Anglican Communion Network

ACN Moderator’s Testimony to Lambeth Commission

For Immediate Release
August 16, 2004

The Anglican Communion Network (ACN) today released Moderator Bishop Robert Duncan’s testimony before the Lambeth Commission during their June meeting at Kanuga Conference Center. Bishop Duncan led a team representing the ACN on Tuesday, June 15, 2004, outlining the doctrinal crisis which has fractured the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA). Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold and other ECUSA leaders offered a radically different perspective in their presentation the same day.

Comparing the situation within ECUSA to New York’s Twin Towers immediately following the terrorist attack, Bishop Duncan noted that while ECUSA may appear intact, internally “the inner core is inexorably melting away.” While ECUSA’s leadership consistently denies the severity of the crisis — denies that the “towers are on fire” — Bishop Duncan described ACN’s perception. “We, however, testify to you that the towers have been struck, that they are on fire, that thousands of souls are trapped within, and that chunks of rubble are already beginning to fall.”

Focusing on issues of evangelical truth and catholic order, Bishop Duncan declared that, “An irreparable split has occurred. What happened at General Convention of the Episcopal Church cannot be repaired,” he continued. “Within the Episcopal Church, there are two different worldviews, two different gospels, two different faiths,” he continued.

The bishop’s presentation cited a number of specific personal examples of ECUSA’s “schism and chaos.” He told the Commission of transferring clergy to overseas jurisdictions; he described the breakdown of mutual recognition of ministries; and he reported on the March 2004 meeting of the House of Bishops which refused to hear the concerns of the ACN bishops in attendance.

Finally, Bishop Duncan offered “a way forward” in which he outlined six recommendations for the Lambeth Commission to consider. In conclusion, he passionately urged the Commission to protect the ACN through recognition of the Network: “Will you put limits on the chaos? Can we then rise together to the challenge of shaping and building a deeper and more profound Communion whose hallmarks for the future are just as they have been in the past, evangelical truth and catholic order? We of the Network stand ready to do our part in the difficult road of Reformation (rebuilding, if you will) that lies ahead of us all.”

Bishop Duncan’s testimony, as well as those of other presenters, has been posted to the Anglican Communion Network website: www.anglicancommunionnetwork.org.