More On Being Anglican

“Anglicanism,” Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher once 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.

What is an Anglican?

An Anglican is a Christian whose belief and practice is rooted in the Bible, guided by the teachings and tradition of the early Christian Fathers, and structured by the traditions of the Book of Common Prayer, the hallmark of English orthodoxy.

We are Catholic because we believe and practice the universal or Catholic faith of the church that has been handed down to us from the time of the Apostles.

For further study, we recommend a text by the Anglican apologist, Vernon Staley, entitled, "The Catholic Religion". These books are increasingly hard to find, but re-print copies are still available through the Nashotah House Seminary Bookstore.