Anglicans share a rich tradition of Christian faith and life.

What is Anglicanism?

HopePointe is a church in the historic Anglican tradition.  But you may ask: What exactly is Anglicanism?  Good question!  And it is at once an easy and a difficult question to answer.

Before we answer that question, we must emphasize that Anglicans, first and foremost, value their Christian identity before their specifically Anglican identity.  Our Lord Jesus Christ, His Word, and His Church are the primary emphases of Anglicanism.  

There are, however, seemingly countless ways of living out our shared Christian identity, and Anglicanism, like other traditions and denominations, is merely a distinctive way of being a Christian.  That being said, the short answer to the above question is: Anglicanism is a particular way of manifesting the Christian life of belief and practice that flows forth from the history and tradition associated with the Church in/of England.  That preliminary answer, in turn, raises further questions.

Anglicanism is often characterized as being a via media (middle path) between the excesses of Roman Catholicism and Reformation Protestantism.  As a result, sometimes people jokingly refer to our tradition as “Catholic light.”  There is some truth to this claim.  Anglicans have historically embraced more of the pre-Reformation tradition, in both belief and practice, than the rest of their Protestant brethren, believing that in many cases the proverbial baby has been thrown out with the bathwater.  The impetus of the Reformation, after all, was to reform and not to eliminate.

Perhaps the best way to characterize the Anglican tradition is by emphasizing what we as a tradition embrace, which has been labeled “The Three Streams.”  The Three Streams refer to the desire of Anglicans to embrace the best of the Christian tradition: the Catholic, the Reformed, and the Charismatic.  For the sake of ease of memory, however, perhaps we should use the alliterative triad: Sacrament, Scripture, and Spirit.

Scripture - Anglicanism aligns itself with the rest of the churches and traditions coming from the Protestant Reformations of the sixteenth century, especially the recovery of the emphasis on Scripture in Christian belief and practice.  As Anglicans we value Scripture.

Sacrament – Anglicanism aligns itself with the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions in their value of the whole of the tradition and history of the Church, including the emphasis on history, sacraments, liturgy, and the Church itself.  The most obvious way this manifests itself is in Anglican worship.

Spirit – Anglicanism aligns itself with the charismatic traditions within the Church in its openness to the movement of the Spirit, and it seeks to understand the variety of ministries of the Spirit than empower and equip the Church to fulfill its mission in the world.  After all, the Pentecostal movement was originally birthed out of the Holiness movement, which in turn came from the Wesleyan/Methodist movement, which came ultimately from the Church of England.

While Anglicanism aligns itself with the best of these traditions, it also seeks to avoid the excesses within these traditions, allowing each of the streams to temper the excesses of the others.  The result is a biblically oriented, Spirit led, historically informed Church with rich theology, spiritual vitality, and robust worship.  

Don’t take our word for it.  Come, visit, and experience the Anglican tradition for yourself.