NEWS STORY: Creech taking leave from ministry

c. 1998 Religion News Service UNDATED _ The Rev. Jimmy Creech, the United Methodist minister whose performance of a same-sex ceremony led to a church trial and precipitated a new crisis in the denomination over gay issues, has decided to take a leave of absence from the ministry.”I really grieve about leaving, but it would […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ The Rev. Jimmy Creech, the United Methodist minister whose performance of a same-sex ceremony led to a church trial and precipitated a new crisis in the denomination over gay issues, has decided to take a leave of absence from the ministry.”I really grieve about leaving, but it would be difficult for a church to welcome me and to have a consensus of support and desire for me to be there,”Creech said in announcing his decision.

Creech will preach his last sermon at First United Methodist Church in Omaha, Neb. on June 7. In May, Nebraska Bishop Joel T. Martinez said he would not reappoint Creech as senior pastor of the 1,900-member congregation.


In a separate but related development, the leaders of the California-Nevada Annual (regional) Conference have rejected a proposal for a separate organizational entity for theological conservatives”tired of fighting”what they believe is the 8.2 million-member church’s drift toward liberalism, especially over homosexuality.”The diversity of the United Methodist Church is broad enough to include all the viewpoints represented around the table of our consultation,”the leaders said in a statement released following a May 20 meeting between the conference’s ministry staff _ Bishop Melvin G. Talbert, seven district superintendents and six staff members _ and members of the Evangelical Renewal Fellowship (ERF).”Separation has never been required, nor is it now, in order to engage in the varied ministries that different local churches seek to fulfill,”the statement said.”A strong commitment to inclusion and tolerance welcomes a full range of congregational identities and forms of ministry.” The leader of the evangelical group, meanwhile, announced his intention to leave the denomination. The Rev. Kevin Clancey, pastor of the 306-member Community United Methodist Church in Oakdale, Calif., said he will resign his orders as a United Methodist clergyman in July to explore beginning a new independent congregation.

But none of the other 18 conservative clergy from the ERF who signed the statement drafted in Clancey’s Oakdale church have indicated they are ready to leave the church.”We aren’t trying to be rebels and sow seeds of discontent,”the Rev. John C. Sheppard II, pastor of First UMC in Yuba City, Calif., told United Methodist News Service, the denomination’s official news agency.”We want to find a place to do our ministry with others who have similar goals and views.” Since 1972, United Methodists have been arguing off and on and with varying degrees of intensity over the role of gays and lesbians in the church. Current Methodist teaching affirms the sacred worth of gays and lesbians and welcomes them as church members while denying them ordination and declaring homosexual activity”incompatible with Christian teaching.” In addition, the 1996 General Conference added a new statement to its Social Principles expressing its opposition to clergy in the church presiding over same-sex marriages or ceremonies.

The current crisis was prompted last September when Creech performed a same-sex ceremony for two women members of his Omaha congregation. He was subsequently charged with violating church law by performing the covenantal union for the couple, but a jury of Nebraska clergy fell one vote short of convicting Creech.

Creech and his lawyers argued that because the bar on same-sex unions was included in the church’s Social Principles rather than in its Book of Discipline proper, it was advisory rather than binding.

Reaction to the Creech verdict was intense: Some churches announced their intention to withhold funds from the denomination while conservative groups called for a special session of the General Conference to once-and-for-all spell out the church’s stance on homosexuality and to put teeth in enforcing church rules.

In April, the church’s Council of Bishops rejected the call for the special session, noting the denomination’s Judicial Council will meet in August to determine the status of the Social Principles. The council also issued a pastoral letter expressing their commitment to uphold the various General Conference actions on homosexuality.

But in mid-May, Talbert, head of the San Francisco Area, made public a letter to Nevada-California clergy and laity saying that unless the Judicial Council ruled otherwise, he does not consider the performance of same-sex unions to violate church law.


It was Talbert’s letter, on top of the Creech verdict, that prompted the evangelical rebellion in Nevada-California and the call for a separate evangelical entity.

Sheppard, for example, said he was”incensed”when he read Talbert’s letter.”It’s not that we think Bishop Talbert is the enemy,”he said.”But we have a different mindset that needs to be expressed.” In Nebraska, Creech said Bishop Martinez had given him three options: to seek another appointment in Nebraska, to seek an appointment in another conference or to take a leave of absence.

But Creech said he declined the first two options”because of the current climate in the Nebraska Conference and the continuing controversy related to my ministry at First Church, Omaha. It would not be fair to take the controversy with me to another church.” Martinez has appointed the Rev. Donald Bredthauer as the new senior pastor at the Omaha church. Bredthauer, 60, has been associate pastor of the church for the past 10 years.

Bredthauer, a staunch supporter of Creech, has said he will not preside at same-sex ceremonies until the issue is settled by the denomination _ a stance that leaves unclear whether he will be able to heal the breach in the congregation that has led some 300 to 400 members to meet”in exile.” The estranged members had called on Martinez to appoint a senior pastor who adhered firmly to the church’s teaching on gay issues.

MJP END ANDERSON

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