Conservative Leadership
Duncan quickly became the head of a group of Episcopal leaders hoping to maintain conservatism within the denomination. When openly homosexual priest Gene Robinson was elected Bishop of New Hampshire, Duncan voiced strong opposition to the election. After Robinson's election was confirmed by the church's general convention on August 5, 2003, Duncan acted as spokesman for a group of conservative bishops and lay leaders at a press conference expressing disappointment at Robinson's election. Duncan denounced the election claiming that the Episcopal Church had "departed from the historic faith and order of the Church of Jesus Christ". Duncan and Robinson were members of the same GTS class, both having taken their MDiv degrees in 1973.
In January 2004, Duncan became the leader of the newly formed Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes, a conservative action group whose stated mission was to allow "Episcopalians to remain in communion with the vast majority of the worldwide Anglican Communion who have declared either impaired or broken communion with the Episcopal Church USA."
At the March 17, 2005, meeting of Episcopal Church's House of Bishops, Duncan read a speech in which he admitted that the rift between the two sides may be "irreconcilable". In a possible sign of schism, St. Brendan's, a liberal parish in Franklin Park, Pennsylvania, announced in February 2005 that it no longer wished to be under Duncan's oversight.
In July 2007, Duncan made remarks criticizing Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for inadequately supporting "orthodox" breakaways from ECUSA, declaring, "The cost is his office... To lose that historic office is a cost of such magnitude that God must be doing a new thing." The statement critical of the Anglican Communion's worldwide leader led the Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner to resign from the Anglican Communion Network, which he had assisted in founding, out of the concern that "Bishop Duncan has, in the end, decided to start a new church." Radner explained, "Bishop Duncan has now declared the See of Canterbury and the Lambeth Conference — two of the four Instruments of Communion within our tradition — to be 'lost'." At the request of Rowan Williams, Duncan attended the 2007 Primates' Meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Read more about this topic: Robert Duncan (bishop)
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