Mere Anglicanism: Events

The Right Reverend Robert William Duncan became the Bishop of Pittsburgh on August 1, 1997. He was invested and seated as diocesan in Trinity Cathedral, Pittsburgh, on the Feast of Saint Cyprian, September 13, 1997.Born on July 5, 1948, Robert Duncan was raised in Bordentown, New Jersey. The eighteenth priest (and second bishop) to be ordained from Christ Church in Bordentown, Bishop Duncan graduated as valedictorian of the Bordentown Military Institute in 1966. He graduated with honors from Trinity College in Hartford in 1970 and from the General Theological Seminary in 1973. He also undertook advanced research in Scottish History at Edinburgh University in 1972-73. He was assistant dean of General Seminary from 1974-78, Episcopal chaplain of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1978-82, and rector of Saint Thomas's Parish in Newark, Delaware, from 1982-92. In 1992, he became canon to the ordinary for Bishop Alden Hathaway in Pittsburgh. Sabbatical study in 1987 focused on "Healing and Miracles in their Biblical, Historical and Contemporary Contexts." Sabbatical leave in 1997 focused on “God’s Vision for the Diocese.” In 2003, Bishop Duncan was Bishop in Residence of Nashotah House. Bishop Duncan has devoted himself to mission and evangelism throughout his years of ministry, with a special passion for reaching adolescents and young adults. He has also led short-term missions in Haiti, Trinidad, and Rwanda. He is a champion of the poor and dispossessed of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, encouraging creative urban church-planting, as well as many other church-plants. He is active in the Cursillo and Happening movements and served as an elected member of the General Board of Examining Chaplains from 1991 until 1997. Bishop Duncan is a trustee of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry and of Nashotah House.Recognized internationally for his commitment to the “two-thirds world” 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.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 orthodox Anglican bodies in the United States and Canada) since its creation in 2004, Bishop Bob (as he is known globally) has proved himself an extraordinary leader, as well as a “brave heart,” at a critical moment in Church history.Bishop Duncan married Nara Dewar on August 16, 1969. They are a dynamic team. They share a love of gardening, travel, hospitality and music.

Honors and Publications

Legion of Valor Bronze Cross for Achievement, United States Army, 1966.
Valedictorian and Battalion Executive Officer, Bordentown Military Institute, 1966
Sacristan and Verger, Trinity College Chapel, 1967-1970

Dr. William J. Abraham is the Albert Cook Outler Professor of Wesley Studies at Perkins School of Theology. He has degrees from The Queen’s University of Belfast (B.A.), Asbury Seminary (M.Div.), and Regent’s Park College, Oxford University (D.Phil.). His teaching specialties are religious epistemology, John Wesley, doctrine of revelation, systematic theology, philosophy of religion and evangelism.

Wesleyan and Methodist theology, Cardinal Newman, renewal movements in Christianity, ecclesiology, divine revelation, theological education

Ordained elder, Southwest Texas Conference, United Methodist Church; member, General Commission on Unity and Interreligious Concerns of the United Methodist Church (1992-present); recipient of Pew Evangelical Scholars Program Grant, Pew Charitable Trusts (1993-1996); Joint Book of the Year Award from the Institute of Christian Studies for Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology (1999)

Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. serves as the ninth president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary-the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention and one of the largest seminaries in the world. Dr. Mohler has been recognized by such influential publications as Time and Christianity Today as a leader among American evangelicals. In fact, Time.com called him the "reigning intellectual of the evangelical movement in the U.S". Dr. Mohler is a theologian and an ordained minister, having served as pastor and staff minister of several Southern Baptist churches. He came to the presidency of Southern Seminary from service as editor of The Christian Index, the oldest of the state papers serving the Southern Baptist Convention. A native of Lakeland, Florida, Dr. Mohler was a Faculty Scholar at Florida Atlantic University before receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree from Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. He holds a Master of Divinity degree and the Doctor of Philosophy (in systematic and historical theology) from Southern Seminary. He has pursued additional study at the St. Meinrad School of Theology and has done research at Oxford University (England). Dr. Mohler also serves Professor of Christian Theology at Southern Seminary. His writings have been published throughout the United States and Europe. He has contributed to several books including “Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment,” “Here We Stand: A Call From Confessing Evangelicals” and “The Coming Evangelical Crisis.” He served as General Editor of “The Gods of the Age or the God of the Ages: Essays by Carl F. H. Henry” and served from 1985 to 1993 as Associate Editor of Preaching, a journal for evangelical preachers. He currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. Forthcoming book projects include works on the future of evangelical theology and on the evangelical responses to the cultural crisis. Dr. Mohler is listed in Who's Who in America and other biographical reference works and serves on the boards of several organizations including Focus on the Family. He also serves on the Board of Reference for The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

The Most Reverend Valentine Mokiwa felt the call to ordained priesthood while a student at a technical school in Dar es Salaam, a precursor to becoming an engineer. With assistance from his bishop and others, he enrolled in Virginia Theological Seminary and was ordained on May 12, 1992. He returned to Dar es Salaam Tanzania, East Africa, as a parish priest. Ten years later in 2002, he was appointed the Bishop of Dar es Salaam. At that time Bishop Valentine was the youngest bishop in the Anglican Communion. On February 28, 2008. Bishop Mokiwa, 43, was elected as the Archbishop of the Anglican Church in Tanzania for a five year term. He will be installed in Dodoma on May 25^th. The Bishop is married and has two young sons. Under his leadership, the diocese has met several difficult challenges. MEA Foundation was formed to channel funds to the areas of greatest need and to give the diocese the ability to apply for grants. The Anglican Medical Clinic, which is on diocesan property right next to the largest slum area in the city, Buguruni, has undergone a tremendous transformation under the Bishop leadership and the help of Dr. Henry Zeigler. The diocese has welcomed two short term mission teams from St. Luke's on Hilton Head Island and are preparing to help coordinate a third going to the diocese this coming June. These trips are multi-faceted. The Rev. Greg Kronz leads a clergy retreat for the clergy of the diocese, a medical component travels to the Rufugi River Delta area to provide medical clinics and care for the people there, and a multi purpose component that builds, paints, cleans, repairs and basically does what ever is needed wherever is requested by the Bishop. At the same time both teams are actively evangelizing. This short term mission trip will be taking place from June 18th through July 2nd

The Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali was born in Karachi, Pakistan to Christian Punjabi parents, James and Patience Nazir-Ali. His father had converted from Islam. He attended the Roman Catholic-run St Patrick's school in Karachi and began attending Roman Catholic services and identifying as Christian at the age of 15; he was formally received into the Church of Pakistan aged 20.

Bishop Nazir-Ali attended Saint Patrick's High School, Karachi, read economics, Islamic history, and sociology at the University of Karachi (BA 1970) and studied in preparation for ordination at Ridley Hall, Cambridge (1970). He undertook further postgraduate studies in theology at St Edmund Hall, Oxford (BLitt 1974, MLitt 1981), Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge (MLitt 1976), and the Australian College of Theology (PhD 1983). He has also studied at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School. His particular academic interests include comparative literature and comparative philosophy of religion. In addition to teaching appointments in Australia and Canada, he has been a tutor in the University of Cambridge, Senior Tutor of Karachi Theological College, and Visiting Professor of Theology and Religious Studies in the University of Greenwich. He has been elected an Honorary Fellow of his colleges at Oxford (St Edmund Hall) and Cambridge (Fitzwilliam). From 1986 until 1989, while he was Assistant to the Archbishop of Canterbury and Co-ordinator of Studies and Education for the Lambeth Conference, he was Honorary Curate of Oxford St Giles and St Philip and St James with St Margaret.

Bishop Nazir-Ali was ordained an Anglican priest in 1976 and worked in Karachi and Lahore, and became the first Bishop of Raiwind in West Punjab (1984-86) — at the time, the youngest bishop in the Anglican Communion. When his life was endangered in Pakistan in 1986, Robert Runcie, the Archbishop of Canterbury, arranged for his refuge in England. Nazir-Ali says, "...the reason behind some of the difficulties I was facing was removed when General Zia was killed - unfortunately for him, and I am now not doing the work that I was doing at the time with the very poor." . He became an assistant to the Archbishop at Lambeth and assisted with the planning of the 1988 Lambeth Conference; he was General Secretary of the Church Mission Society 1989-1994 and concurrently Assistant Bishop of Southwark. He was appointed Bishop of Rochester, England in 1994, and in 1999 entered the House of Lords as one of the "Lords Spiritual" because of his seniority in episcopal office, the first religious leader from Asia to serve there. He will cease to be a member of the House of Lords upon retirement. He was suggested as a possible Archbishop of Canterbury but was passed over in favour of Rowan Williams. Between 1997 and 2003. he was chairman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority's ethics and law committee. He is a leader of the Network for Inter-faith Concerns of the Anglican Communion..

The Reverend Dr. Stephen Noll, Steve’s ministry as Vice Chancellor of Uganda Christian University in Mukono, Uganda, is to head the Anglican Church of Uganda’s major institution of higher learning. A significant achievement occurred in May 2004 when UCU became the first private university in the country to be granted a charter by the Government of Uganda.The Nolls came to Uganda in September 2000 at the invitation of the Archbishop of the Church of Uganda and the University Council for Steve to become the first Vice Chancellor. UCU was opened in 1997 and grew out of Bishop Tucker Theological College, the major Anglican seminary in the country, founded in 1913. The student population of UCU has grown from 120 to 3000 in seven years, and we have added a second campus with 600 students in Kabale, western Uganda. The University offers degree programs in theology, education, mass communication, social work and social administration, development, business, law, and information technology. In theology and several other fields it also offers a Masters degree. As Vice Chancellor, Steve is the chief officer of the University, equivalent in the U.S. to a college president; the Chancellor is an honorary position held by the Archbishop. Steve’s overall vision is to develop UCU as a genuinely Christian university, integrating faith and learning in the classroom as well as offering lively worship and fellowship and a safe moral and physical environment for the students. Peggy came in a supporting role consisting primarily of hospitality, communication with supporters, and some teaching in the English department. Since arriving, she has also started a staff wives’ and an international women’s Bible study fellowship and has advised the student literary magazine, The UCU Signpost. We got involved in this ministry through Steve’s teaching for 21 years and helping to found the Stanway Institute for World Mission at Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Ambridge, PA. In addition, his membership on the board of the American Anglican Council involved him in global Anglican meetings, including a consultation held in Dallas and an assisting role with the AAC at the Lambeth Conference, where he met and got to know a number of Ugandan bishops. They grew to respect his role in the American Episcopal Church and knew he was theologically orthodox. When the Archbishop of Uganda visited the U.S., he had a meal at our house with other Trinity staff and students, and that initial personal contact along with Steve’s reputation eventually led to the invitation. We had not been planning to leave Trinity, or the U.S., but felt God’s call when the invitation to come to UCU was issued. Kevin Higgins had been a student at Trinity, so we went to him and discussed the possibility of our being sponsored by Global Teams as missionaries. We attended the Horizons mission training in Bakersfield the summer before we moved to Uganda. UCU is becoming a center for mission thinking and training. We have a number of missionaries on staff. In 2003, UCU launched the Global South Institute for Mission, Leadership, and Public Policy.

The Most Reverend Gregory James Venables was born in 1949, studied at London University, was ordained in 1984 and consecrated bishop of Peru and Bolivia in 1993, subsequently becoming Bishop of Argentina and, since 2001, Primate of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. Since before his ordination and throughout his ministry he has been active in the work of the South American Missionary Society. As the result of ongoing parochial and diocesan re-alignments within the Anglican Communion, he has taken under his “ecclesiastical wing” many of those alienated by recent decisions and actions on the part of the leadership of The Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada.