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What do Anglican Christians believe?

  • The Primacy of Scripture

    The Primacy of Scripture

    Anglican Christians are biblical Christians who believe in the Primacy of Scripture. That means that we believe the canonical scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the “Word of God written” and we defer to the Holy Scripture as the final authority in all matters of faith and practice. For Anglicans, the Bible is not just a source of authority, but we believe the Word of God is also the daily bread upon which we live. We believe that Scripture contains “all things necessary to salvation” and that it is a principal means of God’s ongoing, active work of grace among us. For this reason, we strive not only to submit ourselves to Scripture, but also to allow it to saturate our lives as we “hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” its words and teachings in our worship and daily prayer.

  • Historic Liturgical Worship

    Anglican worship is unique and distinct from other protestant or Evangelical traditions. We are frequently identified by the way we worship, and that is understandable because worship is central to the Anglican way of discipleship, fellowship, and life. We worship according to the historic Christian liturgy found in the Book of Common Prayer. Anglican Worship is a way of worship that includes many elements: corporate confession and prayer, praise, the preaching and reading of Scripture, and the celebration of the Holy Eucharist (Communion). Anglican worship is multi-sensory with sounds, smells, tastes, and visuals and it is an active worship with many actions—sitting, standing, kneeling, and singing. Our worship follows a liturgical structure that is both ancient and new, both corporate and personal, and both reverent and heartfelt.

  • We are Evangelical, Apostolic, Catholic, Reformed, and Spirit-filled.

    The sixteenth-century English bishop John Jewel described Anglicanism as a return to the ancient faith of the “primitive and catholic (universal)” church. Anglicans continue to understand themselves as reformed catholic Christians. We embrace and confess the catholic creeds of the early church. We have retained Apostolic succession and hold to the ancient, threefold order of ordained ministers: bishops, priests, and deacons. And we joyfully celebrate our unity with all baptized and faithful Christians worldwide as members of the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.” We are also missional people who seek to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ worldwide as a part of a global family of more than 85 million members, making it the third-largest body of Christians in the world.

What Does The Anglican Church in North America Believe?

We believe and confess Jesus Christ to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no one comes to the Father but by Him. Therefore, the Anglican Church in North America identifies the following seven elements as characteristic of the Anglican Way and essential for membership:

  1. We confess the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired Word of God, containing all things necessary for salvation, and to be the final authority and unchangeable standard for Christian faith and life.

  2. We confess Baptism and the Supper of the Lord to be Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself in the Gospel and thus to be ministered with unfailing use of His words of institution and the elements ordained by Him.

  3. We confess the godly historic Episcopate as an inherent part of the apostolic faith and practice and, therefore, as integral to the fullness and unity of the Body of Christ.

  4. We confess, as proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture, the historic faith of the undivided church as declared in the three Catholic Creeds: the Apostles, the Nicene, and the Athanasian.

  5. Concerning the seven Councils of the undivided Church, we affirm the teaching of the first four Councils and the Christological clarifications of the fifth, sixth, and seventh Councils in so far as they are agreeable to the Holy Scriptures.

  6. We receive The Book of Common Prayer as set forth by the Church of England in 1662, together with the Ordinal attached to the same, as a standard for Anglican doctrine and discipline, and, with the Books which preceded it, as the standard for the Anglican tradition of worship.

  7. We receive the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of 1571, taken in their literal and grammatical sense, as expressing the Anglican response to certain doctrinal issues controverted at that time, and as expressing the fundamental principles of authentic Anglican belief.

In all these things, the Anglican Church in North America is determined by the help of God to hold and maintain as the Anglican Way has received them the doctrine, discipline, and worship of Christ.

“The Anglican Communion,” Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher wrote, “has no peculiar thought, practice, creed or confession of its own. It has only the Catholic Faith of the ancient Catholic Church, as preserved in the Catholic Creeds and maintained in the Catholic and Apostolic constitution of Christ’s Church from the beginning. It may licitly teach as necessary for salvation nothing but what is read in the Holy Scriptures as God’s Word written or may be proved thereby. It, therefore, embraces and affirms such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the Scriptures and thus to be counted apostolic. The Church has no authority to innovate: it is obliged continually, and particularly in times of renewal or reformation, to return to ‘the faith once delivered to the saints.'”

To be an Anglican, then, is not to embrace a distinct version of Christianity but a distinct way of being a “Mere Christian,” at the same time evangelical, apostolic, catholic, reformed, and Spirit-filled. Learn more at https://anglicanchurch.net

'Incarnation Anglican Church is part of a global Anglican family connected through GAFCON. GAFCON stands for Global Anglican Future Conference.

The Gafcon movement is a global family of authentic Anglicans standing together to retain and restore the Bible to the heart of the Anglican Communion. Our mission is to guard the unchanging, transforming Gospel of Jesus Christ and to proclaim Him to the world. We are founded on the Bible, bound together by the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration of 2008, and led by a Primates Council, representing most of the world’s Anglicans.

The Jerusalem Declaration

In the name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit:

We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, have met in the land of Jesus’ birth. We express our loyalty as disciples to the King of kings, the Lord Jesus. We joyfully embrace his command to proclaim the reality of his kingdom which he first announced in this land. The gospel of the kingdom is the good news of salvation, liberation and transformation for all. In light of the above, we agree to chart a way forward together that promotes and protects the biblical gospel and mission to the world, solemnly declaring the following tenets of orthodoxy which underpin our Anglican identity.

1. We rejoice in the gospel of God through which we have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Because God first loved us, we love him and as believers bring forth fruits of love, ongoing repentance, lively hope and thanksgiving to God in all things.

2. We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God written and to contain all things necessary for salvation. The Bible is to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading.

3. We uphold the four Ecumenical Councils and the three historic Creeds as expressing the rule of faith of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

4. We uphold the Thirty-nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s Word and as authoritative for Anglicans today.

5. We gladly proclaim and submit to the unique and universal Lordship of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, humanity’s only Saviour from sin, judgement and hell, who lived the life we could not live and died the death that we deserve. By his atoning death and glorious resurrection, he secured the redemption of all who come to him in repentance and faith.

6. We rejoice in our Anglican sacramental and liturgical heritage as an expression of the gospel, and we uphold the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer, to be translated and locally adapted for each culture.

7. We recognise that God has called and gifted bishops, priests and deacons in historic succession to equip all the people of God for their ministry in the world. We uphold the classic Anglican Ordinal as an authoritative standard of clerical orders.

8. We acknowledge God’s creation of humankind as male and female and the unchangeable standard of Christian marriage between one man and one woman as the proper place for sexual intimacy and the basis of the family. We repent of our failures to maintain this standard and call for a renewed commitment to lifelong fidelity in marriage and abstinence for those who are not married.

9. We gladly accept the Great Commission of the risen Lord to make disciples of all nations, to seek those who do not know Christ and to baptise, teach and bring new believers to maturity.

10. We are mindful of our responsibility to be good stewards of God’s creation, to uphold and advocate justice in society, and to seek relief and empowerment of the poor and needy.

11. We are committed to the unity of all those who know and love Christ and to building authentic ecumenical relationships. We recognise the orders and jurisdiction of those Anglicans who uphold orthodox faith and practice, and we encourage them to join us in this declaration.

12. We celebrate the God-given diversity among us which enriches our global fellowship, and we acknowledge freedom in secondary matters. We pledge to work together to seek the mind of Christ on issues that divide us.

13. We reject the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed. We pray for them and call on them to repent and return to the Lord.

14. We rejoice at the prospect of Jesus’ coming again in glory, and while we await this final event of history, we praise him for the way he builds up his church through his Spirit by miraculously changing lives.