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When Johanna W. H. Van Wijk-Bos took the stage at the controversial Re-Imagining Conference in 1993, she led them in song. “We shall not give up the fight/ We have only started,” they sang, at this ecumenical gathering of men and women (led by women) of 2,200 people from all across the country. The theme was “re-imagining,” in the spirit of the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Decade: Churches in Solidarity with Women 1988–1998. The conference was funded by a large grant from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and took place in Minneapolis. Theologians, clergy, and laypeople were tasked with “re-imagining” all sorts of closely-held beliefs: the doctrine of creation, the status of homosexual, bisexual, and transgender persons in the church, and the obligations of believers to social justice causes at home and across the world. Van Wijk-Bos challenged the audience to re-imagine the very language in which Christians have grounded their faith; to re-imagine the Bible as a feminist text with anti-patriarchal implications.

The Re-Imagining Conference left an indelible mark on those who attended – and those who didn’t. The aftermath of the conference is laid out in Van Wijk-Bos’ personal files: hate mail from anonymous sources calling for her dismissal from the church, hit pieces in major Christian publications misquoting her presentation and others’, and correspondence between different participants in the conference, lamenting the haphazard misrepresentation of Re-Imagining on the whole. Despite the optimism felt by the conference goers in the days after Re-Imagining, the backlash stung.

Detractors of the Re-Imagining Conference cited a few particular abominations from the week’s program. Firstly, a “bless Sophia” chant recited throughout the conference was interpreted as idolatry and goddess worship. Sophia, as the personification of Wisdom, was meant to evoke a sense of respect for women’s lived experiences and expertise as they laid them out on the conference stage. Another act of re-imagining was to position God as feminine, to have milk and honey rather than wine and bread, to refer to God as both she and her and they and them. One speaker stated “I don’t think we need a theory of atonement… I don’t think we need folks hanging on crosses, and blood dripping, and weird stuff.” This was actually in response to an audience question, in the context of alternative interpretations of the cross – not provocation and heresy as commentators would later portray it. Adding to their list of grievances a painting of a bare-breasted woman and a message of acceptance for LGBT people, these detractors penned open letters in publications such as the Presbyterian Layman and the United Methodist Reporter and called for the firing of women clergy and theologians from across the country. The public pressure surmounted by this offensive did in fact result in the firing of the highest ranking woman in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Mary Ann Lundy.

In Van Wijk-Bos’ papers, there are letters she sent back to those who called for her firing or questioned her participation in Re-Imagining. She corrects the record, inviting those detractors to actually listen to the tapes from Re-Imagining, rather than continue operating on contextless misquotations. Though the backlash to Re-Imagining was fierce and riddled with personal attacks on those who dared to expand the boundaries of theological thought, the detractors did not manage to extinguish the spirits of all who attended. In the years after the conference, participants created the Re-Imagining Community, to publish newsletters and host conferences (without any major denominational funding). Feminist theologians, like Van-Wijk Bos continued advocating for inclusion of women and LGBT people in the church, along with a renewed understanding of the word and its implications for social justice causes.

Van Wijk-Bos’ career stretched long before and long after Re-Imagining, but this particular event is emblematic of her long-standing commitments to doing the right thing and doing it unapologetically. In her papers I found dozens of examples of this – letters, newspaper clippings, writings, and notes all documenting her firmly held beliefs in social justice. She constantly expanded the scope of her understanding and adjusting her writings and syllabi in accordance with new information on pertinent social justice issues. The Re-Imagining letters were not the only time she received hate mail – advocating for women associate pastors, LGBT people, and the “stranger/other” (a popular lecture topic of hers) was a throughline in her life’s work (much to the chagrin of others). Taking them to task, Van Wijk-Bos implored the church, its followers and its leaders, to imagine a world free of sexism, racism, and homophobia. -GA

Gracie Anderson is a second-year graduate student in the History department studying queer activism, coalitions, and politics in the 20th-century United States.