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Cleric who held lesbian wedding to visit area
Thursday, September 03, 1998 By Ann Rodgers-Melnick, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
A United Methodist pastor who ignited a furor in his denomination after he performed a wedding ceremony for a lesbian couple will visit Western Pennsylvania next weekend.
The only public appearance by the Rev. Jimmy Creech will be a Sept. 13 lecture at 8 p.m. in the chapel of Allegheny College in Meadville. Creech will also attend an invitation-only luncheon at the college and a private reception on the premises of the First United Methodist Church of Pittsburgh in Shadyside.
For Creech, who has urged United Methodist pastors to practice "ecclesiastical disobedience" by performing wedding ceremonies for gay couples, it is a trip into hostile territory. The Western Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church is overwhelmingly conservative on issues involving homosexuality. Bishop George Bashore of Western Pennsylvania, currently president of the worldwide United Methodist Council of Bishops, strongly supports the traditional Christian ban on sex outside of heterosexual marriage.
Bashore is away but his assistant, the Rev. Paul Schrading, said that the conference -- the equivalent of a diocese -- had no part in Creech's visit.
Although Allegheny College is historically related to the United Methodist Church, "there is no official conference involvement (in Creech's visit) because the college is a separate and independent entity," he said.
"Allegheny College has a right to invite whoever they wish, and Jimmy Creech is a United Methodist pastor in good standing."
Likewise, the associate pastor of First United Methodist Church, a friend and supporter of Creech, stressed that the congregation is not a sponsor of his visit. The Reconciling Task Force of Western Pennsylvania, an unofficial group that advocates church acceptance of homosexuals, is using the facility for a private reception, said the Rev. Rene Waun.
Creech, then pastor of the First United Methodist Church of Omaha, Neb., performed the lesbian wedding ceremony last September, a year after the denomination added a clause to its Social Principles forbidding such ceremonies. He was suspended by his bishop, but acquitted at a church trial because a slim majority of jurors concluded that the Social Principles were advisory rather than binding.
Last month the denomination's highest court ruled that the prohibition was indeed binding, and that pastors who perform such ceremonies can be defrocked. The decision was not retroactive, however, and Creech's acquittal stands.
Creech called that Judicial Council decision "an act of institutional violence." He urged pastors to openly defy the ruling.
"The church of John Wesley, founded upon principles of social justice and piety, will now be prosecuting pastors for praying God's blessing upon same-sex couples who make covenants of love and fidelity," Creech said.
"The church is relying upon prejudice, ignorance and fear, instead of allowing grace and the Holy Spirit to lead us into this vision."
Creech was not reassigned to any church. He and his wife returned to his native North Carolina, where he cleans tourist cottages between speaking engagements.
The invitation to Allegheny College came from the Rev. John Colatch, the chaplain and campus pastor, who had worked with Creech in North Carolina years earlier. At that time, Colatch said, Creech was best known for his work on race relations and for defending the rights of migrant farm workers. He had served on the boards of North Carolinians against the Death Penalty and the North Carolina Low Income Housing Coalition.
Creech's public lecture, "Justice Is a Pastoral Concern" is the college's annual Winslow Ecumenical Lecture, Colatch said. The invitation was issued prior to the Aug. 11 Judicial Council ruling, he said.
On Sept. 14, Creech will be the guest at a private luncheon for an invited group of United Methodist pastors who represent all sides of the controversy over homosexuality and the Christian faith, Colatch said. He will return to North Carolina that afternoon.
"I know this is controversial, but Jimmy has so much integrity. At the lecture, people can ask their own questions. No one in the (United Methodist) church is really talking about this issue, they are shouting at each other. This is a way to have some discourse," Colatch said.
Some United Methodist pastors have called to object to Creech's appearance, Colatch said.
"However, if you can't talk about these things on a college campus, where can you talk about them?" he asked.
Speakers representing the other side of the debate over homosexuality have also had public forums at the school, Colatch said. Last year a speaker billed as a former homosexual represented those who view homosexuality as a psychological and spiritual problem.
At First United Methodist Church, a large, theologically diverse congregation with a history of welcoming gay people, Waun had originally hoped that Creech would participate in a Sunday morning adult education class.
That class "had already planned to begin its study of the Social Principles. Creech's recent testing of the authority of the Social Principles would have fit as part of that discussion," Waun said.
However, it was ultimately decided that Creech would attend only the private reception Saturday evening, she said.
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