A Protestant tradition that confesses the Trinity and the deity of Christ. Many of its members believe the Gospel, and we receive them as brethren in Christ. But on baptism, church order, and other parts of the whole counsel of God its teaching departs from Scripture, and that affects whether we can serve together in church practice.
Where It Came From
Henry VIII's break with Rome in 1534 made the king supreme head of the church in England, independent of the pope, and opened the way for Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's Protestant reforms of doctrine and worship and the first Book of Common Prayer (1549). The Elizabethan Settlement fixed the Thirty-Nine Articles (1571) as the church's doctrinal standard. The Church of England kept infant baptism (Article XXVII) and remained the established church, and dissenters suffered under its laws. Anabaptists were burned in the sixteenth century, and Thomas Helwys, who pleaded with King James I for liberty of conscience, died in prison. The leaders of the first English Baptist churches had left the Church of England as Separatists, and the Methodists later grew out of it.
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In Their Own Words
This profile describes the tradition from its own official documents and standard teaching:
- The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (1571)
- The Book of Common Prayer (1662)
- The Jerusalem Declaration (Global Anglican Future Conference, 2008)