Niles, John
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- | Well, John, thank you very much | 0:07 |
for being willing to be interviewed. | 0:09 | |
I was wondering if I could get some background information. | 0:12 | |
First, could you say and spell your name? | 0:15 | |
- | It's John Niles, | 0:19 |
J-O-H-N N-I-L-E-S. | 0:21 | |
- | Thank you very much. | 0:25 |
And are you lay or clergy? | 0:26 | |
- | Clergy. | 0:28 |
- | Yes, and your denominational affiliation, if any? | 0:29 |
- | Presbyterian Church, USA. | 0:33 |
- | Thank you; and John, when and where were you born? | 0:36 |
- | In Alma, Michigan. | 0:40 |
- | Great, and when was that? | 0:43 |
- | October 1, 1945. | 0:46 |
- | Okay, thank you very much. | 0:48 |
And where did you go to graduate or divinity school? | 0:50 | |
- | I went to Union Theological Seminary in the city of | 0:55 |
New York, that's what it's now called. | 1:00 | |
(laughter) | 1:03 | |
- | Yes, that's right, good. | 1:05 |
And John, what work or ministry were you doing | 1:07 | |
at the time of Reimagining, which was 1993? | 1:09 | |
- | I was pastor of a church in Maryland. | 1:14 |
- | Okay, wonderful. | 1:18 |
And what work or ministry did you do after Reimagining? | 1:20 | |
- | Well, I continued there, and then I went to | 1:24 |
a church in Huntington, West Virginia. | 1:31 | |
- | Okay, wonderful. | 1:35 |
And, I'm curious, how and when did you | 1:37 | |
first become aware of feminist theology? | 1:40 | |
- | Well, when I was in seminary. | 1:45 |
- | Do you recall what your reaction was to it? | 1:49 |
- | Well, my reaction was, I had a lot to learn, | 1:52 |
and so I listened very well to the women in our seminars, | 1:57 | |
and in our hours when we were not in class, also. | 2:03 | |
- | Yes, that's great. | 2:09 |
So, you were at the 1993 Reimagining Gathering, | 2:13 | |
and I'm wondering what brought you there. | 2:18 | |
- | Well, my friend was and is, | 2:21 |
of course, Judy Strausz-Clement. | 2:27 | |
On a trip back to Minnesota from Maryland, | 2:33 | |
she said, "You really need to put something on your | 2:39 | |
"calendar that's going to happen here in Minneapolis." | 2:42 | |
And so I did, and went through the procedure | 2:46 | |
to come to the event. | 2:52 | |
- | That is great. | 2:57 |
Well John, what do you recall from that conference? | 2:58 | |
What are some of your memories of that event? | 3:01 | |
- | Well, I was so impressed by the whole arrangement. | 3:05 |
It was round, very frequently round, | 3:10 | |
and everybody, or each person, was assigned to | 3:14 | |
a round table where maybe 8-10 people were around the table. | 3:20 | |
So you got to know people, and we would | 3:26 | |
discuss the presentations together, and get to know | 3:29 | |
each other from all over the country. | 3:34 | |
So that was an excellent thing. | 3:38 | |
I remember when people would use a podium | 3:41 | |
to make a presentation, they would keep moving | 3:47 | |
the podium around to face different parts of the | 3:50 | |
thousands of people who were there, | 3:58 | |
and I just thought that was wonderful. | 4:01 | |
Also, there was a Native American drum group, | 4:04 | |
which I think did their drumming in a circle too, | 4:11 | |
and I was just very taken with that. | 4:15 | |
You know, I can't remember the numbers, | 4:20 | |
but I think I was one of 17 or 19 men | 4:22 | |
out of the 2,000 or 3,000 people attending. | 4:28 | |
- | Yes, you're often referred to as a handful | 4:32 |
of good men, a few good men. | 4:35 | |
(laughter) | 4:37 | |
And I'm wondering what that was like being a man | 4:40 | |
in a predominately female conference. | 4:43 | |
- | I found it refreshing. | 4:48 |
It was happening more and more in my Presbyterian | 4:50 | |
meetings, and of course often the elders of the session | 4:56 | |
were more women than men; I thought it was great. | 5:01 | |
My wife was a flight attendant, too, and she was | 5:05 | |
very assertive about the rights of women, | 5:09 | |
and even brought a lawsuit against her airline. | 5:13 | |
By the way, we won it. | 5:22 | |
- | Did you really, wow! | 5:24 |
- | Another thing that I remember about it, | 5:30 |
I kind of, two or three times, | 5:39 | |
I fell in with a group from the United Church of Canada. | 5:42 | |
It was mainly young people, but there were some | 5:47 | |
older people, and I was impressed by them of how | 5:49 | |
they just thought this was a very good... | 5:53 | |
A very good gathering. | 5:59 | |
They got a lot out of it, they weren't surprised | 6:02 | |
by anything, it was real good. | 6:04 | |
- | Oh, that's great. | 6:09 |
And I know it's been an awfully long time, | 6:11 | |
but do you remember any impressions of the | 6:13 | |
ritual and worship that happened? | 6:16 | |
- | Hum, you know, I really don't have any... | 6:19 |
(laughter) | 6:23 | |
many memories of that. | 6:26 | |
- | Any other things that you recall | 6:29 |
about the presentations or the liturgy... | 6:31 | |
Any experiences you had? | 6:36 | |
I know it's been a long time, so don't worry. | 6:38 | |
- | I did have some experiences afterward | 6:41 |
as a result of my having been there. | 6:45 | |
I don't know if you want to-- | 6:48 | |
- | Actually I would like to hear that, very much. | 6:50 |
- | Well, you know, this was kind of surprising | 6:53 |
to a lot of people in the different denominations, | 6:59 | |
that people had attended. | 7:04 | |
In my denomination, the Presbyterian Lay Committee, | 7:07 | |
we did about eight months, and then mounted | 7:12 | |
a full-scale attack on Reimagining and | 7:16 | |
feminist theology, and anybody who attended. | 7:22 | |
So I became one of the two spokespersons in the | 7:27 | |
Presbytery of Baltimore defending the | 7:32 | |
Reimagining Conference, and telling all the positive things. | 7:37 | |
There was a young woman who was an associate pastor | 7:45 | |
in the Presbytery, and she and I got tired of | 7:50 | |
going to these meetings with Presbyterian | 7:56 | |
Lay Committee people attacking us, | 8:01 | |
and after about the sixth time, we agreed | 8:04 | |
we're not gonna do this anymore. | 8:10 | |
- | John, that is fascinating, | 8:14 |
I'd love to hear more about that. | 8:15 | |
First of all, where were you giving these presentations? | 8:17 | |
- | Well, different churches that wanted to have | 8:21 |
a discussion on this issue. | 8:26 | |
- | And how, other than, how did people generally respond? | 8:31 |
Obviously the Presbyterian Lay Committee members were not | 8:33 | |
open, how did other people respond that you recall? | 8:36 | |
- | I was satisfied with their discussion, | 8:42 |
but often it was kind of stacked by the Lay Committee | 8:47 | |
to have people in the audience, so to speak, | 8:52 | |
so they would continue their complaints. | 8:58 | |
- | And how would you characterize what their complaints were? | 9:02 |
- | Well, there was some language about | 9:08 |
the Holy Spirit being female, | 9:13 | |
and this disturbed them. | 9:19 | |
And I can't remember their complaints, | 9:23 | |
but it was kind of an issue in my congregation, too, | 9:26 | |
so I had a few people who were mildly upset about it, | 9:32 | |
but I guess not surprised that I was | 9:41 | |
continuing as I had before. | 9:44 | |
- | I know some people were called heretics and pagans. | 9:49 |
Were those charges brought against you directly? | 9:53 | |
- | No, uh-uh, no. | 9:58 |
- | Okay, yeah. | 10:00 |
So you reacted to it by actually | 10:02 | |
defending it in presentations. | 10:05 | |
- | Oh yeah. | 10:08 |
- | I know it's been awhile; did you feel as if | 10:09 |
the description by the Presbyterian Lay Committee | 10:12 | |
was an accurate one of what happened at the gathering? | 10:15 | |
- | No, not at all. | 10:18 |
It was extremely slanted. | 10:20 | |
The group at that time was trying to break off as many | 10:24 | |
congregations or denominations as possible. | 10:29 | |
There's still something like it, but they changed | 10:34 | |
their name four or five times, and they're... | 10:36 | |
I don't think they're as strong as they used to be. | 10:41 | |
- | Do you happen to know what the current name is? | 10:49 |
- | No, I've repressed certain things. | 10:51 |
(laughter) | 10:54 | |
- | I don't blame ya. | 10:58 |
- | They were always very sneaky and, | 11:06 |
twice when I was in West Virginia, they were | 11:10 | |
kind of issuing a list of churches that were about ready | 11:16 | |
to break away, and they listed my church | 11:21 | |
in West Virginia as one of those, which was a total lie. | 11:29 | |
So I had a rather loud telephone call with them | 11:35 | |
to tell them to get us off the list. | 11:40 | |
And then at the next presbytery meeting, | 11:42 | |
a minister got up and said, "The Lay Committee has said | 11:45 | |
"we're about to leave the church, and it's totally wrong." | 11:51 | |
So that was just something they did all the time. | 11:56 | |
- | Now just to clarify that, were they | 12:00 |
saying your congregation was leaving | 12:01 | |
the church because you were too liberal, | 12:03 | |
or too conservative, what was their argument? | 12:06 | |
- | They were saying that our church | 12:10 |
was tired of all this liberalism, | 12:15 | |
and so we were going to join some | 12:21 | |
very conservative Presbyterian group. | 12:26 | |
- | I see; I think you're already starting to answer | 12:30 |
this question, which is really important, | 12:33 | |
you're giving the context for it. | 12:35 | |
How do you account for the reaction against Reimagining? | 12:36 | |
What was going on there? | 12:39 | |
- | Well, it was just kind of the old-fashioned | 12:45 |
thing that men ought to be the leaders, | 12:49 | |
and we had a battle over women as pastors, | 12:55 | |
and a battle over women not being just deaconesses, | 13:00 | |
but full-fledged members of the session, | 13:05 | |
that is elders, ordained elders. | 13:09 | |
So these were issues back in the 90s. | 13:12 | |
With all of them, 10 or 15 years, just a constant battle. | 13:19 | |
- | Yes, yeah. | 13:25 |
How would you define Reimagining, John? | 13:27 | |
- | Hum, well, I would say | 13:32 |
they gave people a gathering for discussion | 13:36 | |
on the wonderful freedom we have as Christians | 13:42 | |
to be male or female, and with diversity. | 13:47 | |
It was a very positive thing for me. | 13:57 | |
And then the reaction I had in Maryland, | 14:00 | |
I remember one day after having some discussions, | 14:04 | |
or angry discussions with people, | 14:12 | |
I had on my bumper sticker from one of the | 14:15 | |
general assemblies, saying Presbyterian Church USA, | 14:21 | |
Open-handed, Open-minded, Open-hearted. | 14:29 | |
And I remember one day tearing it off my bumper | 14:34 | |
because I was not seeing very much of that. | 14:38 | |
- | Wow, that's very dramatic, John, that says a lot. | 14:43 |
You know, you said it was a very... | 14:48 | |
Oh, one thing before I forget, | 14:50 | |
where you happened to be at or heard about | 14:52 | |
the 1994 General Assembly where they talked about | 14:55 | |
Reimagining and came out with the study, the report on it? | 14:58 | |
- | Let's see, I don't think I was a commissioner to that, | 15:04 |
so I really don't remember it. | 15:08 | |
There's quite a bit I have forgotten, | 15:12 | |
although my long-term memory is fairly good. | 15:15 | |
- | Oh, it is, let me tell you! | 15:19 |
- | I have trouble remembering last week, but-- | 15:21 |
- | Well, you're doing a great job of remembering | 15:25 |
Reimagining and talking about it, believe me. | 15:27 | |
You said it was a positive experience. | 15:30 | |
What aspects of Reimagining would you say | 15:32 | |
were most significant to you, and why? | 15:34 | |
- | I think the roundedness really had a great affect on me. | 15:41 |
So when I went to McCormick Seminary | 15:47 | |
and I was to finish with a thesis, | 15:51 | |
so I did a thesis after all the preparation, | 15:58 | |
I called it the Round Table Church, | 16:08 | |
and how important that it for a congregation. | 16:11 | |
So that was my thesis. | 16:16 | |
- | And was that provoked by the experience | 16:19 |
at Reimagining in particular? | 16:21 | |
- | Oh yes, I would say so. | 16:23 |
And also it helped that my church in Maryland, | 16:25 | |
in building a new sanctuary, | 16:29 | |
also had a round communion table. | 16:35 | |
And the new sanctuary kind of focused very much | 16:44 | |
on that, so the elders would come around the table | 16:48 | |
for communion, then they would go out into the seats, | 16:54 | |
radiating from that table. | 17:02 | |
So I think that is very Reimagining. | 17:06 | |
- | Yes, was that design in part due to you? | 17:09 |
- | No, I don't remember proposing it, | 17:17 |
but I certainly thought it was a very good idea. | 17:22 | |
We were kind of being pressed by the presbytery | 17:28 | |
to have moveable chairs and all this, | 17:32 | |
but instead we opted for that round table | 17:35 | |
and then the pews kind of radiating from that. | 17:40 | |
So I was glad about it, but I don't think I proposed it. | 17:45 | |
- | You know, John, I'm really fascinated by this. | 17:49 |
Could you say more about what about | 17:52 | |
the roundedness was so important to you? | 17:54 | |
- | Well, there's an equality, | 17:58 |
nobody's at the head of the table. | 18:01 | |
I liked that at seminary, when we did have round tables. | 18:05 | |
But the thing about seminars when you are in | 18:10 | |
theological school, is that nobody's really at the head. | 18:15 | |
Well, sometimes the professor is, | 18:20 | |
but sometimes he or she doesn't really care | 18:22 | |
about being at the head, they just want to hear you. | 18:26 | |
- | That is great. | 18:30 |
You know, you mentioned your thesis at McCormick. | 18:31 | |
I don't think you had mentioned that earlier. | 18:34 | |
What degree were you doing there? | 18:35 | |
- | Doctor of Ministry. | 18:38 |
- | Oh, you did a Doctor of Ministry there, okay, wonderful. | 18:40 |
I was gonna ask, and I think you may have already | 18:45 | |
answered this, but I sometimes ask questions | 18:47 | |
because sometimes they provoke different answers. | 18:49 | |
How did your involvement at Reimagining change your | 18:52 | |
perspective on feminist theology and/or the church? | 18:55 | |
- | It just reaffirmed what I had begun hearing | 19:00 |
at Union Theological Seminary. | 19:06 | |
- | Yeah; and do you think that Reimagining | 19:09 |
made any specific contributions to | 19:13 | |
feminist theology, Christian theology, or liturgy? | 19:15 | |
- | Well, I think to feminist theology, definitely. | 19:22 |
Yeah, I think it's a landmark kind of thing. | 19:28 | |
- | What about it made it a landmark, would you say? | 19:32 |
- | I'm sorry? | 19:35 |
- | What about it made it a landmark? | 19:36 |
- | Well, (chuckles) it was a very large | 19:41 |
group of people, for one thing, | 19:45 | |
and I think the people who went there kind of | 19:48 | |
got the impression that they should go back | 19:52 | |
and talk about the experience, which most of us did. | 19:56 | |
- | You certainly did, that's great. | 20:02 |
And I think a lot of other people did too, you're right. | 20:04 | |
I want to end with looking toward the future. | 20:08 | |
What do you think is the greatest legacy | 20:11 | |
of the Reimagining community? | 20:14 | |
- | Well, I think the creativity that comes from | 20:19 |
both men and women working together, | 20:25 | |
and being open to that kind of full humanity. | 20:29 | |
So I think this is becoming, for people now | 20:39 | |
who are going to seminary, just assumed. | 20:43 | |
But for a long time, it was men, men, men. | 20:46 | |
- | Yes, that's great. | 20:51 |
I was wondering, I've been asking everyone this, | 20:54 | |
a couple of the things Reimagining wanted to do | 20:58 | |
was to bring inclusive language... | 21:01 | |
I'm sorry. | 21:04 | |
I apologize, I was getting another call. | 21:10 | |
I'm trying to turn that off, I apologize. | 21:12 | |
Okay, it's set. | 21:16 | |
(laughter) | 21:17 | |
Reimagining was trying to bring inclusive language | 21:20 | |
and feminist theology to the churches. | 21:23 | |
How would you evaluate where that is today? | 21:26 | |
Maybe in particular, the Presbyterian church? | 21:29 | |
- | Well, I think, | 21:33 |
there was a period that lasted 20 years or so | 21:35 | |
when denominations were very careful about | 21:40 | |
using language that was inclusive, | 21:45 | |
and I think now, there's kind of a falling back | 21:53 | |
by some of the younger pastors. | 21:58 | |
When I go to services in different churches, | 22:02 | |
they still use a lot of male pronouns. | 22:10 | |
I think we need to be much more careful about that. | 22:16 | |
For awhile we were. | 22:22 | |
I remember a Presbyterian meeting in West Virginia | 22:25 | |
when a woman was coming up for possible ordination, | 22:29 | |
and she gave a sermon that was all in male terms, | 22:36 | |
and a woman who was a minister in our Presbytery | 22:43 | |
got up and really, really was angry about it. | 22:49 | |
And the woman who had given the sermon was kind of, | 22:55 | |
you know, she didn't know about this, or something. | 22:59 | |
It's something that we have to do, | 23:07 | |
and in my little group of ministers that talks about | 23:09 | |
the passages for the upcoming Sunday, sometimes | 23:14 | |
I remind them that they need to remember the language | 23:18 | |
that they have in the bulletins. | 23:27 | |
- | Oh, that's great. | 23:30 |
Well John, you can't answer this question, don't worry, | 23:31 | |
it's a toughie, but do you have any ideas on why | 23:34 | |
the language has gone backwards? | 23:37 | |
- | I really don't know. | 23:45 |
I guess I'd have to talk with a couple of the young | 23:47 | |
ministers, and some of the older ministers who have | 23:53 | |
just become ministers, like | 23:56 | |
didn't you have any discussions at seminary about this? | 23:59 | |
- | Yeah, I think you're right, | 24:04 |
that's the way to find it out, isn't it? | 24:05 | |
(laughter) | 24:07 | |
I just have a couple more questions, I'm almost done. | 24:09 | |
A big question here: what does Reimagining mean today? | 24:11 | |
And I don't just mean the conference, I mean | 24:15 | |
what needs to be reimagined in the church today? | 24:17 | |
- | Well, I think it's a biblical thing. | 24:21 |
So much in the Bible is moving you toward reimagining, | 24:24 | |
getting away from the rules of your society. | 24:31 | |
It's often very shocking when you look at the words | 24:38 | |
in the Bible that Paul uses and Jesus uses, | 24:44 | |
and of course the book of Revelation is just | 24:50 | |
a wild reimagining, that's glorious. | 24:54 | |
- | Yeah; oh, go ahead. | 25:00 |
- | I think that's about all I have to say. | 25:04 |
- | Well, that's great, that's good insight. | 25:08 |
- | Without sermonizing. | 25:10 |
(laughter) | 25:11 | |
- | I have one last specific question. | 25:13 |
The Reimagining community has reincorporated, | 25:15 | |
and we're working on a website; part of it will be | 25:18 | |
historical, including, for example, the digitized-- | 25:21 | |
- | You're working on a what now? | 25:25 |
- | I'm sorry, a website, a Reimagining website. | 25:26 |
- | As I indicated, I really don't get on the web very much. | 25:30 |
- | That's right, sure, that's fine. | 25:36 |
- | I get angry at my computer. | 25:40 |
(laughter) | 25:42 | |
I think I'm gonna have to change to an Apple or something | 25:44 | |
so I don't get interrupted constantly on this thing. | 25:47 | |
- | Yes, I sympathize, believe me. | 25:51 |
(laughter) | 25:54 | |
Well John, is there anything we haven't | 25:56 | |
discussed that you would like to add? | 25:58 | |
- | No, and I think you've really asked some very good | 26:00 |
questions, and some of the things that I had made | 26:05 | |
a little note to bring up, you asked about them, | 26:09 | |
and so that's about as much as I know and remember. | 26:13 | |
- | Good, I'll turn the recording off right now, thank you. | 26:19 |
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