Donn Mitchell

Donn Mitchell is the editor and publisher of The Anglican Examiner. Baptized in the Methodist Church, Donn began worshipping in the Episcopal Church at St. Barnabas’ Mission in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, in the fall of his freshman year at Kutztown State College, where he studied history and political science in preparation for a career in journalism. During this time, he served on the editorial board of the Bethlehem Churchman, the newspaper of the Diocese of Bethlehem, and produced a nightly newscast for the college radio station. On Easter Eve of 1971, he was confirmed at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, where he taught church school and served on the parish liturgical commission, while beginning his career as a newspaper reporter with a specialty in environmental affairs.  During this time, he represented his parish in the diocesan convention and served on a prison reform task force for the Diocese of Pennsylvania, and was licensed by the bishop as a chalice bearer.

Four years later, he moved to Philadelphia to begin a new phase of his career as a public interest activist and freelance writer. He became an active member of St. Mary’s, Hamilton Village, serving on the Parish Life Council and the Hunger Action Task Force.During this time, he staffed a clean water campaign for the Pennypack Watershed Association in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, which won national recognition from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Clean Water Action Project, and he also worked in the education program of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania under the direction of Winifred Kempton, the world-renowned specialist in sexuality and disability.

In 1977, he was named to the national board of Integrity, the ministry created by gay and lesbian Episcopalians and their friends and supporters, serving at the same time as co-chair of the program development effort for the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Philadelphia.  In this work, he was successful in obtaining the center’s first grant and in persuading United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania to acknowledge responsibility for funding social services in the gay and lesbian community. In 1980, he transferred to St. Mark’s, Locust Street, and created the Integrity Institute for Pastoral Development, which offered continuing education workshops on pastoral counseling and homosexuality to more than 500 clergy, nurses, and social workers throughout the U.S.

In 1985, he moved to New York to pursue a master’s degree in theology and church history at the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church. During this period, he worked for the Mission Funding Unit of the national headquarters of the Presbyterian Church and later developed a gay rights project for the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility at the National Council of Churches. Upon graduation, he joined the Church of the Holy Apostles in Manhattan, which operates the largest soup kitchen in New York City.  In 1995, he chaired the Frances Perkins Memorial Conference on the Church and Labor at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, which commemorated the sixtieth anniversary of the passage of the Social Security Act.

In 1998, he joined the staff of the Episcopal Church Foundation, where he spent the next seven years developing theological education faculty and promoting scholarly vocations in the church. Since 2005, Donn has resided in Princeton, New Jersey, where he has served as adjunct faculty at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is currently Professor of Religion and Ethics at Berkeley College in New York and edits academic and trade books on a freelance basis.