Peter Gomes

The Reverend Professor Peter Gomes, a renown theologian will address the challenge of inclusion. Professor Gomes has served in the Memorial Church, Harvard University since 1974, as Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church. A member of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Faculty of Divinity of Harvard University, Professor Gomes holds degrees from Bates College and from Harvard Divinity School and honorary degrees from nine American colleges. He is an Honorary Fellow of Emmanuel College, the University of Cambridge, England. Widely regarded as one of America's most distinguished preachers, Professor Gomes has fulfilled preaching and lecturing engagements throughout this country and the British Isles. Gomes acquired a new celebrity in 1991, when he declared his status as "a Christian who happens as well to be gay" before a cheering crowd of students in Harvard Yard. Gomes and other faculty members had been asked to comment at a protest against a student publication devoted to denouncing homosexuality. Although a few outraged calls for his resignation were made, Gomes ignored them. In 1996 Gomes published The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart. It examines what the Bible has to say on many controversial subjects. The book received largely favorable reviews and generated even more media attention than Gomes's emergence as a high-profile gay preacher. The Good Book became a New York Times national bestseller. A lover of life, he invests no less into the betterment of humanity than he does into God.  He has an eloquent and rhythmically precise speech style that will both captivate and educate.