Drawing on the long history of the Anglican Communion, Duncan said the old Elizabethan Settlement is dead and a new reformation with a new consensus is emerging as Mere Anglicanism, which will have new systems and structures.

Observing developments since the Sept. 30 HOB meeting in New Orleans, Duncan noted that there are implications for Anglicanism. "I am still the bishop (applause and laughter). I am my old uninhibited self. We learn by suffering that is my family motto."

Duncan said that, since the threat of inhibition, each visitation he has made on Sunday has been met with responses that have blown his mind. "I had a Baptist minister in a local congregation come to express his solidarity with me for my stand for God's word. Recently, an Assemblies of God leader came to express to me that her whole congregation was praying for me. There is a Christian convergence going on as we all stand for the faith once for all delivered to the saints."

[At this point in his lecture, Duncan paused and asked for prayers for Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi, who is in a peace march with his fellow bishops. He noted that the things we suffer seem very small compared to the chaos in the nation of Kenya.

Duncan said the pace of change after GC2006 reveals that changes that were once weekly are now daily and almost hourly. The New Orleans HOB meeting proved that process does not have a deadline. The HOB of the TEC met while the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and the Anglican Consultative Counsel determined that the HOB had responded adequately. "Some disagreed, including Archbishop Mouneer Anis, and many of us believed that the HOB was inadequate."

Duncan says that the last few days have shown that the Windsor bishops have reached the nadir of its existence. "There was supposed to be a minority report- but no minority report emerged and some of the Network bishops had already left. The wider coalition knew we would. A Common Cause Counsel of Bishops, which became the Common Cause College of Bishops, drew together, a remnant fragmenting Anglicanism.

"In October, it began to appear South Carolina would have a bishop. They got it, but not with encouraging majorities. Also in October, Jeffrey Steenson defected to the Roman Catholic Church and the Province of Rwanda changed its canons because it found Anglicanism so reprehensible. It become the Episcopal Province of Rwanda. Now 13 years later it has found Episcopal so reprehensible it became Anglican once again. This province then included the AMiA in the canons as a permanent missionary outreach. The Diocese of Quincy proposed to take one vote. They decided on two votes. The last days of October, Mrs. Jefferts Schori threatened Bishops Schofield, Iker and I, saying that we would all be inhibited and deposed. In early November, Pittsburgh and Ft. Worth took votes to remove TEC from their constitutions.

"During November, it was also the case that Central Florida began to be clear that as Network diocese it was likely the Network parishes would separate from the diocese

"These events all mark the beginnings of disintegration, if you will.

"In November, the opposition [in Pittsburgh] attempted to deal with me in civil court as the best course to move from civil and ecclesiastical court, and secretly five priests and six people attempted to remove me, hoping it might be more successful. That attempt failed.

"In November, the Via Media in Ft. Worth went after Bishop Iker, and Bishop Lipscomb made a submission to the Bishop of Rome."Of all the voices of the Windsor bishops, his was the clearest and most effective. In September, San Joaquin departed by a vote of 8 to 1 in the clergy and 9 to 1 among the people.

"Right after Christmas, the GAFCON conference was hatched, and in December, the CCP leadership elected me as their moderator."

In January, came the Lambeth kickoff. 60% of bishops of the communion registered. Many senior evangelical and catholic bishops among CofE HOB decided not to go. "It was unlike anything we have seen before in the 20th century. In January, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda said bishops would not be at Lambeth. In January, the Global South primates disagreed publicly with the Archbishop of Canterbury and said they would be attending Jerusalem, not Lambeth. In January, Bishop Schofield was inhibited and I was uninhibited.

"The Diocese of Pittsburgh this week has split in three.

"Anglicanism seems to be coming apart, and Anglicanism, as we know it, is ceasing to be. It is not hard for us not to see that things are disintegrating. We are in denial, we are bargaining with God. We have been guilty of encouraging denial. We have said so as bishops just go about mission and we will take care of Babel. But we can't do it without the people of God.

"What does it mean to Mere Anglicanism? What are the structures and systems that enable Mere Anglicanism?"

Duncan said, during Holy Week last year preaching at Wheaton College in Illinois "I am an Anglo-Catholic", that the faculty of the college told him half of the students would call themselves Anglican. I want to tell you that Anglicanism has a tremendous future in my own diocese. A congregation called Grace Anglican Fellowship meets in a Presbyterian building in Slippery Rock. "I confirmed 14 Grove City students. It is the fastest growing congregation in the diocese and it is only two years old. Why are they being confirmed now, why such a trauma that what we represent they would commit their lives to this. This is the starting place for their lives. In the Chicago area (also connected to Wheaton College) there is an Anglican awakening in the Midwest. It is an awakening beyond the bounds of Anglicanism. These manifestations of Mere Anglicanism are truly evangelical, catholic, Pentecostal and reasonable.

"Many say they believe in Anglicanism but they just haven't seen it. What they see has disintegrated. What has gone wrong, what is on the floor is a disintegrating Anglicanism.

"The Elizabethan Settlement of Anglicanism has collapsed. The systems that characterized it were under the Word of God. That is no longer true. The Settlement was under the word. That is no longer true.

"We have no Book of Common Prayer anymore. Lex orandi, is lex credenda. (What you practice (do) is what you believe) is no more. There is no lex orandi, therefore there is no lex credenda. The second part of the Elizabethan Settlement has collapsed. We have no magesterium, except our liturgy. The third matter about the Elizabethan Settlement is that the king had replaced the pope. All of this was under British state systems. Who calls the Primates first among equals? All this worked for 400 years with having a BCP connected with the English Church with appeal to the ABC.

"What will sustain Mere Anglicanism is this Elizabethan Settlement which has produced two great streams which are now in mortal combat.

"The first stream is white, western and is progressive. The Elizabethan Settlement created the modern western system. It was white, it was western and it believed in progress. But the Elizabethan Settlement also produced the Global South which is brown, southern and Biblical. Most of us would identify with the second stream. It is out of that consensus, which was the 16th century, came this consensus. It created Anglicanism and produced Mere Christianity, as in C.S. Lewis's time. No one in 1763 could have imagined the USA. They are not the ones who have failed. The Elizabethan Settlement is collapsing, but a new consensus will emerge."

Looking at the future, Duncan said that a recent exchange of letters between Durham Bishop N. T. Wright and Dr. Vinay Samuel highlighted the contemporary situation.

"Bishop Wright excoriates those who are planning the GAFCON conference in the Holy Land. He does it because he sees it as an alternate Lambeth. But it is for those who cannot go to Lambeth. If co-consecrators of VGR who have compromised the faith and who will be there in violation of the Windsor report then the Global South bishops will not go.

"They couldn't go so, they needed to be somewhere."

Duncan blasted Wright over his critique of GAFCON's leadership. "He says this movement has been brought about by Chris Sugden, Martyn Minns and Peter Jensen - all white western and progressive - a pure colonialism. Dr. Vinay Samuel (a south Indian scholar) said he had got it completely wrong. It could have been Archbishops Nzimbi, Orombi, and Kolini. The theology is the same in all the men.

"What must emerge from the old post-Colonialism before Anglicanism can move on out on its own beyond the disintegration? The new post colonial settlement of Anglicanism is brown, southern and Biblical. No longer will the principals be white, western or British. It will be a post colonial settlement that must produce systems and structures that will protect Mere Anglicanism."

During a Panel Discussion with Bishops Jack Iker, (Ft. Worth), John Rodgers (AMIA bishop), REC bishop the rt. Rev. Alphonso Gadsden, Chuck Murphy (AMIA), and Bishop Alex Dickson (TEC, ret), the following statements were made:

IKER: The disintegration is going to produce a new post colonial Settlement of Anglicans that must emerge. What is the face of a post colonial settlement?

RODGERS: GAFCON is an expression itself, a wonderful grouping of bishops who see the Scriptures as God's word written as part of the picture.

GADSDEN: We are seeing a falling out and a coming back together again.

MURPHY: I see two things taking place in our day. There is a realignment and reformation of new systems and structures, and the other is the enormous new territory in North America of 130 million Americans who are hungry for Mere Anglicanism. These two trends are underway at the same time, even as the structures and systems of Anglicanism are shifting. We are seeing a second work and witness of the Holy Spirit.

DICKSON: There has never been a better time to be a witness. God is in charge.

IKER: Can we envisage a communion with this Archbishop of Canterbury? Is this the last Lambeth conference?

RODGERS: Can we envision it with him? When Chuck [Murphy] and I were consecrated, we had an exchange with Archbishop George Carey. We said God is realigning his people around the truth of His word. We do have, deep in our DNA unity, the need for a global belonging. I cannot think we will give up on the Anglican Communion. It might be rotated at the center of gravity... located in Jerusalem. I have advocated this for years.

GADSDEN: I can envision an Anglican Communion, but not with the present kind of administration.

MURPHY: A house divided against itself cannot stand. A house that cannot agree on what the fundamentals are, then it will not stand. I don't agree that a big tent is the genius of Anglicanism. I agree with the essentials of the faith: One Lord, One faith, One baptism. The universal consensus once gone, there is always a desire to be connected to a large family. This is not unique, we have been through this a thousand times...once we have the clarity, the outlook for enormous change is possible.

IKER: Is GAFCON an alternative to Lambeth? And if the ABC should be invited, would you invite a Lambeth conference, if it included those who consecrated Gene Robinson?

RODGERS: No. I will go to GAFCON with their emerging agenda. I would not go to Lambeth, as it is presently constituted. We have to take the bold steps to face the disintegration of the Communion in its present form.

MURPHY: We are not of one mind about the essentials of the faith at Lambeth. Why would I go?

RODGERS: There is no basis to discipline an errant province. I would expect that there would be an emerging synthesis, not just a federation of emerging churches. We need to go back to the Early Church Counsel for conciliar decisions that bind the churches. Right now it is more like a family picnic. If we haven't addressed that, we are independent entities setting ourselves up to repeat the past. We need to realize the Early Church had counsels and not picnics.

JAMES ADAMS (Bishop of Western Kansas): We are losing people because we cannot articulate our faith any more. It is not all about Gene Robinson. We need a statement of faith that speaks to the little woman in the pew. People are lost and hurting and leaving because they can go down the street and hear God's Word. Until we can articulate our faith in a straight forward way, we are not doing anything.

END