wfn.org | Creech 'stunned' by penalty against Dell

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

March 29, 1999 News media contact: Tim Tanton*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.
10-21-28-71BP{169}

NOTE:  A photograph of the Rev. Jimmy Creech is available with this story.
This may be used as a sidebar to UMNS story #168.

DOWNERS GROVE, Ill. (UMNS) - Throughout his trial, the Rev. Greg Dell
received support from the one man who understood perhaps better than anyone
else what the accused pastor was going through.

That man was the Rev. Jimmy Creech, who almost exactly a year before had
been acquitted in a similar church trial for doing what Dell had done:
performing a holy union service for two people of the same gender. Creech's
defense, however, would not have helped Dell; in the 12 months between the
two trials, the United Methodist Church's Judicial Council had closed the
loophole that led to Creech's acquittal.

Creech sat on the front row of the courtroom throughout most of the two-day
Dell trial. Creech said he was there to support his fellow clergy member
with his presence. When it was all over, Creech expressed his dismay at the
outcome.

"I'm stunned by the decision on the penalty, especially because it's
conditioned on Greg's having to sign a pledge," Creech told United Methodist
News Service. "It's mean-spirited and punitive."

Dell, pastor of Broadway United Methodist Church in Chicago, was suspended
effective July 5 until he signed a document agreeing not to perform any more
holy union services, or until the denomination's law against such services
was changed. 

"It's simply saying to him that he will have to violate his own integrity in
order to return to ministry," Creech said. "I think that's unnecessary." The
trial court could have imposed a different penalty that was clear and
definite about length of time, he said.

"It's a clear signal that the church, represented by a trial court, will use
the power of the church to discourage pastors being in ministry to gay and
lesbian persons," Creech said.
  
"It is a use of church law to enforce bigotry," he said.

The verdict was reached by a trial court of 13 of Dell's clergy peers from
around the Northern Illinois Annual Conference. They sat through two long
days and nights of testimony and arguments during the trial, held at First
United Methodist Church in the Chicago suburb of Downers Grove.

Creech said he was prepared for the guilty verdict intellectually but not
emotionally.

Asked what kind of signal this sends to gays and lesbians in the United
Methodist Church, he replied: "It's going to cause a lot of people to
question whether to stay ... if the pastors who are there to serve them are
punished for serving them."

He hopes "that churches in ministry to gays and lesbians will continue to be
a redemptive presence to a (denomination) that has lost its integrity."

Creech said he planned on staying in Chicago through Sunday, March 28, and
worshipping at Broadway United Methodist Church. Dell's sermon topic that
day was "We've only just begun."

Creech was acquitted on March 13, 1998, of charges of disobedience to the
order and discipline of the United Methodist Church for uniting two women in
a holy union service the previous September. He won his case by arguing that
the prohibition against such ceremonies did not carry the weight of church
law. His argument hinged on the fact that the prohibition is contained in
the Social Principles section of the denomination's Book of Discipline and
not in the main section, where the rest of church law is defined. 

The Judicial Council, which serves as the denomination's supreme court,
closed that loophole last August, when it ruled that the prohibition is
enforceable as church law and that violating it makes a minister liable to
charges.

Though he was acquitted, Creech was not reappointed pastor of First United
Methodist Church in Omaha, Neb., where the controversial ceremony had been
held. He took a leave of absence last June and returned to North Carolina,
where he had served previously.

"I'm devoting my time to writing a book and traveling around the country to
speak," he said. "That's what I understand my vocation to be."

Creech's book is about the struggle the church is having with sexuality and
being open to people of all orientations, he said. He plans to have it
finished within this calendar year. However, his agent tells him it will
take another year to publish the book, so it won't be out in time for the
2000 General Conference, where the issue of holy unions is likely to be
raised.

He said the trial court decision in the Dell case "in no way changes my mind
or commitments."
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