The Faith Which We’ve Received

To be Anglican means to love Jesus Christ with all of your heart soul mind and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. This may sound a lot like what it means to simply be a Christian. Of course it does! This is because being Anglican means being a Christian, and that is of unrivaled importance.

At the same time, and without contradiction, there is no such thing as being a Christian in theory; removed from history, or body, or space, or tradition, or community. Everyone has a way, and Anglicanism is the way we live-out and embody the Faith. We are a part of this Faith with others, we are not alone. What follows below are some of the distinctive marks of our tradition.

Apostolic

To be Apostolic means to recognize our selves as being in line with the Apostles, with the early church that Jesus entrusted to them, and with the great passing-on of that faith throughout the ages. It means we are a part of something bigger than ourselves; something that neither began with us, nor ends with us. We believe that the Holy Spirit has moved (and continues to move) in real history and through real people. Thus, we affirm the 3 Creeds of the Ancient Church (Apostles, Nicene, and Athanasian), the 39 Articles of Religion, and the 2008 Jerusalem Declaration, as providing the anchor for our orthodoxy (and we love orthodoxy… because remember, as Chesterton reminds us, heresy is always less expansive than orthodoxy).

Biblical

When we say that Anglicanism is Biblical we mean, first and foremost, that we love the Bible. As Anglicans we recognize the Scriptures as the Story told by God (via humans) of His world. And yet, without losing or mitigating the ‘story-ness’ of the Scriptures, we also hold and affirm the Scriptures as being God’s words to the human race, containing all things necessary for life and faith. Central to this revealed Word of God is the Gospel —the proclamation that Jesus Christ is not only God, but also Lord and that He has conquered sin and death and opened the path of resurrection for humanity.

Sacramental

Being Sacramental centers our church life around the Sacraments, Baptism (God’s all-sufficient Death for our death) and the Eucharist (God’s undying Life for our life). In these two sacraments, as instituted by our Lord in His ministry, we come to know God and commune with Him as He is offered in the Gospels. But being sacramental does not end there. Being sacramental means being shaped by the two primary Sacraments in such a way that the whole of our lives becomes the site of encounter with our Lord Jesus Christ.

Please contact us for more information regarding what we believe.