Collection

Hill, Anita Papers

Span Dates: 1981-2006
Bulk Dates:
Volume: 13.8 cubic feet

Description

Correspondence, subject files, oral history interview transcripts and audio cassettes, and other papers of an irregularly-ordained pastor at St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church, a St. Paul, Minnesota congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, focusing upon her ministry to and work with gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender persons, her struggle for addition to the clergy roster of the ELCA, and to the struggle within the ELCA with sexuality and social questions and issues. Includes extensive information on Wingspan Ministry.

Hist/Bio Note

Anita C. Hill served as co-pastor of St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church, a member congregation of the Saint Paul Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), where her areas of particular interest were racial, economic and GLBT justice, global and local ministry, and immigrant rights. Hill was born in 1951, and as a child attended a Roman Catholic church in Shreveport, Louisiana. She spent her high school years in Crystal Springs, Mississippi, where she joined a United Methodist Church. She earned a bachelor's degree in general sciences at Mississippi State University. She joined St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church in St. Paul in 1981, and was an active participant in the development of outreach to gay and lesbian people there. In 1983 she became a ministry Associate of St. Paul-Reformation, serving Wingspan, a ministry with and on behalf of gay and lesbian people. From 1990 to 1994 she worked for Lutheran Social Services and for Family Service, Inc., as the coordinator of HIV/AIDS ministry and as an educator regarding HIV/AIDS and anti-homophobia. In 1994 she returned to St. Paul-Reformation as a professional lay pastoral minister serving both Wingspan and the congregation. Hill earned a master's degree in Religious Studies (1987) and, subsequently, a master of divinity degree from United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, New Brighton, Minnesota, completing her Lutheran studies at Luther Seminary, St. Paul. She was ordained “irregularly” on April 28, 2001, in defiance of church policy. She was received as a member of the clergy roster of the ELCA on September 18, 2010 after the national church changed its standards for candidates for ordination.
https://www.lgbtran.org/Profile.aspx?ID=36

Finding Aid

The finding aid to this collection is available online at this address.
https://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00838.xml

Location

This is collection is located at the Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.
https://www.mnhs.org/

Tags

Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) | Hill, Anita | Reconciling Works (formerly Lutherans Concerned) | Activist (religious institutions) | Ordination/clergy | Women and Religion | Minnesota | St. Paul