Debate over Support of National Church Erupts in Fort Worth Diocesan Convention
Episcopal News Service. October 18, 1991 [91198]
An effort by some members of the Diocese of Fort Worth to protest actions of the recent General Convention and what they called the "liberal agenda" of the national leadership of the church erupted during a budget debate on the floor of the October 4-5 diocesan convention.
In what was described by participants as a "courteous but passionate" debate, delegates spent nearly three hours on the proposed 1992 budget that reduced the diocesan contributions to the national church from $225,000 to $53,584. Clergy and lay delegates voted separately on the budget. The clergy approved it 45-14, and the lay delegates approved it 69-25.
Although Fort Worth Bishop Clarence Pope said that the proposed budget reflected "a very tight economic situation in the diocese," he acknowledged that "there probably was an element of protest in it."
Pope suggested that the protest represented a wider "disatisfaction throughout the church," but that economic realities would have forced the diocese to reduce support of the national church "no matter what had happened in Phoenix."
"It was strictly an economic issue as far as the finance committee was concerned," said diocesan treasurer Elton Murdoch. "But when the budget reached the convention floor it did become a very political issue."
Murdoch cited a need to set aside funds for the election of a bishop coadjutor, funding for a diocesan camp, and a shift toward local mission activities as reasons for a nearly 5 percent diocesan budget increase for 1992. "Our task was to propose a balanced budget," Murdoch said. "Because of the local economy we had to make cuts somewhere."
Pope asserted that the loss of nearly 4,000 jobs at a local General Dynamics plant has had a serious impact on the parishes of the diocese. "This is hitting the parishes very hard."
However, several participants in the diocesan debate saw the proposed budget as an opportunity to register a protest against the national church. "We see this as a theological protest," said the Rev. Jeffrey Steenson, rector of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Fort Worth, in a press report. As stewards, we need to support programs we believe are in line with the Gospel."
Attorney Bob Randolph, also of St. Andrew's, said that he had spoken in favor of a protest against "the actions of General Convention and the church leadership in New York." In particular, Randolph said that the "failure to stop ordaining homosexuals" at the recent General Convention and the "topheaviness and the radical agenda of the church headquarters" led him to support a protest.
Critics of the cutback said that the budget proposal reflected a parochial view of the church and set a bad precedent for the future. "We were saying that we are a part of a larger whole," said the Rev. William Nix of All Saints Episcopal Church in Fort Worth, who opposed the budget proposal.
"When parishes develop budgets, they assume that the diocesan assessment is a given, and the diocese should operate under the same assumption," Nix said. "Just as parishes have a moral obligation to the diocese, dioceses have a moral obligation to the national church," he added.