Anglicanism | Theological Word of the Day

Anglicanism Theological Word of the Day

Anglicanism
August 9, 2010
(Latin anglicana, “English”)

With nearly seventy million members, the Anglican church or the “ecclesia anglicana” represents the churches that are a part of the Anglican communion in association with the Archbishop of Canterbury. Anglicanism would attempt to represent a via media (middle way) between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. The Anglican church came became distinguished as “Anglican” in the nineteenth century, but has its roots in the fifteenth century English reformation. Those ordained into the Anglican church must “assent to the Thirty-nine Articles, and to the Book of Common Prayer, and of Ordering of Bishops, priests, and deacons, and believe the doctrine of the Church of England as therein set forth to be agreeable to the Word of God.” While Anglicanism has a high view of tradition, they, like all Reformed Protestants, believe that the Bible is the final and only infallible rule of faith. They also believe that salvation is by faith alone. The term Episcopal is representative of the Anglican church in the United States.