Jack Iker, fmr. bishop of diocese that left Episcopal Church over gay marriage, helped found ACNA, dies
Jack Iker, a former bishop who led his Texas-based diocese to leave The Episcopal Church over its support for same-sex marriage and helped found the Anglican Church in North America, has died at 75.
Iker died Saturday, according to The Forth Worth Report, with the retired bishop being survived by his wife, Donna Iker, three daughters and four grandchildren.
Fr. Mark Polley, rector and dean at St. Vincent’s Cathedral of Bedford, Texas, took to his Facebook account to give his condolences, calling the late bishop “an incredible example of a Godly man faithfully living the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
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“God only knows how many people he positively influenced with his faith, courage, steadfastness, but perhaps above all, his love for the people under his care and his humor in the goodness of this life,” Polley wrote.
“To say that he is loved and will be missed would be a huge understatement. Rest well, Bishop. I can't thank you enough for your ministry and your years of love and support, both personally, and for global Anglicanism.”
Born in 1949 and a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Iker served as a church rector in Florida before he was consecrated as bishop coadjutor for the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth in April 1993. He then became bishop of the Fort Worth Diocese on Jan. 1, 1995.
A theological conservative, Iker joined a majority of the diocese's clergy and lay representatives as they voted to leave The Episcopal Church in November 2008 over the theologically liberal direction of the denomination.
Iker is credited with co-founding the Anglican Church in North America, a theologically conservative denomination that became the home for many Episcopal congregations that left the liberal mainline Protestant church.
The national denomination, however, refused to recognize the dismissal, which led to several years of litigation over which side rightfully owned the property and marks of the diocese.
In May 2020, the Texas Supreme Court issued a ruling in favor of the breakaway group, saying that they owned the approximately $100 million in property assets, not the national denomination.
A few months before that, in December 2019, Iker retired as bishop of the Fort Worth Diocese, being succeeded by the Rt. Rev. Ryan S. Reed.
Iker had previously battled cancer in 2018 while still serving as bishop, ultimately surviving the bout and being declared “cancer-free” by May 2019 following treatments at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
In early August, a short statement was posted on the Facebook page of Bishop Jack Leo Iker by his family, explaining that “Bishop Iker has had a recurrence of cancer which has metastasized” and noted that he was going into hospice care.
“He was a pastor’s pastor,” Bishop Reed said of Iker, as quoted by The Fort Worth Report. “His first loyalty was to the clergy and their families. If you did something wrong, he would discipline you, but the purpose was to correct you out of love or hold you accountable.”
