New Anglican Network Offers 'Oversight' to Conservative Episcopal Parishes

by Jim Brown
January 23, 2004

(AgapePress) - Traditionalist Episcopalians angered over the ordination of an openly homosexual bishop have officially formed the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes.

The Network's charter was approved on Tuesday at a meeting in suburban Dallas by about 100 delegates from 12 Episcopal dioceses across the nation. It says decision by the Episcopal Church USA "have departed from the historic faith and order and have brought immense harm."

Pittsburgh Bishop Bob Duncan, the Network's president, says the group's bishops intend to oversee conservative parishes that are located in liberal dioceses.

"We wanted to prosper the cause of 'adequate episcopal oversight,'" Duncan explains. "That is, [we want to] care for those in hostile places so we could see that they had adequate bishop's care." The charter states that local congregations joining the Network from liberal dioceses will "come under the scriptural authority of a bishop" approved by Network leaders.

Duncan adds that the Network is also seeking to "renew international ecumenical and North American Anglican relationships" that may have been damaged or severed as a result of decisions by ECUSA leaders on homosexual clergy and same-sex "blessing" ceremonies.

Dr. Kendall Harmon, a founding member of the new group, says there is no biblical support for homosexual behavior.

"On the issue of same-sex relationships, in both the Old and New Testaments -- with no exceptions, in a clear fashion threaded through the whole document -- it's clear: faithfulness in marriage, chastity in singleness. That's the standard," Harmon says. "There isn't a single text that they can point to. There's no scripturally-based argument."

Duncan and other Network officials contend they are not leaving the Episcopal Church USA, but that the church left them when it began allowing homosexual clergy and blessings for same-sex couples.