Film Description

"THIS obedience" is one woman's battle with the third largest Christian denomination in the United States, the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America). Anita C. Hill is determined to become a pastor in spite of the church's rules against a "non-celibate" gays and lesbians in the clergy.

In an act of "ecclesiastical disobedience" a small Midwestern congregation ordains Anita. In the following months, Anita's life is turned upside down as "good church folk" and the Lutheran hierarchy rejects her ordination and her congregation. Interwoven with Anita's personal reflections, her close friend Emily Eastwood struggles with the church's power to reject her own "call" to ministry. By defying church rules, the Rev. Anita C. Hill emerges from relative anonymity to become a national icon in the fight for spiritual equality. Given unprecedented access to the Rev. Anita C. Hill and the ELCA's National Assembly, "THIS obedience" reveals the emotional epicenter of the debate over the ordination of gay clergy.