CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The Rev. Peter J. Gomes, a nationally influential Baptist minister and advocate for tolerance who oversaw Harvard University’s Memorial Church for more than 30 years, has died. He was 68.
Gomes died Monday of complications from a stroke, according to a statement from the university.
“Peter Gomes served Harvard with unparalleled dedication, wisdom, and creativity for more than four decades,” President Drew Faust said. “He was an original, a teacher in the fullest sense a scholar, a mentor, one of the great preachers of our generation, and a living symbol of courage and conviction.”
Gomes described himself as a cultural conservative but stunned the Harvard community in 1991 when he said he was gay in response to harassment against gays on campus.
He published 11 volumes of sermons, as well as books, including in 1996 “The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart,” in which he analyzed the Bible’s use in marginalizing Jews, Blacks, women and gays.
He condemned those who used the Bible to justify racism, oppression and homophobia, but also steadfastly defended the text’s message.
Gomes was a professor at Harvard Divinity School who most recently taught classes on the history of Harvard and its presidents, interpreting the Bible, and an introduction to preaching.
