Adam's Gift

A Memoir of a Pastor’s Calling to Defy the Church’s Persecution of Lesbians and Gays

Jimmy Creech

Narrated by Ralph Morocco

Available from Audible

Book published by Duke University Press

Jimmy Creech, a United Methodist pastor in North Carolina, was visited one morning in 1984 by Adam, a longtime parishioner whom he liked and respected. Adam said that he was gay, and that he was leaving The United Methodist Church, which had just pronounced that “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” could not be ordained. He would not be part of a community that excluded him. Creech found himself instinctively supporting Adam, telling him that he was sure that God loved and accepted him as he was. Adam’s Gift is Creech’s inspiring first-person account of how that conversation transformed his life and ministry.

Adam’s visit prompted Creech to re-evaluate his belief that homosexuality was a sin, and to research the scriptural basis for the church’s position. He determined that the church was mistaken, that scriptural translations and interpretations had been botched and dangerously distorted. As a Christian, Creech came to believe that discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people was morally wrong. This understanding compelled him to perform same-gender commitment ceremonies, which conflicted with church directives. Creech was tried twice by The United Methodist Church, and, after the second trial, his ordination credentials were revoked. Adam’s Gift is a moving story and an important chapter in the unfinished struggle for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender civil and human rights.

Jimmy Creech is a former United Methodist minister, now retired and living in Raleigh, North Carolina. He has worked with many social-action organizations, including Soulforce, an interfaith movement confronting spiritual violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons; the Methodist Federation for Social Action; the Raleigh Religious Network for Gay and Lesbian Equality; and Faith in America, an organization working to end religion-based bigotry. He has received the Flagbearer Award from PFLAG National; the Human Rights Campaign Equality Award; the Saint Award presented by Metropolitan Community Church, San Francisco; the North Carolina Pride, Inc. Award; and the Lee and Mae Ball Award, presented by The Methodist Federation for Social Action. He was selected as one of OUT magazine’s “Out 100” in 1998 and 1999.

REVIEWS:

“With often rich, always empathetic prose, Creech proves to be a pastor — who honors the minds but challenges the ideas — to a large and varied flock of readers.”

—Denver Post

“Essential reading for gay and lesbian Christians and other LGBT readers, Creech’s memoir should serve as an important case study for pastors and denominations reexamining their stance toward sexual minorities.”

—Library Journal

“’Hero’ is an overused word in our vocabulary today. When I think of heroes, I think of men and women who've risked everything for a cause they believed in, not for pay, not because they were conscripted, and not because it was popular, but because — despite the public ridicule and the certainty that what they were doing would cost them dearly — they followed their conscience. Or in the case of Jimmy Creech, followed their understanding of what Christianity was all about.... If you don't know Creech's story, or even if you do — and many in Raleigh will remember some of it — the book is a page-turner from the day Creech arrives in Nebraska to the guilty verdict that sends him back to North Carolina....Great book.”

—Independent Weekly