Bishop Robert Duncan today released the text of his opening plenary address to the leadership of the Global Anglican Future Conference. The group has been meeting in Jordan in advance of the June 22-29 Global Anglican Future Conference in Jerusalem.

The address, titled “Anglicanism Come of Age: A Post-Colonial and Global Communion for the 21st Century,” offers Bishop Duncan’s view on the positive purpose of the Global Anglican Future Conference, the current state of affairs within the Anglican Communion, and the obstacles facing the communion in the years ahead.
“We who are gathered here recognize that we are at a turning point in Anglican history, a place where two roads diverge.  One road is faithful to Jesus’ story.  The other road is about some other story…The choice before us is a choice before all Anglicans.  It is just as certainly a choice before the upcoming Lambeth Conference.  Which road will the Anglican Communion take?” asks Bishop Duncan.

Bishop Duncan goes on to ask if the current structures, forged in the age of British imperialism, remain effective and appropriate for telling the Christian story and defending the content of the faith.

Recent history suggests otherwise.  “The Anglican Way of the mid-seventeenth to mid-twentieth centuries is collapsing.  The present crisis in the Anglican Communion, like the positive and hopeful purpose of this GAFCON pilgrimage, points to the need for some new “settlement of “Anglicanism,” states Bishop Duncan.

What new instrument of unity will emerge to hold the Anglican Communion together in the face of Western secularism and colonial collapse?  GAFCON is an early sign of what the future holds for Anglicanism.  It “will be neither British nor Western.  What emerges, we may be just as sure, will represent the conciliarism that has characterized Anglicanism at its best,” states Bishop Duncan.