“Holy Worldliness”
is a term for our spirituality. We are moderate, tolerant, reverent,
prayerful, studious, and practical. We are a religion for real
people struggling to find God in the midst of daily life with
all its challenges, stresses, moments of delight, and even times
of despair.
We Are Anglican.
We are the American branch of the Anglican Communion, which
grew out of the Church of England. In America, the only Church
in the Anglican Communion is the Episcopal Church – not
other churches that use the name “Anglican.”
We Are Ecumenical.
Anglicans are the “bridge church,” finding common
ground with other denominations instead of dwelling on differences.
Today, we are active in Inter-faith Dialogue. We respect other
religious traditions, both Christian and non-Christian, and
we seek to build relationships of tolerance and mutual respect.
We Are Catholic. We
are part of the Catholic tradition. Like the Roman and Orthodox
Churches, we have the seven sacraments. We believe we encounter
the Real Presence of Christ in the sacraments, in Holy Scripture,
and in each other. Our Bishops are in Apostolic Succession going
back to the first Christians. We practice ancient forms of worship,
honor the saints, and study spiritual writers of the centuries.
Our origins are in the Celtic Church of St. Columba, St. Brigid,
St. Aidan, and St. David.
We Are Protestant.
We are heirs of Jon Wycliffe, who promoted Church reform long
before Luther, and William Tyndall, who translated the New Testament
into English and taught salvation through grace alone. We are
in full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.
We share the Protestant values of reverence for Holy Scripture,
the right of individuals to interpret the faith personally rather
than bow to precise dogmas, and salvation through grace received
by faith. Our Reformation martyrs include Wycliffe, Tyndall,
Thomas Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley, and Hugh Latimer.
Scripture, Tradition,
and Reason are the foundations of Anglican belief.
We rely on Holy Scripture not as an inerrant rule book but as
divinely inspired text meant to inspire our own prayer and discernment.
We honor the traditional Creeds, teachings, rituals, and stories
of the saints as ongoing revelation of God’s hand at work
in the world. We use our God-given Reason, including science,
philosophy, scholarship, experience, and common sense, to discern
God’s will and Divine Truth.
Literature.
Our poets and novelists convey in art our brand of faith. They
include C. S. Lewis, Madeleine L’Engle, T. S. Eliot, W.
H. Auden, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Tennyson, John Donne,
George Herbert, Gail Godwin, and many more. The Book of Common
Prayer is also noted for expressing “the beauty of holiness.” |
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