The Jeanne Audrey Powers papers span the dates 1924-2015 and contain files documenting her personal and professional lives including correspondence, writings, family history, education, committee work, sermons, travels, and activism.
The collection is arranged into the following series: Professional Papers, Personal Papers, Print Material, and Re-Imagining Movement. The Professional Papers series contains the following subseries: Conferences/Workshops/Schools, Ecumenical and Interreligious Work, Correspondence and Writing, and Activism. A 2015 addition to the collection (2015-0177) is organized into the same four series.
Jeanne Audrey Powers was born in 1932 and raised in Mankato, Minnesota. She graduated from Minnesota State University in 1954, and the Boston University School of Theology in 1958. Powers was one of the first women ordained at the Minnesota Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church in 1958. Among her leadership positions within the church, Rev. Dr. Powers served as associate general secretary of the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns (GCCUIC). In 1972, she created the Committee on the Status and Role of Women. The group advocates for the full participation of women in the church. Powers was also heavily involved with the Reconciling Ministries Network. Founded in 1982, it “strives to transform the world by living out the Gospel’s teachings of grace, love, justice, and inclusion for all of God’s children.” The group seeks to assist Methodists of all sexual orientations in their religious experiences. Powers also helped organize the 1993 Re-Imagining Conference, which aimed to encourage all churches to address worldwide gender inequities. During Powers’ sermon at the Fourth National Convocation of Reconciling Congregations in 1995, she announced to the crowd that she had been a lesbian all of her life. She framed this as “an act of resistance to false teachings that have contributed to heresy and homophobia within the church itself.” She received support from the GCCUIC, but criticism from church conservatives, who tried to force her into retirement. In response, Powers issued a statement saying that she would not speak further about the matter, but also would not retire early.
