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NPR - ALL THINGS CONSIDERED: Conservatives and Liberals duke it out on national radio
MELISSA BLOCK, host: From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.
MICHELE NORRIS, host: And I'm Michele Norris.
It's been six months since Gene Robinson was confirmed as the first openly gay bishop of the Episcopal Church. Since then, conservatives have threatened to punish the national church by withholding their money. Today, the treasurer of the church told officials that was an empty threat. Pledges for next year are only slightly down from last year, yet conservatives say the church has no idea of the problems that it may face. NPR's Barbara Bradley Hagerty reports.
BARBARA BRADLEY HAGERTY reporting: Kurt Barnes, the treasurer of the Episcopal Church, describes himself as a conservative man, not one prone to, quote, "gilding the lily." He's keenly aware of the controversy that's been roiling the church since it recognized gay unions and consecrated Gene Robinson, a gay priest, to be bishop of New Hampshire.
Given all this, Barnes says he's pleased that he's received commitments from more than three-quarters of the bishops, and so far, their pledges to the national church are down only 7 percent.
Mr. KURT BARNES (Treasurer, Episcopal Church): The impact is what I would describe as insignificant.
HAGERTY: Barnes is recommending that the dioceses cut their spending by 5 to 10 percent. Jim Naughton, a spokesman for the Diocese of Washington, DC, says this isn't cause for rejoicing, but it's not the predicted apocalypse, either.
Mr. JIM NAUGHTON (Spokesman, Episcopal Diocese of Washington, DC): The narrative line since General Convention has been, `Oh, watch out. The Episcopal Church is taking in water. The Episcopal Church is going down.' And that's definitely not happening. So it's hard to disentangle an intelligent analysis of where we stand now from the sort of what amounts to the kind of ecclesiastical version of trash talking that's coming from the other side, you know, this sort of, `You're going down. You're going down.'
Reverend DON ARMSTRONG (Rector, Grace Episcopal Church, Colorado Springs): I think what you're getting from the national church is a spin.
HAGERTY: Don Armstrong is rector of the 2,400-member Grace Episcopal Church in Colorado Springs. He says the bishops, most of whom voted for gay unions and Gene Robinson, have an interest in creating the impression that there has been no financial impact. And, he says, they'll go to great lengths to do so.
For example, angry conservative parishioners in Colorado have withheld some $350,000 from their diocese, he says, but the bishop is eating that loss locally and giving the same amount as last year to the national church. Armstrong says the bishops can't do that for long.
Rev. ARMSTRONG: As we move into 2004 and their monthly income decreases, they're going to be faced with the reality that they don't have the money in the bank to write the checks.
HAGERTY: Kendall Harmon, an official of the Diocese of South Carolina, says the situation will only grow more acute with time. Parishioners, entire churches and even two dioceses, Pittsburgh and Dallas, are directing their money away from the national church toward other ministries. A new network of conservative churches is being formed, and Harmon says that will no doubt attract money that would otherwise go to the national church. People are leaving the Episcopal Church altogether and taking their money with them. In fact, Harmon says, entire churches are leaving the denomination to join a conservative offshoot of Anglicanism.
Mr. KENDALL HARMON (Diocese of South Carolina): Basically, the vast majority of a parish just left from St. John's, Melbourne, and went to the Anglican Mission in America. So in that diocese, most of the pledge from that parish to the Diocese of Central Florida is going to go down. So as the year progresses, you're going to start to see these figures work themselves through the system more.
HAGERTY: Jim Naughton in Washington, DC, notes that a couple of conservative churches in the DC area have decided to withhold their money from the diocese. But others who are happy about recognizing gay unions and a gay bishop are making up the shortfall. Mr. NAUGHTON: Many people in those parishes have said, `Fine. If you're not going to give to the diocese, we're going to give directly to the diocese.' So this idea that people are voting with their pocketbooks, that goes both ways.
HAGERTY: And so in this war of words and finances, when there's way too much smoke to figure out who's left standing, both sides are claiming victory.
Barbara Bradley Hagerty, NPR News, Washington.
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