My travels with Uta - Uta Ranke-Heinemann

Christian Century, April 19, 1995 by John D. Spalding

The interview under way, Uta quickly turned her criticism to the Roman Catholic creed. "What does it say about ze life of Jesus? Only zat he was "born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified and buried." In between is not interesting for Christians, because he said something--love your enemies--zey do not want to hear. Zey care only about zat fairy tale for children five years old--the Virgin Mary and redemption by blood. Zey can't live without blood. Zey vont to be redeemed by blood, the death penalty and military retaliation. jesus may as well have sat at home all 33 years doing nothing but crossword puzzles. Doesn't matter."

Hollis wrote furiously in his notebook.

Uta explained that she became the world's first woman professor of Catholic theology when she was given a church-appointed chair at the University of Essen. In 1987 the church declared her ineligible to teach, after she pronounced the virgin birth a theological belief and not a biological fact. Today she's still on the faculty at Essen but holds a state-appointed chair.

"How many languages are you fluent in?" Hollis asked.

"Twelve," Uta replied, placing English sixth in her level of competence, after Russian, Polish, Spanish, Italian and French. At the end of the interview Uta said, "Now, Hollis, you must take a look at my bathroom phone. Perhaps you can fix it."

"Why not?" he said.

There was Hollis Engley, sitting on Uta's bathroom floor, legs wrapped around the toilet, stuffing toilet paper between the ringer and bell, when suddenly he seemed to realize what he was doing. He paused and looked up at Uta and me. "You know," he said, laughing, "I'm about to go back to my office and tell everyone that I spent the afternoon with a world-famous theologian, sitting on the toilet fixing her phone!" At die door he asked Uta for a hug, and I then escorted him to the lobby.

When I returned to Uta's room, she was trying to figure out bow to turn on the air conditioning. Taking over the knob, I caught Uta from the comer of my eye. She looked as pleased with herself as ever I'd seen her.

"Happy with the interview?" I asked.

"Oh yes," she said, poking at her wig in the mirror. "l think zat scene in ze bathroom will provide ze color his story needs."

That evening held our final event in D.C.--a signing at Border's Bookstore in North Bethesda, Uta's first on the tour. She didn't complain when only 15 people attended. She didn't even seem to notice; she was too excited that there were some fundamentalists in the audience. Until then she hadn't encountered any on the tour, and I think she was a little disappointed. After her 20-minute talk the fundamentalists opened fire. Uta thrived on the antagonism, responding to their accusations of heresy with questions they couldn't answer. One young zealot stood and blurted, "Do you deny the Bible's claim that Mary was a virgin?" Uta cut him short. "Are you crazy? Of course I do! The church is always so concerned about ze harm done to its religious feelings, but what about ze harm it does to my religious intellect?" Her inquisitor stared at her blankly as she explained how Christianity had merely adopted the Virgin Birth from the same ancient pagan legends used to establish the divinity of everyone from Heracles and Asclepius to Alexander the Great and Caesar Augustus. The Q&A period over, Uta signed the store's stock with zest.