About the Movement

What is Anglicanism?

Anglicanism is the religion of the historic Church of England: a Christian tradition deeply rooted and stretching back millennia, which was refined through the English Reformation without losing its distinct catholic heritage.

Why Anglicanism?

Many are being drawn to the Anglican way of being a Christian in 21st-century America. That being said, very few know what this actually means, including some newer Anglican churches. Being Anglican is much more than just appreciating a theology, taking on an identity, or donning an aesthetic.

In order to be properly called "Anglican" one has to be subject to the clerical authorities, practices, and beliefs that have defined Anglicans for centuries; anything less is dishonest.

We at Anglican Renaissance wish to support an ad fontes retrieval of this classic Anglican heritage stretching back prior to the progressive revisionism of the 20th and 21st Century.

We desire a resurgence of the rich theological inheritance that the great Anglican saints — Richard Hooker, Thomas Cranmer, John Jewel, Lancelot Andrewes, George Bull, William Laud, and others — sought to hand down to us. We wish to see individuals and churches more fully live into the classical Anglican tradition.

"Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof."

In modern America, the long-established mainline churches are in serious decline. Many of them retain the form of godliness, but deny its power, showcasing beautiful, historic churches now largely empty as museums and artifacts of a previous era.

Many of these churches no longer believe in God or His Word in any meaningful sense and have compromised on major core issues of the Christian faith. On the other hand, evangelical churches, though they generally hold the Bible in high regard, seem to exist for the sole purpose of entertainment and fun: rock music, smoke machines, celebrity pastors giving TED talks with no accountability.

For this reason many have abandoned the Reformation doctrine of the Primacy of Scripture for Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy, but this denies the Early Church teaching surrounding the Primacy of Holy Scripture above all other authorities.

A Worship That Lifts Us Heavenward

The traditional church richly cherished the Lord, exalting the Holy Scriptures, and existed to worship a transcendent and holy God. The church therefore had a beautiful, enchanted and other-worldly character.

The prose of the liturgy, the ancient hymns, the chants and beautiful architecture, the beautiful Sacramental rites that proclaim the death and resurrection of Jesus — all of these glorified God as aids to worship, lifting us heavenward.

This is true even for the church of America, as she was exported by the kingdom of Great Britain. When one watches a movie and hears those words — "ashes to ashes, dust to dust," or "dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this company, to join together this Man and this Woman in Holy Matrimony" — they are hearing words that many, many saints of old have spoken, all of which originate in the Anglican church, which never abandoned the primacy of God's Word in Holy Scripture.

A Global Communion in Realignment

Today, the Anglican way has spread all over the globe and has formed an 80-million-member global communion, with the majority of modern orthodox Anglicans living in the Global South.

This Anglican communion is undergoing a realignment and reset, in which the Western church — which has largely compromised on faith and morals — is being held accountable by the Global South, and progressive bodies are being replaced by orthodox, Bible-believing Anglican churches, like those in the Anglican Church in North America.