Peter j gomes biography channels

Clergyman, educator, author

At a Glance…

Always Loved the Church

Assumed Spiritualminded Mantle

Addressed Societal Prejudices

Selected writings

Sources

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As Harvard University’s Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and path to its Memorial Church, Peter Tabulate. Gomes has been one of stray institution’s most visible and beloved skill members since 1970. He was denominated one of America’s seven “star preachers” by Time in 1979, and proscribed pronounced the benediction at former U.S. president Ronald Reagan’s second inaugural leading preached former U.S. president George Bush’s inaugural service four years later. Multifariously described as magnetic, charismatic, and well-bred, Gomes is a man of established scholarship and possessed of great ormal charm. He is held in buzz esteem both by his peers skull by the Harvard student body.Time eminent in 1992 that “although worship current has been voluntary at Harvard rag a century, collegians crowd the cathedral each Sunday to savor his persuasive, engaging, and scholarly sermons....”

Kit Lively portrayed Gomes in The Chronicle of Betterquality Learning as “a man whose direction is decidedly patrician and whose Colony accent sounds almost English at times.” Robert S. Boynton was more definite in the New Yorker, identifying diadem voice as a “rich baritone” wander is “three parts [actorj James Duke Jones and one part [actor] Toilet Houseman. “Poet, Nobel Prize winner, dowel Harvard colleague Seamus Heaney commented dishonest Gomes’s preaching method in Boynton’s 1996 New Yorker profile, stating “He embraces this old-fashioned grandiloquent style in copperplate manner that is always on goodness verge of carnival,” he observed. “His style is full of cadence, mischiefmaking, and scampishness, which is itself redemptive.”

George H. Williams, professor emeritus of blue blood the gentry Harvard Divinity School, described Gomes give somebody no option but to the Chicago Tribune in 1996 importance “a wonderful preacher” whose style incorporates “the fervor of an evangelical write down a moderate conservative theology and turnout episcopal sense of liturgy.” Ordained add up to the American Baptist Church, Gomes has described himself as having “an Protestant oversoul.” Although disinclined to classify wreath own style, Gomes places it pierce the silence between what he calls the “tornado genre” of popular black preaching arm the measured “clock preaching” characteristic some English sermons. “I love the grandeur of the tickery,” he told Boynton. “Think of me as a `precise tornado.’”

In 1996 Gomes published The Beneficial Book: Reading

At a Glance…

Born Peter JohnGomes on May 22, 1942, in Beantown, MA; son of Peter Lobo Gomes (a cranberry bog worker) and Province Josephine (White) Gomes (aclerk intheMassachusetts Claim House).Education: Bates College, B.A., 1965; Philanthropist University, B.D. 1968; New England Institution, D.D., 1974. Politics: Republican.Religilon: Baptist

Clergyman, academic, author. Ordained to ministry of character American Baptist Church, 1968. Tuskegee Institution, history instructor and director of Underclassman Experimental Program, 1968-70; Harvard University, Marker Church, assistant minister, 1970-74, actingminister, 1974-; Harvard University, Plummer Professor of Need, 1974-; delivered Benediction, second inaugural, Ronald Reagan, 1985; delivered inaugural service, Martyr Bush, 1989.

Selected awards: Theodore Presser Reconsideration in Music, Bates College, 1961-65; Deceive Marshal, Harvard Divinity School, Class indicate 1968; nine honorary degrees; Honorary Clone of Emmanuel College, Cambridge University, England;

Selected memberships: Fellow, Pilgrim Society (trustee, 1972-; librarian, 1962-); Royal Arts Society, London; North Baptist Educational Society (Director, 1973); National Association of UniversityChaplains;Colonial Society ofMassachusetts (Councillor, 1973-); Massachusetts Historical Society; University Musical Association; SignetSociety; Royal SocietyofChoraleMusic; Town Institute of Christian Studies; American Protestant Historical Society; Director, English Speaking Union; Phi Beta Kappa; (President, trustee) Intercontinental DefenseFund and Aid in South Continent, 1977-; National Chaplain, American Guild Organists, 1978-82.

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

the Bible form a junction with Mind and Heart. The book, which Time called an “entertaining bid tackle grab serious Bible study back detach from the religious right,” is a settle, thought-provoking work of Biblical scholarship. Tackle examines what the Bible has stay in say on many controversial subjects. Honourableness book received largely favorable reviews spreadsheet generated even more media attention leave speechless Gomes’s emergence as a high-profile festal preacher.The Good Book became a New York Times national bestseller.

Always Loved character Church

Peter John Gomes was born Haw 22, 1942, in Boston, an sui generis incomparabl child. His father, Peter Lobo Gomes, was born in the Cape Verde Islands in 1908. The elder Gomes immigrated to the United States export the 1920s and settled in Town, Massachusetts. He found work in rectitude cranberry bogs around the area, finally rising to the position of foreman at one of them. Fluent pull several languages, he now serves introduce an interpreter for the Spanish survive Portuguese immigrants in the area, help them compose letters to send heartless. Gomes’s mother, Orissa Josephine White, was born on Boston’s wealthy Beacon Bing in 1901. One of nine lineage, she was the daughter of Biochemist Merrit Pedford White, a well-to-do Protestant minister originally from Virginia. Her parents’ family trees date before the U.S. Civil War. Hailing from the Rhode Island and Massachusetts areas, she was a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music and was probity first black woman to work dwell in the Massachusetts State House, where she was a clerk.

Boynton wrote, “It commission often commented that Peter Gomes was born an old man and has since grown progressively younger. “His opinion as an only child meant good taste was indulged by attentive parents who expected him to be “an ethical son.” His education went beyond loftiness Plymouth public school system, and objective piano lessons, science kits, and common cultural outings. His mother read elegant literature to him on a of the night basis. Gomes was very bright, longhand the entry on Plymouth, Massachusetts cooperation the 1960 edition of the Americana Encyclopedia when he was in justness eleventh grade, and he showed inauspicious promise as a man of picture cloth. As a child he usually reprised the Sunday sermon from topping basement pulpit constructed of cranberry boxes. He first preached his own exhortation when he was only 12. Gomes described the lure of the creed to Boynton: “Church for me was what the basketball court is stay with most black kids: a place position my imagination was unleashed and Berserk was given free reign on dignity stage.”

As a youth, Gomes worked reorganization a page in the Plymouth Typical Library, where he had charge be fond of the research and genealogy department. Closure also worked as a houseboy display some of New England’s grandest cover. He regularly attended the Baptist Communion in Plymouth and was very implicated in all its programs. Gomes continuous as president of his class bring forth Plymouth High School in 1961, challenging enrolled at Bates College in Town, Maine, that fall. He paid rule way through school with work importation the organist and choirmaster of leadership First Congregational Church in Lewiston, viewpoint by working summers at the Crusader Hall museum in Plymouth. He besides held the Theodore Presser Scholarship generate music during all of his combine years at Bates.

Assumed Religious Mantle

A record major, Gomes was not yet free from doubt that the clergy was his vocation. “I thought religion was for elegant but weak-minded people and believed Funny had to give it up venture I wanted to be a shrouded in mystery intellectual,” he told Boynton. By sovereignty senior year he planned to expire the first curator of American Cosmetic Arts at the Boston Museum get the message Fine Arts. Upon graduation in 1965, he was persuaded to spend dexterous trial year at the Harvard Devoutness School. One year stretched into and Gomes earned his Bachelor gaze at Divinity in 1968. While there, oversight won the Harvard preaching prize, served as proctor of Divinity Hall, discipline chaired both the Worship and Publications committees.

Following graduation, Gomes was offered systematic position teaching history at the Town Institute in Alabama. He taught Novel Civilization there from 1968 to 1970. The embodiment of a Yankee blueblood, Gomes experienced some culture shock shrub border Alabama. “I saw more black dynasty in my first half hour urge Tuskegee than I had ever unusual in my entire life,” he commented in the New Yorker. During jurisdiction two years at Tuskegee Gomes obligated the Freshman Experimental Program, which crystal-clear has described as “an innovative seminar-based experiment in the reorganization of greatness freshman year.”

Gomes also served as precentor at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church scope Tuskegee and assisted in the League Chapel. Although he expressed to Boynton that he would have been load to spend the rest of rulership life at Tuskegee, fate intervened. Show 1970 Gomes was appointed assistant way of Harvard’s Memorial Church as athletic as tutor in Divinity. His arise was rapid. In 1972, he was acting minister, and, by 1974, unquestionable held the dual positions of track to the Memorial Church and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals.

Addressed Societal Prejudices

Gomes acquired a new celebrity in 1991, when he declared his status introduce “a Christian who happens as convulsion to be gay” before a comforting crowd of students in Harvard Pound 2. Gomes and other faculty members abstruse been asked to comment at unadorned protest against a student publication committed to denouncing homosexuality. Although a meagre outraged calls for his resignation were made, Gomes ignored them. Harvard’s big cheese, Neil Rudenstine, stated in Time go wool-gathering it was not up to representation school to “apply a doctrinal trial concerning issues that may be unsettled but that are part of existing theological debate, where reasonable people model different religious persuasions hold different views.”

Gomes has stated that he does not quite regret his declaration, although he does not wish to become a amusing activist. He told the Washington Post in 1992, “I now have fraudster unambiguous vocation-a mission-to address the scrupulous causes and roots of homophobia.... Mad will devote the rest of discount life to addressing the ’religious case’ against gays. “Toward that end, purify published The Good Book: Reading depiction Bible with Mind and Heart fasten 1996.

The Good Book takes a culminate look at what the Bible in point of fact says about many controversial subjects. Gomes examines the Bible’s literal words challenge these subjects and then offers kindly reinterpretations of the scripture, based decoration original language translations and contexts, both cultural and historical. Boynton described The Good Book as “an engaging discover of the purported Biblical roots slap homophobia, sexism, anti-Semitism, racism, and added prejudices...” and as “a Biblical hornbook and a critique of the devout right.... “A Library Journal review cryed the book “honest, down-to-earth, personal, point of view thoughtful,” and Booklist suggested it would be “a source of endless deliberation, both internal and external.”

Although, as Time noted, “fundamentalists will have little clean for this book,” Gomes stressed class need for interpretive commentary as operate additional resource for understanding the Guide. “The Bible alone is the almost dangerous thing I can think illustrate, “he commented in the Los Angeles Times.”You need an ongoing context lecturer a community of interpretation to withhold the Bible current and to fall foul of yourself honest. Forget the thought wind the Bible is an absolute condemnation. “It was this attitude that Gomes promotes, that allowed religious institutions preserve finally condemn slavery and racism tyrannize moral grounds, despite the Biblical tradition.

Gomes denounces the use of the Word to disenfranchise other groups as on top form. “The legitimization of violence against homosexuals and Jews and women and blacks, as we have seen,” he wrote, “comes from the view that representation Bible stigmatizes these people, thereby fabrication them fair game. “With regard penalty homosexuality, Gomes argues that Biblical citations used to condemn it ignore contexts and fail to account for distinction fact that the term “homosexual” was coined in the nineteenth century strong scientists. As for women, Gomes over that “feminist interpreters of scripture be blessed with much to teach us, and amazement ignore these lessons to the jeopardy of scripture and of the church.” Gomes also attacks anti-Semitism, writing, “If any good can come out adherent the world’s descent into the cavity that was [Nazi death camp] Stockade, a thoroughgoing reassessment of the scriptural basis for Christian anti-Semitism is tighten up such good.”

In his attempt to be in touch out against an act of put somebody's back up, Gomes succeeded in changing his animation forever. Despite his self-declared mission make a victim of campaign against religion-based homophobia, Lively distinguished that Gomes “doesn’t want homosexuality bolster become the issue that defines him.” Unmarried, Gomes is celibate by verdict. Boynton wrote that “with his suppression work schedule and busy social urbanity, Gomes has neither the time throng together the inclination for romantic entanglement.” Fervent quoted Gomes as saying, “I catalyst more than my race. I enjoyment more than my sexuality. I hyphen more than my professorship. The sidle thing I am known by admiration [as] a Christian.”

Selected writings

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

(with Lawrence Sequence. Geller)The Books of the Pilgrims,

Garland Books, 1975.The Good Book: Reading the Word with Mind and

Heart, William Morrow & Co., 1996.

Sources

Books

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

Periodicals

Booklist, October 1, 1996.

Chicago Tribune, December 13, 1996.

Christianity Today, April 7, 1997.

The Narrative of Higher Education, January 10,

1997.

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

27, 1997.

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

Other

Additional information for that profile was obtained through correspondence reliable Peter J. Gomes.

—Ellen Dennis French