|
WebChat
Home
Clergy
Postulants
Español
Our_Mission
Ministries
Breaking_News
Coming_Events
Convergence
Latin American Missions
List of Liturgy Books
Alpha and Omega Theological Colleges
Catheral News.htm
Installation Mass
Theological
Statement
| |
THEOLOGICAL
STATEMENT ON THE PRACTICES AND BELIEFS OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH OF THE AMERICAS
The Following
list represents the practices and beliefs that are common to all clergy and
laity who are members of the Anglican Church of the Americas
- We believe that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and
New Testaments of the Christian Faith are divinely inspired and in the
tradition of Sola Scriptura of the Protestant Reformation, are the sole
authority for the believer in Christ. We would furthermore not see a
conflict with those who emphasize Prima scriptura provided that the beliefs,
practices, experiences, and revelatory data can be validated by scripture.
One example of this theological paradigm is the Wesleyan Quadrilateral,
which emphasizes scripture, tradition, reason, and experience, with
scripture taking the first priority, and the other three components
validated by scripture.
- We believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to
salvation, as He Himself has declared: “I am the way, the truth, and the
life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”
- We believe that Jesus Christ, as the Early Church
councils declared, is perfect God and perfect man, and is the incarnation of
God, having been born of the Virgin Mary.
- We believe that Jesus Christ died a vicarious death
on the Cross at Calvary, and this sacrificial death was sufficient for the
salvation of all who dedicate themselves to Him as Lord and Savior.
- We believe in the forgiveness of sins only through
Jesus Christ’s atoning death for all humanity, and thus the importance of
the believer in Christ to repent of, and renounce, his/her sinful life,
accept Christ’s free gift of salvation, and be born again by the washing
away of sin.
- We believe in the sacraments that have
traditionally been passed down from Christ and the Apostles, or the seven
sacraments of the Catholic Church.
- We believe in and espouse the Thirty-Nine Articles
of Religion which the Anglican Communion has historically upheld, as well as
the declarations and canons of the first seven ecumenical councils, the
Nicene, Apostles, and Athanasian Creeds, the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral
of 1886 and 1888 Resolution II, and more recently the GAFCON declaration
(Jerusalem, July 2008).
- We believe in the historic episcopate created by
Christ, passed down by the Apostles, and maintained throughout the centuries
to be the authentic form of government for the One, Holy, Catholic, and
Apostolic Church.
- We believe in the scriptural basis of the pro-life
movement which the Catholic, orthodox Anglicans, and other evangelical
bodies have upheld, and strongly oppose the practice of abortion as being
against the Bible and God’s will for humankind.
- We believe in Convergence Worship and Theology,
e.g., we are an Orthodox, conservative, continuing Anglican Church that
espouses the “three streams” of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic
Church: the Evangelical, which stresses the importance of scripture as the
sole authority in the life of the Christian believer; the Charismatic, which
emphasizes the importance of the presence, power, gifts, and baptism of the
Holy Spirit as found in the Book of Acts of the Apostles in the New
Testament; and the Liturgical and Sacramental, which acknowledges the
importance of the seven historical sacraments of the Catholic Church for the
spiritual nurture and growth of the believer in Christ.
- We believe in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity as
laid down in the Early Church Councils, affirming that there is One God in
three distinct persons of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
- We believe in the three Holy Orders of the Holy
Catholic Church: Bishop, Priest, and Deacon.
- We believe in the importance of the Holy Eucharist
for the nurture and spiritual growth of the believer in Christ and make this
holy sacrament central to our worship and spirituality in Christ; and
furthermore uphold the doctrine of the “Real Presence” of Christ in
the Eucharist and reject those views that minimize the importance of this
sacrament in the Church, especially the Zwinglian, which teaches that the
sacrament is for symbolic meaning only.
- We believe in the importance of evangelism and
missionary work for the Church today so that we believers in Christ can
fulfill the great commission of Jesus Christ to go unto all the world and
preach the Gospel and make disciples of all nations.
- We believe in the importance of discipleship, or
the establishing of believers in the faith that has been once and for all
delivered to the saints by Christ and His apostles. The basis of this
discipleship is a thorough teaching of the Bible to the believer.
- We believe in the importance of ecumenical affairs
and ministry, or the working together with other Christian churches,
denominations, and groups for the purpose of impacting the world with the
gospel of Jesus Christ.
- We believe in the priesthood of all Christians, or
the doctrine that every believer in Christ has a calling to an authentic
ministry and should be trained and equipped in that calling by the local
parish of which he/she is a member.
- We believe in the parousia or second coming of
Christ to judge the world, the end of time, and the establishing of His
Kingdom for all eternity.
- We believe in the traditional teaching of the
Church that has been upheld for almost two-thousand years on the subject of
human sexuality, e.g., within the bonds of holy heterosexual matrimony, or a
marriage between a man and a woman. All other deviations (the condoning of
adultery, pre-marital sex, homosexuality, bestiality, etc) of sexuality,
which are strongly condemned by scripture and Church tradition, we firmly
reject.
- We are truly Catholic in that we believe in the
affirmation from the Early Church of the “fides quae credenda est ubique,
semper, et ab omnibus” (“the faith which is to be believed everywhere,
always, and by everyone.”) Therefore we work together with other Anglican
bodies, both in our doctrine, practice and conduct, towards the ideal of
perfect unity in Christ for which the Lord Himself prayed in St. John’s
gospel (chapter 17).
| |
|
