wfn.org | Defender of Creech to be appointed pastor of Omaha First Church

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

March 21, 2000 News media contact: Thomas S.
McAnally·(615)742-5470·Nashville, Tenn.  10-21-71B{158}
  

By United Methodist News Service

The Rev. Doug Williamson, the pastor who defended Jimmy Creech at his first
church trial in March 1998, will be appointed senior pastor at First United
Methodist in Omaha in June, according to Nebraska Bishop Joel Martinez..

Creech was serving as pastor of the Omaha Church when he performed a union
ceremony for two women in September 1997.  Williamson, then an assistant
professor of religion at Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln,
successfully defended Creech  on charges that he violated the Order and
Discipline of the Church. A few months after his acquittal Creech was
granted a leave of absence and an associate pastor, the Rev. Donald
Bredthauer, was named to replace him.  Bredthauer, 61, will retire this
June.  

In April of 1999, while on leave in his home state of North Carolina, Creech
performed another same-sex union ceremony, this time for two men.  Again he
was brought to trial in Nebraska but this time he was convicted and his
ministerial credentials were removed.

The 1996 General Conference, the church's top legislative body, inserted a
sentence into the church's Social Principles saying, "Ceremonies that
celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and
shall not be conducted in our churches."  Between the two Creech  trials the
church's Judicial Council ruled that the disciplinary sentence against
same-sex unions is law and that clergy who violate the prohibition could be
charged with disobeying the Order and Discipline of the church and lose
their ministerial credentials. 

After the first Creech trial a number of First Church members left to form a
new congregation in Omaha.

Williamson, a native of Needham, Mass., is a graduate of Rockford (Ill.)
College.  He earned a master of theological studies from Harvard Divinity
School, a master of divinity degree from Methodist Theological School in
Delaware, Ohio, and a doctorate in church history and social ethics from
Boston University.

Williamson served on the Nebraska Wesleyan faculty from 1992 until 1999. He
has served as interim pastor of Antelope Park Church of the Brethren in
Lincoln since September 1999.

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United Methodist News Service
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