As Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast, the Right Rev. Philip M. Duncan, II, is faith leader for 62 churches with approximately 22,000 parishioners.
Traveling through the diocese – stretching from west Florida through south Alabama – Duncan, alongside parish priests, preaches, teaches, confirms new members, baptizes and celebrates the Eucharist.
“My position,” he says, “is not only to serve in the diocese but also in the church and ultimately in the worldwide Anglican community.”
An affable, philosophical man with a buoyant sense of humor, Duncan was consecrated as bishop in May 2001.
[blockquote]Christ Church – which became Christ Church Cathedral – was rocked by its own difficulties, a schism sending one group off to form another church. The “pain” was great to Duncan, he says, even more so to his predecessor, Bishop Charles Duvall, and above all “for the numerous families that were being torn apart.”
“I think that what happened,” he says, “was good people became convinced that the church was moving in a way that was contrary to their understanding of what it means to be a Christian. And that over a 10-year period they made a conscious decision to separate themselves from the Episcopal church, and the previous bishop was very clear that he was not going to support that abandonment of community.”
The Episcopal church and Anglican communion – 80 million members worldwide, he says – is undergoing “a major shift in the way we understand church. It is, as all shifts are, not easy. It will play itself out at some point, but it’s still unfolding.
“I think it comes down to how one interprets the Bible, whether one believes that there is salvation outside of the church, whether changes in the church’s teaching, or at least practice, regarding divorce, receiving communion and not being baptized or not being confirmed, blessing same-gendered unions, ordination of practicing gay and lesbian persons – whether that is important enough to cause schism in the church rather than staying together and working out a way forward.
“I don’t believe it is. For me, it’s not of the essence of who we are.” [/blockquote]
The fun thing about that last line is this. [i]It never ever applies to the revisionists[/i] — only the protesting traditionalists.
For clearly — as witness the actions of 815 TEC — the gay activist gospel *is* “the essence of who they are.”
What Duncan actually means is “the protesting traditionalists should let this go” — for he clearly does not believe that the progressive TEC activists should “let it go” for the gay gospel is [i]the very essence of their identity[/i] and they are unable to let it go.
So … according to Bishop Duncan, the Christian gospel — the one held by the traditionalists in TEC — should not be “the essence of who we are” — but the gay gospel is allowed to be the essence of who they are.
Moving on to Bishop Duncan’s “successful” episcopacy — the high water mark of the past ten years for the diocese occurred back in 2000, with an ASA of about 8200. In 2008 ASA was about 6400.
Further, Christ Church Mobile went from around 300 ASA to around 100 — it lost 2/3 of its ASA.
Eight years later, it has never fully recovered. The “cathedral” of the Episcopal diocese of Central Gulf Coast had about 220 ASA for 2008.
What a debacle of an episcopacy for Philip Duncan.
As a member of the “traditionalist” breakaway group, I pray for those who remain and embrace the revisionist gospel… it was a painful and difficult period but God is at work in Mobile
RE: “is faith leader for 62 churches with approximately 22,000 parishioners . . . ”
Odd.
The last time that the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast had even close to 22,000 parishioners was in 1999, during Bishop Duvall’s tenure.
The membership of the diocese is well under 20,000 now, with average Sunday attendance having also undergone a striking decline, from a high of around 8200 to around 6300. That is a decline of closing in on 25%.
I wonder where the reporter got those false numbers on membership?