Download Adam's Gift: A Memoir of a Pastor's Calling to Defy the Church's Persecution of Lesbians and Gays AudioBook Free
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 giving The United Methodist Chapel, which acquired just pronounced that "self-avowed practicing homosexuals" cannot be ordained. He would not participate a community that excluded him. Creech found himself instinctively encouraging Adam, informing him that he was sure God cherished and accepted him as he was. Adam's Present is Creech's uplifting first-person bank account of how that discussion altered his life and ministry. Adam's visit prompted Creech to re-evaluate his notion that homosexuality was a sin, and research the scriptural basis for the church's position. He motivated that the cathedral was mistaken, that scriptural translations and interpretations had been botched and dangerously distorted. As the Christian, Creech arrived to think that discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people was morally incorrect. This understanding compelled him to perform same-gender dedication ceremonies, which conflicted with cathedral directives. Creech was tried out twice because of the United Methodist Chapel, and, after the second trial, his ordination qualifications were revoked. Adam's Present is a moving report and an important chapter in the unfinished struggle for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender civil and human being rights.The booklet is printed by Duke School Press.
