c. 1998 Religion News Service

KEARNEY, Neb. _ A United Methodist pastor was acquitted Friday (March 13) of violating a denominational directive by presiding over a same-sex union ceremony involving two women at his Omaha church.

The decision in the case of the Rev. Jimmy Creech is expected to have wide ramifications for the 8.5-million member United Methodist Church, the nation’s second largest Protestant denomination. The UMC has struggled with issues involving homosexuals for more than a quarter-century.

Creech called the verdict”historic for the United Methodist Church. … It shows we are guided more by God’s grace and love than regulations.” Creech had been charged with”disobedience to the order and discipline of the United Methodist Church.”Specifically, he was charged with violating the denomination’s Social Principles _ a set of moral and ethical statements contained within the denomination’s Book of Discipline _ that say UMC pastors”shall not”conduct”homosexual union”ceremonies.

Creech maintained that the Social Principles are not binding, unlike the remainder of the Book of Discipline. He also denied that he had officiated at a”homosexual union”ceremony as prohibited by the Social Principles.

Creech acknowledged that he had led a ceremony in which two women exchanged rings and pledged their love to each other, but he said their sexual orientation was confidential.

Had he been found guilty, he could have been stripped of his ministerial authority and expelled from the UMC.

A 13-member jury made up of Nebraska Methodist pastors deliberated for about four hours before delivering its verdict.

While the jury voted 11-2 that Creech had performed a same-sex union, it split 8-5 on the question of whether he had violated church regulations, one less than the nine votes required for conviction.

Testimony began Thursday, following jury selection Wednesday.

Kearney’s First United Methodist Church was the site of the trial. It marked the first time a UMC minister had ever been put on trial for conducting a same-sex union ceremony.

Earlier Friday, more than 90 UMC ministers nationwide released a statement saying they would conduct homosexual union ceremonies regardless of Creech’s fate. The statement was issued by Proclaiming the Vision Committee, a group formed to support Creech.”Clergy have performed covenant services for 20 years,”said the Rev. Alice Knotts of Hardin, Mont., one of more than 100 supporters of Creech in Kearney for the trial.

Another signer, the Rev. Doyle Burbank-Williams, an Omaha colleague of Creech, said,”It’s a matter of knowing that you are called to ministry and what kind of church you will be in ministry with.” The same-sex”covenanting”ceremony that Creech, 53, presided over was held last September at his 1,900-member First United Methodist Church in Omaha. He did so against the expressed wishes of Nebraska Bishop Joel T. Martinez.

Creech was suspended Nov. 10 from his pastoral duties for presiding at the ceremony. He was immediately reinstated after the verdict.

It was the first time since 1987 that the mainline UMC had faced a church trial over the volatile issue of homosexuality, an issue that has embroiled the church since 1972.

At the 1987 trial, the Rev. Rose Mary Denman was found guilty of violating church law barring self-avowed practicing homosexuals from the ministry.

The Rev. Phil Wogaman, pastor of Washington’s Foundry United Methodist Church _ which is often attended by President Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is Methodist _ was among those who testified on Creech’s behalf.

In his testimony Friday, Wogaman said his congregation has many gay and lesbian couples, some of whom are leaders in the church.”Their desire is to have a very normal church experience,”he said.”They don’t want to be in a predominantly gay church.” Wogaman said the church should accept homosexuals as people loved by God.”Above all else, we should try to be a channel of God’s grace. The church is always better at loving than it is at judging,”he said.

Wogaman said he was at the denomination’s 1996 General Conference when delegates approved the statement in the Social Principles prohibiting ministers from performing”homosexual union”ceremonies.

The full statement reads:”Ceremonies that celebrate homosexual union shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches.” Wogaman said he spoke against adoption of the statement both because he disagreed with the prohibition and because of its placement in the Social Principles.

He added that many delegates to the General Conference were confused about what action they were taking. After voting 553-321 to add the new language to the Social Principles, they voted down five separate motions to make the language more binding.

Wogaman said it would be”a dangerous precedent”to enforce any portion of the Social Principles as church law.”It’s an awful thing if the church allows its legal side to dominate its message.” Methodists opposed to same-sex unions were also on hand in Kearney.

The Rev. Greg Stover of Cincinnati, a member of the Confessing Movement, a conservative faction within the UMC, said he believed the majority of rank-and-file United Methodists oppose same-sex unions.

The Rev. Loren Ekdahl of Lincoln, who prosecuted the church’s case against Creech, said after the verdict was delivered,”I think we did the church a service by involving ourselves in the process and doing the best we can. I am glad we did it in a civil manner.”

IR END REEVES