Robert Duncan (bishop)
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| Denomination | Episcopal Church |
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| Senior posting | |
| See | Pittsburgh, PA |
| Title | Bishop of Pittsburgh |
| Period in office | Sept. 13, 1997 — present |
| Predecessor | Bishop Alden Hathaway |
| Successor | incumbent |
| Personal | |
| Date of birth | July 5, 1948 |
| Place of birth | Bordentown, New Jersey |
| Part of a series on the Anglican realignment |
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| Background | |
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Christianity |
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| People | |
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Peter Akinola |
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| Anglican Realignment Associations | |
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American Anglican Council |
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Anglican Province of America |
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Robert William Duncan, Jr. (born July 5, 1948) is the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh in the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA). Duncan was seated in office on September 13, 1997. Prior to becoming bishop, he served as Canon to the Ordinary and Bishop Coadjutor of the Pittsburgh diocese. Bishop Duncan serves as Moderator of the Anglican Communion Network, a united, biblically driven Anglicanism to North America, making disciples of Jesus Christ. Bishop Duncan and the ACN, in conjunction with the larger Common Cause Partners, have come to represent the hope for a return to the historic faith and order of Anglicanism.
Bishop Duncan holds many ecleastical and civic duties. He is a trustee of both Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pa, and Nashota House Seminary in Wisconsin, the only two growing and expanding seminaries in the United States [1]. He is the President of the Anglican Releif and Development Fund which provides millions of dollars in disaster relief and aid each year. ARDF is committed to helping true partners in the Gospel achieve real results on problems like those highlighted by the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals. At the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, Bishop Duncan attended the 2007 Primates Meeting in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania where he provided contrasting views to that of Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori. Bishop Duncan has hosted and coordinated many national and international conferences, including the upcomming Global Anglican Future Conference in the Holy Land. Also a leader in Southwestern Pennsylvania, Bishop Duncan serves as president of Christian Associates, a ecumencial group that binds together Christians of all denominations. Bishop Duncan holds honorary doctorates from General Theological Seminary (1996) and Nashota House (2006).
God's vision for the Diocese of Pittsburgh under Bishop Duncan is "One Church of Miraculous Expectation and Missionary Grace." The Bishop believes this vision will be accomplished in five areas: building congregations, making disciples, establishing partnerships, gathering resources and recruiting youth. When successes, triumphs or challenges are pointed to, the Bishop's response is predictable: "It's 90% prayer, 10% all the rest."
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[edit] Background
Duncan was born in Bordentown, New Jersey in 1948. His mother suffered from mental illness and he found refuge from the tumult of his family life in prayer and meditation at Christ Episcopal Church in Bordentown. He attended Bordentown Military Institute where he graduated valedictorian. He then entered Trinity College (A.B. cum laude) in Hartford, Connecticut. After graduating from Trinity in 1970 he enrolled at the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church (MDiv., DD Honorus Causa) in New York. During his time at seminary, Duncan also studied Scottish history at Edinburgh University.
After being ordained as a deacon on April 22, 1972, he was ordained a priest on October 28, 1973, the feast of Ss. Simon and Jude. His first assignments were at the Chapel of the Intercession in New York City, at Grace Church in Merchantsville, New Jersey, and a short period at Christ Church in Edinburgh, Scotland. From 1974 to 1978, he served as Assistant Dean at the General Seminary. He spent the next 16 years in campus ministries in The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Duncan then spent ten years as rector of St. Thomas's parish in Newark, Delaware.
Bishop Duncan served on the Programme Committee of the Network for Anglicans in Mission and Evangelism, an agency created at the 1998 Lambeth Conference. In 2004 Bishop Duncan was a driving force in the creation of the Anglican Relief and Development Fund, and multi-million dollar enterprise for which he continues to serve as President.
He is best known beyond Pittsburgh for his role as Moderator of the Anglican Communion Network since its inception in 2003, and as Chairman of the Common Cause Partnership (gathering ten conservative Anglican bodies in the United States and Canada) since its creation in 2004.
[edit] Election as bishop
Duncan was a finalist for Bishop of Colorado in 1990. In 1992, Alden M. Hathaway then Bishop of Pittsburgh and a noted theological conservative, named Duncan his Canon to the Ordinary.
Duncan was not nominated by the committee that picked candidates for Bishop Hathaway’s successor. He was nominated from the floor of the convention, however, and was eventually elected. On September 13, 1997, Duncan was consecrated Bishop of Pittsburgh. The Diocese of Pittsburgh is considered by many in the Episcopal Church to be one of the most traditionalist and evangelical leaning dioceses in the ECUSA.
[edit] Conservative leadership
Bishop Robert Duncan quickly became a leader of a group of Episcopal leaders hoping to maintain traditional orthodox theology in the denomination. When openly homosexual priest V. Gene Robinson was elected Bishop of New Hampshire, Duncan voiced strong opposition to the election. After Robinson's election was confirmed by the denomination's General Convention on August 5, 2003, Duncan acted as spokesman for a group of conservative bishops and lay leaders at a press conference in which they expressed disappointment at Robinson's election. Duncan denounced the election claiming that the ECUSA had, "departed from the historic faith and order of the Church of Jesus Christ."
In January 2004, Bishop Duncan became the leader of the newly formed Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes, a conservative action group whose stated mission is 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 the ECUSA's House of Bishops, Bishop Duncan read a speech in which he admitted that the rift between the two sides may be "irreconcilable" [2]. 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 [3].
In July 2007, Bishop Duncan made remarks criticizing Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams for inadequately supporting "orthodox" breakaways from the 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."[1] 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'."[2]
Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori has made numerous attempts to threaten Bishop Duncan with canonical and legal action against him and the Diocese of Pittsburgh. On January 15, 2008, a committee of the Episcopal Church found that Duncan had abandoned the communion of the church.[3] Subesquent to this finding, a canonically convened committee of the three most senior Bishops in the Episcopal Church declined to inhibit Duncan from ministry. Because Bishop Duncan has not be inhibited, no further action can be taken.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Jan Nunley, "Network delegates seek end to property litigation," Episcopal News Service, August 1, 2007.
- ^ E. Radner, "Resignation from ACN."
- ^ Episcopal Life Online - NEWS
[edit] External links
- "What Is God Doing? - Bishop Duncan Speaks on the Crisis in the Anglican Communion (video)"
- "Bishop Duncan's Report on the 2007 Primates Meeting in Tanzania (video)"
- "Pittsburgh's bishop, gay N.H. colleague represent opposite ends of Episcopal Church"
- Interview at beliefnet.com
- NPR: A Bishop and breakaway group
- Episcopal Bishop Robert Duncan gives warning
- Pittsburgh bishop removes himself from Philadelphia row
- Nashotah House Confers Honorary Doctorate on Bishop Robert Duncan
