c. 1999 Religion News Service

DOWNERS GROVE, Ill. _ The Rev. Gregory Dell Friday (March 26) was found guilty of violating United Methodist Church law when he presided at a same-sex “holy union” ceremony at his Chicago church last September.

By a vote of 10 to 3, the jury of clergy members from the denomination’s Northern Illinois Conference found Dell guilty of “disobedience to the Order and Discipline” of the United Methodist Church.

The jury deliberated for about 4 1/2 hours after other Methodist ministers who were appointed as opposing counsels concluded their cases earlier in the day. Nine votes were needed to convict.

In a separate vote, all 13 jurors found Dell, 53, guilty of conducting the service.

The same jurors immediately began deliberating Dell’s penalty, which could range from probation to being expelled from the United Methodist ministry. Dell has been a minister for three decades.

The trial could mark a turning point for the 8.5-million-member denomination that has long wrestled with issues involving the acceptance of homosexual conduct. Earlier this week, a complaint was filed against 69 United Methodist ministers for their roles in performing a same-sex union ceremony held in Sacramento, Calif., in January.

Dell’s trial began Thursday at First United Methodist Church of Downers Grove in the Chicago suburbs.

The Rev. Larry Pickens, pastor of Maple Park United Methodist Church in Chicago and Dell’s defense counsel, boiled down the choices for the jury in closing remarks that lasted less than two minutes.

He said the choice for the jury was “only this: whether Greg Dell may continue his ministry or you buy into the church counsel’s spin” on the recent decision by the denomination’s Judicial Council to elevate the ban against officiating at same-sex unions to the status of church law.

The prosecutor in the case, the Rev. Stephen C. Williams, a pastor in the Chicago suburb of Franklin Park, called the trial a “painful case.”

“Our hearts are torn by this task,” said Williams, in his eight-minute closing argument. “If the (United Methodist) church cannot enforce this decision, its General Conference is stripped of its authority.”

In his opening arguments for the penalty phase, Williams’ voice cracked as he spoke of Dell as a friend and brother.”Nothing has pained me more than to hurt someone I respect,”said Williams.

But he also urged the jury to protect the United Methodist Church”from further harm.””I do not believe Greg Dell wants to destroy the temple of God but his acts are destructive,”Williams argued.”They have hurt people who put their faith in this institution.” Paul Lewis, a lay minister for Wesley United Methodist Church in Aurora, Ill., testified in the penalty phase that Dell’s action causes”confusion for our children.” Lewis, who lives about 30 miles from Chicago and has teen-aged children, said the church was officially opposing same-sex unions while Dell was making news affirming them.

He also said that members of his congregation had withdrawn financial pledges over the issue because they no longer trust the church.

Church members are saying,”If the clergy need not obey, why should we have to?”Lewis testified.

In 1996, at the quadrennial meeting of the General Conference, the church’s highest legislative body, delegates voted to add a sentence to the church’s Social Principles barring clergy from performing same-sex union ceremonies.

Last August, the denomination’s Judicial Council said the ban in the Social Principles had the force of church law. The council acted following a Nebraska church trial over a same-sex union ceremony, at which the Rev. Jimmy Creech was narrowly exonerated on the grounds that the denomination’s prohibition against same-sex union ceremonies was, at that point, a guideline and not yet law.

In the trial’s first phase, Williams rejected the argument made by Dell and his counsel that he is “not disobedient because he’s an excellent pastor.”

Dell, who took the stand in his own defense, was asked by Williams if he ever considered leaving the denomination.

“This is my family,” Dell responded. “We stay together until an abusive relationship develops, until we are forced apart.”

He repeatedly acknowledged that the union ceremony violated church law.

Dell chocked back tears on the stand more than once, including a time when he referred to Creech, who he described as a friend.

Dell, who attended divinity school with Creech, also became emotional when he spoke of his decision to perform the same-sex union.

“I didn’t feel disobedient,” he said. “The only way to be obedient was to conduct that service. I had been appointed to serve Broadway Church … which was 30 percent gay and lesbian. The church had said, `Be a pastor.”’

He also told the jury: “If I can’t be a pastor to all in my congregation, you don’t want me as a pastor.”

Four members of Dell’s church also took the stand, including the two men at whose “holy union” ceremony he had officiated.

One of them, Keith Eccarius, testified that Broadway had become a comfortable place for him to worship. Eccarius said he had found a “sense of community” in a church he joined before coming to Dell’s church but “was asked to leave” when congregants found out he was gay.

The trial, a rare look into what normally would be a closed procedure regarding personnel matters, turned a sanctuary into a courtroom.

The jury of clergymen and clergywomen sat in the front pews of the high-ceilinged sanctuary filled with stained-glass windows. More than 200 people who had acquired free tickets to reserve their spots filled the rest of the pews on the main floor and the balcony.

The jury was similar to a grand jury, in that its members could ask witnesses questions.

When Bishop C. Joseph Sprague, head of the Northern Illinois Conference, who brought the charges against Dell, was asked by a juror during his testimony for the prosecution whether he had ever performed a same-sex union ceremony, he said yes. He added that he did so when he served as a pastor in another state and before the church’s ban on the ceremonies had the force of church law.

Dell has also acknowledged performing such ceremonies for 18 years. The trial, however, only concerned the ceremony at which he officiated after the church clarified its ban against same-sex unions.

Sprague also testified that he had worked to change the church law prohibiting gay unions, but pledged to uphold it when he was elected a bishop.

The presiding judge, retired Bishop Jack Tuell of Des Moines, Wash., told the jury before it began its deliberations that it needed to find “clear and convincing evidence” of Dell’s guilt in order to find him guilty.

IR END BOWMAN