to the important idea. | 27:04 |
| That nothing was the same afterwards. | 27:12 | |
| For everybody. | 27:15 | |
| For those who cared, nothing was the same. | 27:19 | |
| And for those who were furious, nothing was the same, | 27:23 | |
| or I hope nothing was. | 27:28 | |
| - | Right. | 27:30 |
| For you, what aspects of re-imagining | 27:33 | |
| where most significant? | 27:36 | |
| - | Well, I like a lot of the big stuff. | 27:43 |
| So liturgies, the music, the secret society, | 27:49 | |
| all the books that people kept on writing. | 27:54 | |
| Because of that resource, all of us | 27:59 | |
| could not be writing because we were pastors. | 28:04 | |
| Or whatever. | 28:08 | |
| And so that helped it grow, and by providing resources, | 28:12 | |
| to spread the change I think, push rate, | 28:18 | |
| accepting the places where you couldn't change anything. | 28:22 | |
| But that's not the (mumbles), says nothing about. | 28:27 | |
| - | And you think those resources were actually used? | 28:32 |
| - | Oh yeah. | 28:37 |
| Well, I'm speaking for myself in part, | 28:41 | |
| but certainly the books that I have, | 28:44 | |
| for seven years written books of liturgies, | 28:52 | |
| and I used them when I was writing church services, | 28:55 | |
| that sort of thing. | 29:00 | |
| And even before I went to seminary, | 29:02 | |
| I got a great big bottle of white out, | 29:05 | |
| and so did the minister. | 29:08 | |
| And we would white out all the masculine words, | 29:11 | |
| and all the exclusive language. | 29:15 | |
| In church services, even anselms and stuff, | 29:20 | |
| that we were involved in. | 29:24 | |
| - | And I'm curious in how- | 29:26 |
| Go ahead. | 29:27 | |
| - | No, that's okay. | 29:29 |
| - | I'm sorry, I was wondering how people reacted to this? | 29:31 |
| - | You know, they didn't. | 29:36 |
| The people that were in that church in the small college | 29:42 | |
| chapel, they were ready for it, and none of them | 29:45 | |
| were women that were in the group I was in. | 29:51 | |
| So yeah. | 29:56 | |
| - | That's great. | 30:00 |
| Did your involvement in re-imagining | 30:03 | |
| change your perspective on feminist theology | 30:05 | |
| or the church at all? | 30:07 | |
| - | What I would say is that it aided my appreciation | 30:12 |
| of its inclusivity, it's global nature led me | 30:18 | |
| to think of being inclusive of other religions | 30:26 | |
| than just Christianity. | 30:31 | |
| We do a lot of interfaith stuff here now. | 30:34 | |
| And for me, it helped answer the question | 30:42 | |
| of if there's not a redeeming potential for women, | 30:48 | |
| I won't go there. | 30:54 | |
| It helps make the church become popular, | 30:57 | |
| become wonderful. | 31:01 | |
| And you don't go to the ones that didn't change. | 31:05 | |
| - | Yeah. | 31:09 |
| Wow, okay, that's great. | 31:12 | |
| Can you think of specific contributions | 31:15 | |
| that re-imagining made Christian theology or liturgy? | 31:18 | |
| - | I put (mumbles) on this question. | 31:24 |
| I think it turns theologies around. | 31:28 | |
| I may be being a little grandiose about it, | 31:37 | |
| but I don't think ... | 31:40 | |
| The people that we care about, the male writers, | 31:45 | |
| as we care about good (mumbles) again, I think, | 31:51 | |
| write the sort of books that they have. | 31:56 | |
| I think that it changed writers and thinkers | 32:00 | |
| and liturgists in a big way. | 32:08 | |
| I've also, we've mentioned the resources there, | 32:15 | |
| and of course language, where we have continued to grow. | 32:19 | |
| - | So despite the backlash, you think that it really | 32:28 |
| did have an impact? | 32:31 | |
| - | Yeah, because so many of us carried it with us. | 32:34 |
| - | Yes. | 32:37 |
| - | And we're able to ... | 32:41 |
| We call it something like an infectious disease. | 32:47 | |
| (interviewer laughs) | 32:50 | |
| It spread (laughs). | 32:51 | |
| It's like a flu. | 32:53 | |
| So yeah, it spread, we became walking re-imaginers. | 32:57 | |
| - | And so what I hear you saying is, | 33:10 |
| so I wanna make sure I'm hearing you right, | 33:11 | |
| is that even for people who didn't attend, | 33:13 | |
| but the people who did sort of just spread it out | 33:15 | |
| from there, so it went beyond the people | 33:18 | |
| who actually attended, is that correct? | 33:21 | |
| - | Oh yes. | 33:24 |
| - | Great. | 33:28 |
| - | I'm American, there are a whole lot of people like me | 33:30 |
| and my spouse who were not able to go. | 33:33 | |
| - | Right. | 33:37 |
| - | So and all of us were primed to drink it up | 33:40 |
| and carry it on our backs. | 33:47 | |
| - | Yeah. | 33:51 |
| Now this might be a tough question, | 33:54 | |
| but I'll try it, what do you think | 33:56 | |
| is the greatest legacy of the re-imagining community? | 33:58 | |
| - | (mumbles) | 34:03 |
| (interviewer laughs) | 34:04 | |
| It's really a hard choice, isn't it? | 34:14 | |
| - | You don't have to list just one I don't think. | 34:18 |
| - | I had forgotten the global impact, | 34:23 |
| and its improvement, racially, includes all | 34:29 | |
| the inclusivities, racial denomination, all that stuff. | 34:37 | |
| But I also think it got a big influence, | 34:42 | |
| our best legacy beyond the church. | 34:47 | |
| - | That's interesting, what do you think | 34:54 |
| its legacy was beyond the church? | 34:56 | |
| - | Well, we talked a little bit about | 35:00 |
| kind of measuring the Ecunemical Decade's goals | 35:02 | |
| and whether they were being achieved at the | 35:05 | |
| five year point. | 35:08 | |
| I think that much has been achieved. | 35:12 | |
| Its re-imagining was theological/spiritual. | 35:21 | |
| We are carrying it on our back, | 35:28 | |
| there are people out there in the real world | 35:31 | |
| involved in social justice and (mumbles) | 35:33 | |
| classes, issues for women. | 35:36 | |
| And I think that over time, since 1993, | 35:43 | |
| that those are making a change, | 35:52 | |
| and I also think that they help people | 35:58 | |
| that think that social justice has | 36:02 | |
| nothing to do with our spirituality, | 36:04 | |
| to put together the fact that it is | 36:09 | |
| our spirituality, just as it grows from our spirituality. | 36:10 | |
| People say, "Justice is the activity of love". | 36:19 | |
| And to my mind, love is the activity of religion. | 36:26 | |
| So I think changes are being made. | 36:34 | |
| They don't look at other people as being theological, | 36:38 | |
| they look just like justice. | 36:42 | |
| - | Wow, thank you. | 36:47 |
| Well, and I think we're starting to move in that direction, | 36:48 | |
| but what do you think re-imagining means today? | 36:50 | |
| And I don't mean just that particular community, | 36:53 | |
| but what needs to be re-imagined today? | 36:55 | |
| - | What I have answered was ... | 37:01 |
| I think it's words to the years (mumbles) everywhere. | 37:06 | |
| That it's an activity that needs to be used continuously. | 37:10 | |
| Continually. | 37:20 | |
| We need (mumbles) they do, (mumbles), | 37:24 | |
| maybe that's some good news. | 37:28 | |
| And whether we're stuck some place | 37:30 | |
| and not noticing that our behavior | 37:36 | |
| is injurious to other people. | 37:40 | |
| So I think that's what I think. | 37:45 | |
| It needs to be a continuous way of being. | 37:48 | |
| - | Oh, that is great. | 37:54 |
| I have one last very specific question for you. | 37:56 | |
| We're working on a re-imagining website, | 37:59 | |
| and I'm wondering if you had ideas about | 38:01 | |
| what could be included in it or who | 38:04 | |
| would benefit from it? | 38:06 | |
| Any ideas you have about the website | 38:07 | |
| would be really helpful. | 38:09 | |
| - | Okay, I think the non-liturgy for book reviews | 38:12 |
| or books of liturgies. | 38:18 | |
| The same for music, some of the people | 38:21 | |
| who don't know anything about this, | 38:25 | |
| the next generation can have resources | 38:27 | |
| for their church services or women's groups | 38:33 | |
| or whatever. | 38:36 | |
| I tried to get the church's society on (mumbles) | 38:39 | |
| that may become outdated. | 38:43 | |
| Book reviews in general of feminist theologies. | 38:48 | |
| And I think if there are (mumbles) communities | 38:53 | |
| of re-imaginers in different areas, | 38:59 | |
| or whole big ones, they put down contacts | 39:01 | |
| that people can be in touch with, | 39:07 | |
| if they want to learn more or be in a group themselves. | 39:12 | |
| - | That's great. | 39:18 |
| Those are all good ideas, absolutely. | 39:19 | |
| That's, I think we're picturing it, | 39:21 | |
| sort of a resource, and those are good ideas for resources. | 39:22 | |
| Is there anything that we haven't discussed | 39:27 | |
| that you would like to add, Susan? | 39:29 | |
| - | (laughs) I would get people to go | 39:33 |
| to the website if they don't know it exists. | 39:34 | |
| - | Yes, that's the problem. | 39:40 |
| It hasn't been online yet, but- | 39:42 | |
| - | Yeah, I know, I tried. | 39:45 |
| - | Yes, it'll be the end of the summer. | 39:47 |
| We're hiring someone to design it. | 39:49 | |
| And so I think the main idea that we have | 39:53 | |
| at the moment is to try to spread the word | 39:55 | |
| every way we can think of, for example, | 39:57 | |
| we had this distribution list, | 39:59 | |
| and we're kind of hoping other people will do it, | 40:01 | |
| use social media. | 40:02 | |
| And using the contacts of the people | 40:07 | |
| I've been interviewing, hopefully they | 40:09 | |
| will help to spread it. | 40:11 | |
| I don't know, do you have other ideas? | 40:12 | |
| Because I think that's gonna be huge. | 40:13 | |
| And of course, the issue too is not just | 40:16 | |
| bringing it to the next generation as you said. | 40:17 | |
| - | Yeah. | 40:22 |
| I think I had a thought that just left my head. | 40:24 | |
| Oh, maybe on the website, you could | 40:27 | |
| ask the people there to spread the word. | 40:30 | |
| - | Yes. | 40:36 |
| - | And particularly their pastors that are using it. | 40:37 |
| Pastors that are working with liturgists, | 40:44 | |
| to tell them that's a good place go. | 40:49 | |
| But you get the word out that way. | 40:51 | |
| - | That is a great idea. | 40:54 |
| I think we're gonna have to be really explicit | 40:56 | |
| about that, you're right. | 40:57 | |
| - | Yeah. | 41:01 |
| - | Yeah, maybe the same thing for people | 41:03 |
| who are teaching, as well, teaching theology, | 41:04 | |
| colleges and seminaries. | 41:06 | |
| - | Oh yes, I haven't said enough about teachers, | 41:07 |
| professors, I still think it's fabulous | 41:11 | |
| that I was able to do a feminist theology class | 41:16 | |
| round 1990, in a little Methodist college. | 41:20 | |
| - | Yeah, what was that like, Susan? | 41:28 |
| Were the students receptive, how did that- | 41:30 | |
| - | Yes, but they had weekend college there | 41:34 |
| for older people, and so that's the group | 41:41 | |
| that I taught. | 41:44 | |
| And they (mumbles). | 41:46 | |
| I didn't give them really heavy assignments | 41:50 | |
| but we kept journals and wrote poems | 41:54 | |
| and I tried to teach them obviously in a feminist way. | 41:58 | |
| So it was really good. | 42:04 | |
| We had great parties. | 42:09 | |
| (interviewer laughs) | 42:11 | |
| - | Was it women and men? | 42:12 |
| - | No. | 42:15 |
| - | It was all women? | 42:16 |
| - | Uhuh. | 42:18 |
| - | Yeah, and do you think that the older students | 42:19 |
| were more receptive than the more traditional-aged | 42:21 | |
| ones would have been? | 42:23 | |
| - | I will bet so. | 42:26 |
| I was teaching ethics to traditionally-aged children, | 42:31 | |
| ugh children, students there. | 42:35 | |
| And they had such a hard time getting the concepts. | 42:38 | |
| I finally went to a psychologist | 42:43 | |
| and said, "What's up? Why aren't these students | 42:44 | |
| "doing better?". | 42:48 | |
| At least his opinion was that typical | 42:50 | |
| college-aged students aren't really good | 42:55 | |
| at complex thinking yet. | 42:59 | |
| But putting things together, most | 43:02 | |
| of them aren't really ready to think ethically | 43:05 | |
| or anyhow, I don't know if that's really true | 43:09 | |
| but it's the knee-jerk thing ... | 43:11 | |
| I would (mumbles) older people and just women. | 43:14 | |
| - | Yes, sounds like a great experience. | 43:19 |
| - | Yeah. | 43:23 |
| - | Is there anything else that you wanted to add? | 43:25 |
| - | I don't think so. | 43:30 |
| - | (laughs) Well ... | 43:32 |
| - | Anything else you want to ask? | 43:34 |
| - | I don't think so, I think that you | 43:36 |
| have done a great job, you've obviously | 43:37 | |
| thought about these questions and you've | 43:39 | |
| added a lot to the history and the conversation, | 43:41 | |
| I really appreciate it. | 43:43 | |
| - | Well, for one who didn't go, | 43:47 |
| perhaps that's important, (mumbles) | 43:50 | |
| somebody who'd go. | 43:52 | |
| - | Absolutely, and to hear about it impacted people | 43:55 |
| who didn't go, that's an important part of the story. | 43:57 | |
| - | Uhuh. | 44:02 |
| - | I'm gonna turn the recorder off now. | 44:03 |
| So just give me a second. | 44:05 | |
| - | Okay. | 44:06 |
| - | Here we go. | 44:07 |
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