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April 14, 1998 Contact: Thomas S. McAnally (615)742-5470 Nashville,
Tenn.  10-21-71B{224}
	
NOTE:  A mug shot of Phil Wogaman is available upon request.

	The Creech trial: How should we react? 

By Phil Wogaman*

A fair amount of media and church attention was given to the church
trial of Omaha pastor Jimmy Creech in Nebraska last month.  Creech was
charged with disobedience to the order and discipline of the United
Methodist Church.  The alleged offense was that he had conducted a
ceremony celebrating a homosexual union, contrary to a provision
recently added to the church's Social Principles.

The event did not quite live up to the expectation of some that it would
be another Scopes trial.  Nevertheless, it dramatized the great cultural
conflict over homosexuality.  The nation's media swarmed into Nebraska
to give the trial extraordinary coverage.  Creech was acquitted by a
jury of his Nebraska peers, though by a narrow margin.  His defenders
reacted with joy his critics with consternation.  To the critics, the
verdict seemed to be nullifying a clear action of the church's General
Conference.  To the defenders, it was a recognition that the ambiguities
of the church law and an affirmation of the pastoral responsibility the
church has to its gay and lesbian members.

As a witness for the defense, I agreed more with the latter than with
the former.  Reflecting now on the outcome of the trial, I am most of
all concerned about what makes for peace in the church and for
responsiveness to God's will.  It did seem to me that the inflamed
issues of homosexuality are not well handled in trial procedures.
Nobody doubts Rev. Creech's sincerity nor his pastoral attentiveness.
By allowing his pastoral conscience to be pitted against church law, a
trial sends the message that conformity is the higher value.  Maybe
sometimes that is a message that has to be sent - I would say so, for
instance, if the "pastoral conscience" of any minister took the form of
racial hatred.  A good test is whether anybody is really being injured.
In this instance, it is difficult to see who was.  Here were two people,
deeply committed to each other, who asked for some kind of church
blessing upon their commitment.  It had a whole lot more to do with
mutual caring and a whole lot less to do with sex.  Even if one were, on
the whole, opposed to homosexuality, would not a caring relationship of
this kind be far preferable to loose promiscuity?  In any event, it is
very difficult to see how anybody is being hurt by such relationships.

Nevertheless, sine the trial there has been a certain amount of talk
about the breaking apart of the church.  I do not expect that to happen.
Most United Methodists are pretty sensible people who recognize that the
ties that bind us together are far deeper than issues that divide us.
This is not to downplay the importance of the issues and honest
differences of opinion. It is to say that we should try to find ways to
accommodate the differences without resorting to power moves.

One day we will doubtless know a lot more about homosexual orientation
than we do now. In the meantime, a certain humility and mutual
forbearance might be in order.

#  #  #

*Wogaman, pastor of Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington, and
seminary professor of Christian ethics, is the author of 13 books. He is
a clergy member of the Baltimore

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