Fort Worth's Mood and Action in the Future
The President of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Fort Worth has written concerning the outcome of two meetings with clergy and lay leaders here taken in the last months. His concluding paragraph speaks volumes about the mood of our diocese about remaining in our present relations with 815 and its adherents (emphasis added):
Three general options for the future were identified in May. During the whole course of both meetings, we heard two or three persons voice support for a path of complete accession to the positions taken by the General Convention of The Episcopal Church. There was a little more support for continuing the current course of staying and witnessing within The Episcopal Church. The overwhelming opinion expressed by those who spoke was that it is time for the realignment to move forward, as we committed ourselves to doing at our Diocesan Convention of 2003.* Sadly, no other solution to the crisis could be identified. With faith and renewed hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, we will move forward.We appreciate the contributions made by all who participated, and we pray for the life and direction of this diocese.
The Very Rev. Ryan S. Reed
President on behalf of the Standing Committee
Three general options for the future were identified in May. During the whole course of both meetings, we heard two or three persons voice support for a path of complete accession to the positions taken by the General Convention of The Episcopal Church. There was a little more support for continuing the current course of staying and witnessing within The Episcopal Church. The overwhelming opinion expressed by those who spoke was that it is time for the realignment to move forward, as we committed ourselves to doing at our Diocesan Convention of 2003.* Sadly, no other solution to the crisis could be identified. With faith and renewed hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, we will move forward.We appreciate the contributions made by all who participated, and we pray for the life and direction of this diocese.
The Very Rev. Ryan S. Reed
President on behalf of the Standing Committee
posted by Texanglican (R.W. Foster+) | 3:30 PM
8 Comments:
I truly envy you the faith and unity of your diocese. Several more, including my former TEC diocese, have generally faithful bishops. They are simply paralyzed by large minorities or even majorities of clergy, and the vestries who control their pay, who are either in favor of the new TEC religion, or feel they are morally superior by ignoring it.
My prayers for your bishop, and the people of the diocese. I have left TEC, but have some modest expectations that the ingathering of the faithful will reunite us in the relatively near future.
Is the mood of the diocese shared by 100 percent of its members? Or nearly 100 percent?
That I cannot say, anon, but among the clergy the sentiment for action--strong and decisive action--seems to be running at greater than 75% based upon conversations I have had. The clergy vote at diocesan convention last fall was around 80%, and nothing I have seen or heard since leads me to believe anything different will take place this November at the 2007 Convention. (We have about 4 congregations that seem to have strong sentiment to NOT take strong action, and a few more that are significantly divided--that would be about 10% or 15% of the diocese opposed to moving ahead with realignment as the Standing Committee statement appears to suggest.)
I strongly suspect that real action is coming in FW this fall to "move ahead," precisely as today's statement indicates. (I am not party to any secret info--that's just my gut feeling based on public statements and actions.) Nothing coming out of New Orleans today seems to contradict that as far as I can see. (Great buckets of Anglican fudge and classic TEC ambiguity in the final statement out of NO, as we all suspected.) Stay tuned for the proposed resolutions for the diocesan convention. We will know a lot more then. Patience.
PECUSA is no longer a viable orthodox alternative and hasn't been for many years. If I am wrong, please tell me how.
I see it as a simple choice: Follow Christ or follow man. Man rules PECUSA...
AFAIK, it hasn't been the PECUSA for a while, has it? Isn't it the ECUSA now?
Actually, the last GenCon in 06 made "TEC" the "official" abbreviation, Julian. They didn't like the "USA" of ECUSA being in the abbreviation, since they wanted to emphasize the international character of the Episcopal church rather than its national character. You are certainly right about PECUSA being out of date. That was given up years ago, much to the consternation of some.
Most of the clergy that oppose Bishop Iker left years ago, so I am not surprised that Father Foster says 75% agree. The true test will be when the delegates, people Bishop Iker himself has told year after year that "We are not leaving the Episcopal Church" see and vote on the amendments offered. I do not see that any one church in the diocese has 100% of its membership behind the bishop (there's always one), although I think the Iker backers are probably in the majority. Many of the delegates to convention (although voted upon by their parishes) are basically hand-picked by the Iker-backing clergy, so I think I can guess the ultimate result of the voting.
Anon, I certainly agree that there are not any 100% "Iker-backing" parishes here, but I would be surprised if the two parishes that I know best lose more "the low double digits" in members during the course of the next year as a result of the amendments proposed today. I can assure you that Bishop Iker is loved and respected by the overwhelming majority of parishioners at St. Vincent's, Bedford, and St. Laurence's, Southlake.
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