What Are Required Beliefs of Anglicans?

You are correct. Let's continue to encourage our new friend to see that the AC does indeed have doctrinal standards.

 

Ah, but see, there is where you make your mistake. You try to compare the TEC which has departed orthodoxy to faithful expressions of Anglicanism, such as ACNA, AMiA, GAFCON, and Global South Anglicanism.

 

God and Jesus Christ.

 

To be accepted as an Associate Clergy member of the AMiA's Fellowship of St. Aidan and St. Columba, I had to sign a statement agreeing to the doctrinal standards of the AMiA, which I had no problem in doing. Some might be able to do such things and lie about it, but I could not.

 

All excellent points. I think we are on the same page. I agree that I was not making a clear distinction between whether there are doctrinal standards and whether they are being enforced. I was trying to do that, but I wasn't doing it in a reasonable or clear manner.

So I guess then my question is actually going to be answered on a national church level, not on a communion level. The AC had guidelines for admitting or establishing churches within the AC, but it is really up to the national church to set its own doctrinal policies. So with that said, I suppose then my question is really about the TEC only (since I know the ACNA has doctrinal standards):

If the TEC has doctrinal standards that they simply just choose not to enforce, what are they? Is it the BCP? I can't find any definitive statement on their website.

 

I have no doubt that the AMiA has doctrinal standards, this really boils down to the doctrinal standards of the TEC. I can't find what they are anywhere, even on their own website.

 

If you believe the creeds, you believe the essentials. If you want your church to answer definitively every religious question you raise, and to demand your obedience to its answers, Anglicanism may not be for you. My suggestion (and of course I'm not really entitled to make such a suggestion!) is that you hold fast to your belief in the creeds, attend an Anglican church, and determine from that experience whether this is the fellowship and communion of which you want to be part. If you want enforced certainty you will have a difficulty: Anglicans tend to allow doubt and diversity.

 

I certainly appreciate the suggestion. I am not arguing for forced anything in terms of what needs to be believed, only what needs to be taught...and the standards could be very broad! But form what I can tell, there are no standards at all in the TEC. You can teach anything, even the idea that Jesus is not God. And if that is acceptable, then is it even a church at all?

 

I don't see how anyone could teach that Jesus is not God and then recite the Creeds without crossed fingers. Depends who the "anyone" is, of course, but I don't see how a bishop of a creedal church could teach that and remain a bishop of a creedal church. At any rate, there would have to be some very clever hedging round! But there: we are back to the Creeds.

 

That was an extreme example to prove a point...but many parts of the Creed have been rejected by bishops in the Episcopal Church, such as retired Bishop Spong.

 

John Shelby Spong did/does not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. He must have had to cross all ten fingers and toes.

 

And I can't recall, but was he ever actually removed? I didn't think he was. I though he just eventually left on his own, but I suppose it was possible he was forced out.

 

Might we come down to Eucharistic theology and liturgy and what it means as the core? So much seems peripheral to the core of things. I'm also thinking of the recent meeting of the RC pope and the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury where they talked about the poor.

We have been unfaithful to Christ's example and the faith based on it. -- I thought SSPX had been welcomed back to RCC by Benedict, pope.

Spong is a special case I think. I am aware of him, being from Canada, but he never seemed to deserve the press and didn't make much of a splash here. I read one of his books a few years ago, mostly to see what he was about. I didn't get the the nontheistic God, which seemed to me to be a non-God-God idea. Sort of like The Force from Star Wars. He also articulated about things poorly and bent science to his ideas in way that made me want to dismiss him and not finish reading the book. Most people in our parish seemed interested in more positive ideas. He seemed pretty negativistic.

 

I think this hits the nail right on the head.

 

The Bible, the creeds, the 4 ecumenical councils, and the 39 Articles...