Saint Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church (SPR) is a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is a mainline Protestant denomination headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The ELCA officially came into existence on January 1, 1988, by the merging of three churches. As of December 31, 2009, it had 4,543,037 baptized members, with 2,527,941 of them...

 (ELCA) located in St Paul

Saint Paul, Minnesota

Saint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city of the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the area surrounding its point of confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the state's largest city...

, Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

. It is part of the Saint Paul Area Synod

Saint Paul Area Synod

The Saint Paul Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is a synod, or diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America . The synod consists of all the congregations within its territory which is the eastern metropolitan Twin Cities. The synod is headed by a bishop, currently...

.

The congregation gained national attention in 2001 when it ordained

Ordination

In general religious use, ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart as clergy to perform various religious rites and ceremonies. The process and ceremonies of ordination itself varies by religion and denomination. One who is in preparation for, or who is...

 The Reverend

The Reverend

The Reverend is a style most often used as a prefix to the names of Christian clergy and ministers. There are sometimes differences in the way the style is used in different countries and church traditions. The Reverend is correctly called a style but is often and in some dictionaries called a...

 Anita C. Hill

Anita C. Hill

Rev. Anita Carol Hill is a pastor at Saint Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota, . The congregation is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America . Her ordination is now recognized by the ELCA...

 (not to be confused with Anita Hill

Anita Hill

Anita Faye Hill is an American attorney and academic—presently a professor of social policy, law and women's studies at Brandeis University's Heller School for Social Policy and Management. She became a national figure in 1991 when she alleged that U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had...

 of the Clarence Thomas

Clarence Thomas

Clarence Thomas is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Succeeding Thurgood Marshall, Thomas is the second African American to serve on the Court....

 US Senate

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 confirmation hearings). Hill is a lesbian

Lesbian

Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

 in a committed relationship. Under ELCA guidelines for ordination, a candidate who "self-identifies as a homosexual is expected to refrain from sexual relations

Clerical celibacy

Clerical celibacy is the discipline by which some or all members of the clergy in certain religions are required to be unmarried. Since these religions consider deliberate sexual thoughts, feelings, and behavior outside of marriage to be sinful, clerical celibacy also requires abstension from these...

." The Saint Paul Area Synod, the local ecclesiastical authority

Ecclesiastical jurisdiction

Ecclesiastical jurisdiction in its primary sense does not signify jurisdiction over ecclesiastics , but jurisdiction exercised by church leaders over other leaders and over the laity....

, chose to "censure and admonish" the congregation for a period of time.

The congregation is also notable for having a membership consisting of nearly 25% of people who identify as gay

Gay

Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....

, lesbian

Lesbian

Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

, bisexual

Bisexuality

Bisexuality is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical or romantic attraction to both males and females, especially with regard to men and women. It is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation, along with a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation, all a part of the...

 or transgender

Transgender

Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....

ed.