Ryan Reed

Ryan Spencer Reed (born 1967) is an American Anglican bishop. Since 2020, he has been the fourth diocesan bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth in the Anglican Church in North America.

Early life and education

Reed was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1967. He has said that his birth mother was an unwed teenager who gave him up for adoption, an experience that he has said informs his pro-life views. Reed was raised and confirmed in the Episcopal Church and knew as a child that he wanted to become a priest. He was raised in Texas and attended Texas A&M University, where he was in the TAMU Corps of Cadets. He graduated in 1990, after which he became youth minister at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Fort Worth. St. Vincent's was the location for the inaugural provincial assembly of the Anglican Church in North America.

Reed is from the Anglo-Catholic tradition within Anglicanism and has been a member of the Society of the Holy Cross since 1999. He became a Forward in Faith North America council member in 2008.

In 2021, under Reed's leadership, a group of churches in the Diocese of Fort Worth and the Diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others began exploring the creation of a ACNA missionary district and proto-diocese in the Dallas area, which to begin would be a deanery of the Diocese of Fort Worth.

After two women were consecrated as bishops in GAFCON member province the Anglican Church of Kenya, Reed and the diocese's standing committee issued a statement in 2021 recognizing "that the ordination of women has been a contentious and divisive issue" and "urg[ing] our brethren and spiritual fathers to move away from divisiveness, not toward it. Citing the ACNA's constitutional moratorium on women bishops, "This standing committee, together with our bishop, believes that the same principle of restraint should be applied locally as well as in the global church."

Conclusion of litigation

Reed's early episcopacy was dominated by the resolution of the long-running litigation between the Diocese of Fort Worth and the Episcopal Church. In May 2020, the Texas Supreme Court overturned an appellate court decision awarding the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth's property, valued at over $100 million, to the Episcopal Church-affiliated diocese. The court's ruling also affirmed the ACNA diocese as the owner of the diocesan name and seal, and the Episcopal diocese renamed itself the Episcopal Church in North Texas. Reed declared Pentecost Sunday 2020 to be a day of fasting and rededication in the Diocese of Fort Worth.

In the fall of 2020, the Episcopal Church appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case in February 2021. In April 2021, the Diocese of Fort Worth received possession of six church properties previously occupied by the Episcopal Church in North Texas that had not settled with the diocese prior to the commencement of litigation by the Episcopal Church in 2008. Some of the churches returned were stripped of personal property, down to the pews, altar fixtures, crucifixes, sheet music and kitchen appliances in some cases. The Texas Supreme Court in September 2021 ordered all personal property returned to the ACNA diocese within seven days, although some legal proceedings continued. With the return of property, the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth began replanting new congregations in the buildings, which Reed noted had been vacant for more than a year due to virtual worship during the COVID-19 pandemic. "The Diocese made every attempt to avoid this litigation, beginning before its dissociation from TEC in 2008," Reed said. "Unfortunately, negotiations ended abruptly after three church properties were released to TEC-majority congregations when the Presiding Bishop and local TEC leaders brought suit in April 2009, foreclosing on the possibility of any other settlement. As we put more than a decade of litigation behind us, we can once again devote ourselves to sharing the transforming love of Jesus Christ and our mission to equip the saints for the work of ministry. We look forward now in hope and trust for Christ’s leading." ACNA parishes that had been legally constrained by Episcopal Church objections from undertaking new construction were also free to resume these projects.