AUSTIN –– Texas Impact, the state’s oldest and largest interfaith advocacy network, was honored in the Texas House and Senate this morning, Tuesday, April 11, on its 50th anniversary.
Sen. Nathan Johnson (D-Dallas) and Rep. Donna Howard (D-Austin) commended the organization’s longstanding commitment to putting faith into action at the state level through its grassroots network of clergy and laypeople. Its more than two dozen member institutions represent millions of Texans who reside in the state’s 150 legislative districts.
Texas Impact was founded in 1973 following the Sharpstown Scandal, which exposed corruption at the highest levels of state politics. The banking scandal lead the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, Speaker of the House and more than half of the legislature to retire or lose their elections.
Lin Team, Texas Impact’s founding executive director, remembered how the scandal impacted people of faith. “The Texas Conference of Churches was a strong consortium of Protestant and Roman Catholic leaders who believed that they could not ignore the injustice evidenced by those events.”
The Conference joined Jewish leaders in establishing the Interfaith Commission on Human Priorities to address legislation affecting Texans who were not receiving fair or adequate treatment in Texas’ laws and policies, said Team.
The organization changed its name to Texas Impact in 1979, to align with colleague State Interfaith Impact organizations across the country. Even as Texas Impact expanded its programming, its focus remained the same.
“The heart and soul of Texas Impact are our members—from denominational bodies to local congregations and individuals of faith and conscience—who use their time, talents, and treasure to bear witness in the public square to the power of love,” said executive director Bee Moorhead.
Board President Reverend Franz Schemmel, a Lutheran minister in North Texas, said Texas Impact’s work is needed now more than ever. “It is increasingly important for faith communities to work together in unity to address the dynamic social issues facing us in this time. Texas Impact has done this for 50 years, always broadening its participation and focusing its advocacy for justice, peace and compassion,” Schemmel said.
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ABOUT TEXAS IMPACT
Texas Impact is a religious grassroots network whose members include individuals, congregations, and governing bodies of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and other faiths. Texas Impact exists to advance state public policies that are consistent with the shared values of Texas faith communities.
The non-profit works on a wide variety of public policy issues within the broadly held social concerns of mainstream religious traditions. Texas Impact uses a process of discernment on public policy issues similar to the processes used by many faith traditions, including Scripture, the wisdom of the faith traditions, current public policy information and data, and the experiential knowledge of people of faith to develop our positions and policy goals.