Peter j gomes biography channels

Clergyman, guardian, author

At a Glance…

Always Loved authority Church

Assumed Religious Mantle

Addressed Societal Prejudices

Selected writings

Sources

“Image not available for palpable reasons”

As Harvard University’s Plummer Senior lecturer of Christian Morals and preacher to its Memorial Church, Putz J.

Gomes has been tune of that institution’s most discoverable and beloved faculty members owing to 1970. He was named single of America’s seven “star preachers” by Time in 1979, highest he pronounced the benediction clichйd former U.S. president Ronald Reagan’s second inaugural and preached preceding U.S.

president George Bush’s opening service four years later. Multifariously described as magnetic, charismatic, bid courtly, Gomes is a civil servant of unquestioned scholarship and ridden of great personal charm. Sharptasting is held in high appraise both by his peers nearby by the Harvard student body.Time noted in 1992 that “although worship attendance has been unconscious at Harvard for a c collegians crowd the sanctuary in receipt of Sunday to savor his silver-tongued, engaging, and scholarly sermons....”

Kit Vivacious depicted Gomes in The Agreement of Higher Learning as “a man whose bearing is definitely patrician and whose Massachusetts emphasis sounds almost English at times.” Robert S.

Boynton was additional specific in the New Yorker, identifying his voice as clean “rich baritone” that is “three parts [actorj James Earl Designer and one part [actor] Gents Houseman. “Poet, Nobel Prize prizewinner, and Harvard colleague Seamus Heaney commented on Gomes’s preaching road in Boynton’s 1996 New Yorker profile, stating “He embraces that old-fashioned grandiloquent style in exceptional manner that is always sensibly the verge of carnival,” perform observed.

“His style is packed of cadence, roguery, and scampishness, which is itself redemptive.”

George Whirl. Williams, professor emeritus of interpretation Harvard Divinity School, described Gomes to the Chicago Tribune burst 1996 as “a wonderful preacher” whose style incorporates “the fervency of an evangelical with dexterous moderate conservative theology and evocation episcopal sense of liturgy.” Designed into the American Baptist Cathedral, Gomes has described himself slightly having “an Anglican oversoul.” Notwithstanding disinclined to classify his go bust style, Gomes places it anyplace between what he calls ethics “tornado genre” of popular jet-black preaching and the measured “clock preaching” characteristic of English sermons.

“I love the splendor medium the tickery,” he told Boynton. “Think of me as unblended `precise tornado.’”

In 1996 Gomes in print The Good Book: Reading

At shipshape and bristol fashion Glance…

Born Peter JohnGomes on May well 22, 1942, in Boston, MA; son of Peter Lobo Gomes (a cranberry bog worker) roost Orissa Josephine (White) Gomes (aclerk intheMassachusetts State House).Education: Bates Academy, B.A., 1965; Harvard University, B.D.

1968; New England College, D.D., 1974.

Politics: Republican.Religilon: Baptist

Clergyman, professor, author. Ordained to priesthood of the American Baptist Communion, 1968. Tuskegee Institute, history educator and director of Freshman In advance Program, 1968-70; Harvard University, Statue Church, assistant minister, 1970-74, actingminister, 1974-; Harvard University, Plummer Prof of Morals, 1974-; delivered Thanksgiving approbatio, second inaugural, Ronald Reagan, 1985; delivered inaugural service, George Mill, 1989.

Selected awards: Theodore Presser Book-learning in Music, Bates College, 1961-65; Chief Marshal, Harvard Divinity Institute, Class of 1968; nine token degrees; Honorary Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge University, England;

Selected memberships: Fellow, Pilgrim Society (trustee, 1972-; librarian, 1962-); Royal Arts Touring company, London; North Baptist Educational Theatre group (Director, 1973); National Association glimpse UniversityChaplains;Colonial Society ofMassachusetts (Councillor, 1973-); Massachusetts Historical Society; Harvard Dulcet Association; SignetSociety; Royal SocietyofChoraleMusic; Town Institute of Christian Studies; Denizen Baptist Historical Society; Director, Truly Speaking Union; Phi Beta Kappa; (President, trustee) International DefenseFund professor Aid in South Africa, 1977-; National Chaplain, American Guild Organists, 1978-82.

Addresses: Home-Sparks House, 21 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138; 33 Alerton St., Plymouth, MA 02360; Office-Memorial Church, Harvard University, Metropolis, MA 02138.

the Bible with Brain and Heart.

The book, which Time called an “entertaining dictate to grab serious Bible read back from the religious right,” is a readable, thought-provoking pointless of Biblical scholarship. It examines what the Bible has inconspicuously say on many controversial subjects. The book received largely indulgent reviews and generated even finer media attention than Gomes’s outflow as a high-profile gay preacher.The Good Book became a New York Times national bestseller.

Always Idolized the Church

Peter John Gomes was born May 22, 1942, bear hug Boston, an only child.

Rule father, Peter Lobo Gomes, was born in the Cape Verde Islands in 1908. The older Gomes immigrated to the Coalesced States in the 1920s remarkable settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Lighten up found work in the cranberry bogs around the area, ultimately rising to the position unscrew superintendent at one of them. Fluent in several languages, explicit now serves as an program for the Spanish and Lusitanian immigrants in the area, 1 them compose letters to letter home.

Gomes’s mother, Orissa Josephine White, was born on Boston’s wealthy Beacon Hill in 1901. One of nine children, she was the daughter of Patriarch Merrit Pedford White, a well-situated Baptist minister originally from Colony. Her parents’ family trees out of use before the U.S. Civil Conflict. Hailing from the Rhode Sanctuary and Massachusetts areas, she was a graduate of the Recent England Conservatory of Music lecturer was the first black spouse to work in the Colony State House, where she was a clerk.

Boynton wrote, “It critique often commented that Peter Gomes was born an old civil servant and has since grown gradually younger.

“His status trade in an only child meant illegal was indulged by attentive parents who expected him to the makings “an exemplary son.” His tuition went beyond the Plymouth communal school system, and included keyboard lessons, science kits, and everyday cultural outings. His mother ferment classical literature to him announcement a nightly basis.

Gomes was very bright, writing the account on Plymouth, Massachusetts for grandeur 1960 edition of the Americana Encyclopedia when he was mop the floor with the eleventh grade, and oversight showed early promise as natty man of the cloth. Likewise a child he routinely reprised the Sunday sermon from well-ordered basement pulpit constructed of cranberry boxes.

He first preached wreath own sermon when he was only 12. Gomes described excellence lure of the church run into Boynton: “Church for me was what the basketball court even-handed to most black kids: natty place where my imagination was unleashed and I was liable free reign on the stage.”

As a youth, Gomes worked sort a page in the Colony Public Library, where he esoteric charge of the research roost genealogy department.

He also awkward as a houseboy in insufferable of New England’s grandest housing. He regularly attended the Protestant Church in Plymouth and was very involved in all cast down programs. Gomes graduated as the man of his class from Town High School in 1961, nearby enrolled at Bates College strike home Lewiston, Maine, that fall.

Good taste paid his way through college with work as the organist and choirmaster of the Premier Congregational Church in Lewiston, near by working summers at grandeur Pilgrim Hall museum in Colony. He also held the Theodore Presser Scholarship in music midst all of his four duration at Bates.

Assumed Religious Mantle

A story major, Gomes was not hitherto convinced that the clergy was his calling.

“I thought creed was for nice but conceal people and believed I challenging to give it up postulate I wanted to be pure real intellectual,” he told Boynton. By his senior year crystal-clear planned to become the eminent curator of American Decorative Field at the Boston Museum counterfeit Fine Arts. Upon graduation jagged 1965, he was persuaded rescind spend a trial year view the Harvard Divinity School.

Adjourn year stretched into three, illustrious Gomes earned his Bachelor work at Divinity in 1968. While in attendance, he won the Harvard lecture prize, served as proctor befit Divinity Hall, and chaired both the Worship and Publications committees.

Following graduation, Gomes was offered smashing position teaching history at rendering Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

Stylishness taught Western Civilization there munch through 1968 to 1970. The materialization of a Yankee blueblood, Gomes experienced some culture shock conduct yourself Alabama. “I saw more jetblack people in my first fifty per cent hour at Tuskegee than Side-splitting had ever seen in out of your depth entire life,” he commented inconvenience the New Yorker.

During realm two years at Tuskegee Gomes directed the Freshman Experimental Curriculum, which he has described restructuring “an innovative seminar-based experiment razorsharp the reorganization of the greenhorn year.”

Gomes also served as musician at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Sanctuary in Tuskegee and assisted improvement the Institute Chapel.

Although sharp-tasting expressed to Boynton that flair would have been content confess spend the rest of tiara life at Tuskegee, fate intervened. In 1970 Gomes was qualified assistant minister of Harvard’s Statue Church as well as guardian in Divinity. His rise was rapid. In 1972, he was acting minister, and, by 1974, he held the dual positions of minister to the Headstone Church and Plummer Professor pay Christian Morals.

Addressed Societal Prejudices

Gomes borrowed a new celebrity in 1991, when he declared his prestige as “a Christian who happens as well to be gay” before a cheering crowd describe students in Harvard Yard.

Gomes and other faculty members difficult been asked to comment move away a protest against a adherent publication devoted to denouncing homoeroticism. Although a few outraged calls for his resignation were vigorous, Gomes ignored them. Harvard’s head, Neil Rudenstine, stated in Time that it was not sparkle to the school to “apply a doctrinal test concerning issues that may be controversial on the contrary that are part of bag theological debate, where reasonable mass of different religious persuasions slope different views.”

Gomes has stated ensure he does not regret her highness declaration, although he does call for wish to become a brilliant activist.

He told the Washington Post in 1992, “I telling have an unambiguous vocation-a mission-to address the religious causes focus on roots of homophobia.... I last wishes devote the rest of loose life to addressing the ’religious case’ against gays. “Toward defer end, he published The Circus Book: Reading the Bible crash Mind and Heart in 1996.

The Good Book takes a finale look at what the Manual actually says about many arguable subjects.

Gomes examines the Bible’s literal words on these subjects and then offers thoughtful reinterpretations of the scripture, based go under original language translations and contexts, both cultural and historical. Boynton described The Good Book considerably “an engaging study of honesty purported Biblical roots of homophobia, sexism, anti-Semitism, racism, and mother prejudices...” and as “a Scriptural primer and a critique delineate the religious right....

“A Library Journal review called the softcover “honest, down-to-earth, personal, and thoughtful,” and Booklist suggested it would be “a source of unbounded discussion, both internal and external.”

Although, as Time noted, “fundamentalists desire have little use for that book,” Gomes stressed the want for interpretive commentary as image additional resource for understanding righteousness Bible.

“The Bible alone enquiry the most dangerous thing Uncontrolled can think of, “he commented in the Los Angeles Times.”You need an ongoing context enjoin a community of interpretation get snarled keep the Bible current become peaceful to keep yourself honest. Have somebody to stay the thought that the Guidebook is an absolute pronouncement.

“It was this attitude that Gomes promotes, that allowed religious institutions to finally condemn slavery other racism on moral grounds, neglect the Biblical tradition.

Gomes denounces prestige use of the Bible stay at disenfranchise other groups as go well. “The legitimization of violence antithetical homosexuals and Jews and detachment and blacks, as we control seen,” he wrote, “comes go over the top with the view that the Physical stigmatizes these people, thereby invention them fair game.

“With note to homosexuality, Gomes argues think about it Biblical citations used to censure it ignore contexts and dwindle to account for the occurrence that the term “homosexual” was coined in the nineteenth hundred by scientists. As for unit, Gomes concluded that “feminist interpreters of scripture have much evaluate teach us, and we put down these lessons to the wager claim of scripture and of righteousness church.” Gomes also attacks anti-Semitism, writing, “If any good vesel come out of the world’s descent into the abyss defer was [Nazi death camp] Stockade, a thoroughgoing reassessment of honesty biblical basis for Christian anti-Semitism is one such good.”

In enthrone attempt to speak out wreck an act of hate, Gomes succeeded in changing his the social order forever.

Despite his self-declared duty to campaign against religion-based homophobia, Lively noted that Gomes “doesn’t want homosexuality to become justness issue that defines him.” Single, Gomes is celibate by selection. Boynton wrote that “with diadem crushing work schedule and elegant social life, Gomes has neither the time not the dimness for romantic entanglement.” Lively quoted Gomes as saying, “I cluster more than my race.

Raving am more than my gender. I am more than discomfited professorship. The one thing Hysterical am known by is [as] a Christian.”

Selected writings

History of depiction Pilgrim Society, 1820-1970, 1971.

(with Laurentius D. Geller)The Books of description Pilgrims,

Garland Books, 1975.The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Fortitude and

Heart, William Morrow & Co., 1996.

Sources

Books

Gomes, Peter J.,The Good Book: Reading the Bible With Gesture and Heart, William Morrow & Co., 1996.

Periodicals

Booklist, October 1, 1996.

Chicago Tribune, December 13, 1996.

Christianity Today, April 7, 1997.

The Chronicle devotee Higher Education, January 10,

1997.

Library Journal, December 1996.Los Angeles Times, Dec 8, 1996.Los Angeles Times Unspoiled Review, January 5, 1997’.New Yorker, November 11, 1996.People, March 3, 1997.Time, December 31, 1979; Go 16, 1992, January

27, 1997.

U.S.News & World Report, December 23, 1996.Washington Post, April 15, 1992.

Other

Additional wisdom for this profile was borrowed through correspondence with Peter Tabulate.

Gomes.

—Ellen Dennis French