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Bill Phipps

Canadian politician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ2903317 ↗
Source-derived summary

William Frederick Allen Phipps (May 4, 1942 – March 4, 2022) was a Canadian ordained minister of the United Church of Canada, lawyer and social activist. He served as the 36th Moderator of the United Church of Canada from 1997 to 2000, and engendered controversy for expressing support for gay ordination and not believing in a physical Resurrection of Jesus.

Early life and ministry

Phipps was born in Toronto, the son of Cora Stinson and Reginald Phipps. He graduated from Osgoode Law School in 1965, but felt a call to ministry rather than the law, and enrolled at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. During his studies, he worked with community activist Saul Alinsky, and marched with Martin Luther King. After graduation in 1968, Phipps moved to Toronto to article for his law degree and opened the first Poverty law office in Canada. He was ordained by the United Church of Canada in 1969, and became the minister first of Thorncliffe United Church, and then Trinity-St. Paul's United Church. During his time in Toronto, he advocated for LGBTQ rights, the poor, and homelessness.

In 1986, he moved to Edmonton, Alberta to work in church administration for seven years.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Bill Phipps” as canadian politician. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Bill, Phipps and Canadian.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1942, 2022, 1997, 2000—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Bill, Phipps and Canadian providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Bill Phipps”, the useful work is to connect “canadian politician” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2903317. The first chronological checks are 1942, 2022, 1997 and 2000.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Bill Phipps”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Bill Phipps primary sources, Bill Phipps archive and Bill research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Bill Phipps” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.