United Methodist Minister Celebrates “National Coming Out Day”

Defrocked United Methodist minister Jimmy Creech recently preached on “National Coming Out Day” at his former congregation, First United Methodist Church, based in Nebraska, at an event hosted by the Heartland Clergy for Inclusion. It was at First UMC that he hosted two same-sex nuptials, a female couple in 1997 and a male couple in 1999, which finally led to his defrocking. The United Methodist Church prohibits same-sex unions.

In his October 11 Omaha talk, Creech said there is “no legitimate use of the Bible to condemn same-gender loving relationships. Sexual orientation is a normal, natural, and healthy aspect of the human personality, whatever that orientation is.” Since his 1999 church trial and defrocking, Creech has remained a prominent proponent for same-sex unions in United Methodism and in America.

Though Creech “bought into the notion that the Bible says homosexuality was a sin,” for much of his life, meeting Adam, a “nice” gay man, “shattered” the stereotypes and prejudices about homosexual persons that were “shaped in my mind and my soul.” It was “not a theological argument” that caused Creech to change his views on homosexuality, but the mere “humanity of Adam, his dignity, the character I knew him to have.”

As Creech recalled, Adam “was a good person” and “the stereotypes that I had learned and had basically held onto without any kind of critical reflection were shattered in the moment he told me he was gay. He was not what I thought a gay person would be.” After this meeting, Creech did an “intensive biblical study,” and found “the root cause of the prejudice lies in the early Christian Church, and we take all of the blame for this, folks, those of us who are Christian, and it’s our responsibility to change it.”

Creech alleged that the “early Christian Church relied on teachings that came not from the Bible, but on philosophies that believed that human sexuality was inherently evil and sinful.” So the only sexual “expression that was acceptable was that which had the potential for procreation.” These “philosophies,” Creech said, taught that “love and sex do not go together … It taught us that people who are same gender loving people are heretics, sinners, criminals, sick, deviant, [and] we still carry those definitions and stereotypes around with us.” Paraphrasing 1 John 4:20-21, he said “if you love God you must, not you should, but you must, love your neighbor. How can you love God, whom you have not seen, when you do not love your brother and sister whom you have seen?”

The former minister also told a story about Mary, a woman he knew who changed her views on homosexuality when she met a “nice” gay couple. Mary was a woman in Creech’s congregation in the late 1980s who discussed with him her beliefs that the Bible teaches against homosexuality. When he explained his interpretation of the text, she didn’t “accept any of my explanations.” Several years later at a gay rights rally, Creech ran into Mary when she “came to the rally in support of marriage equality.” Mary told him she had changed her mind because of her neighbors, a gay couple named Jerry and Ralph, who cared for her when she was ill. She explained to Creech that “I’ve never had better neighbors, I’ve never had better friends. Now I don’t know about all this Bible stuff, but I love Jerry and Ralph, and I’m gonna stand with them.”

After telling Mary’s story, Creech said “my friends, that’s true theology. The embodiment of humanity, the embodiment of God in each and every one of us is true theology, it’s fundamental theology. Forget about all that heady stuff people want to argue and throw at you. Your humanity, your dignity, your integrity is the greatest power you have to change the world that you have, those of you who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender.”

Also present at First UMC in Omaha was Ruth, a self-described “dread-locked single mother of two, who just happens to be African, lesbian, Christian, and almost a full, legal immigrant.” Ruth told her tragic story of being an orphan in Zimbabwe and finding out she was a lesbian in a culture that shuns homosexuality. She told the congregation: “no matter who you are, or who has looked at you with pity, no matter who has tried to defeat you, no matter the greatness of your losses, God crafted your life before you were born, and loves you exactly the way you are. You have the strength within you to simply stand before God and others as God created you to be like I stand here tonight.”

Accepting homosexuality as Christians, Creech said, is “what coming out day is all about. For those of us who are not lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, it’s incumbent on us to look at the stereotypes that blind us, that keep us from seeing our sisters and brothers who are LGBT, so that we can love them. Because if we don’t, we can’t love God.”