Peter J. Gomes

Reverend Professor Peter J. Gomes, born in 1942, is an ordained American Baptist Minister, professor, noted speaker and author. He has served in the Memorial Church at Harvard University since 1970. In 1974 he became the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister.

Reverend Gomes holds the following degrees:

• New England College
• Waynesburg College
• Gordon College
• Knox College
• The University of the South
• Duke University
• The University of Nebraska
• Wooster College
• Bates College
• Hebrew Union College
• Jewish Institute of Religion
• Trinity College
• Bowdoin College
• Berkeley Divinity School at Yale
• Colby College

Professor Gomes is a member of the Faculty of the Divinity and Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. He is an Honorary Fellow of Emmanuel College, The University of Cambridge (England), where The Gomes Lectureship was established in his name; and is a Member of The Council of Sarum College, Salisbury, England.

In 1988 Professor Gomes presented the Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale Divinity School. The same year he was named Clergy of the Year by Religion in American Life. In 2000 he delivered the University Sermon before the University of Cambridge and the Millennial Sermon at Canterbury Cathedral. In 2001 Harvard University presented him with the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Award. This same year he served as Missioner to Oxford University presenting a series of lectures in the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin.

Reverend Professor Gomes' past positions include acting director at the Du Bois Institue for W.E.B. Afro-American Research; and, past president of the Signet Society at Harvard University.

He has authored the following books:

Professor Gomes also participated in the presidential inaugurations of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. He serves on the board of The Living Pulpit in addition to serving as trustee of the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), the Roxbury Latin School, Wellesley College (of the Public Broadcasting Service), Plimoth Plantation, The Pilgrim Society of Plymouth Massachusetts and Bates College. Proferssor Gomes also gives to the community by being a member of The Massachusetts Historical Society, The Colonial Society of Massachusetts, the Advisory Board of the Winterthur Museum, and as a Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts (London, England).

Reverend Professor Peter Gomes has been profiled by Robert Boynton of the New Yorker, interviewd by Morley Safer on 60 Minutes, and was included in the summer 1999 issue of Talk Magazine as one of "The Best Talkers in America: Fifty Big Mouths We Hope Will Never Shut Up."

It should also be noted that Professor Reverend Peter Gomes is homosexual. The act of "coming out" played a large part in his inspiration for "The Good Book".

Information above was gathered in part at the following websites: http://www.memorialchurch.harvard.edu/preachers/pjg.shtml http://www.hds.harvard.edu/dpa/faculty/min/gomes.html