What We Mean by Anglican: Reformation, Not Vagueness

In recent conversations, the phrase “classical Anglicanism” often appears as a catch-all for tradition, liturgy, and historical continuity. While that instinct toward rootedness is commendable, the label can be wide enough to carry very different—and sometimes competing—agendas. “Classical” frequently signals mood and method more than doctrinal substance.

By contrast, Anglican identity has a clear, public, and historic definition. It is not invented by new initiatives or reconstructed by contemporary preference. It was forged in the Reformation and settled in the Elizabethan Settlement, and it has been preserved in the formularies that continue to norm our faith and practice.

The Historic Definition

To speak precisely, Anglican means:

• Scripture as God’s Word written—the church’s supreme authority in all matters of faith and life.

• The Historic Formularies as our theological grammar:

• The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (1571)

• The 1662 Book of Common Prayer

• The 1662 Ordinal

• The Books of Homilies

These are not optional ornaments or nostalgic touchstones; they are the settled standards that define Anglican doctrine, worship, and order. They articulate a church that is catholic and reformed, evangelical and liturgical, grounded in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Why “Reformation Anglicanism”

Because “classical Anglicanism” is used so variously in contemporary circles, our center chooses a specific confessional label: Reformation Anglicanism. This term keeps the gospel center and the doctrinal boundaries in view:

• Sola Scriptura: Scripture supreme over church, tradition, reason, conscience.

• Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, Solus Christus: sinners justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

• Common Prayer as catechesis: worship that teaches the faith, anchors ordinary Christians, and forms holy lives.

• Ordered ministry: episcopal polity, rightly exercised, under Scripture and within the limits of the formularies.

In other words, Reformation Anglicanism names what Anglicanism actually is at its source—not a broad aesthetic of the past, but a confessed, public faith that still speaks with clarity and joy today.

A Word About “Classical Anglicanism” Today

When people say “classical Anglicanism,” they often mean to honor tradition, liturgy, and continuity. We gladly affirm those instincts. But without the concrete guardrails of the formularies, “classical” can become elastic—hosting views that blur or even contradict the Reformation settlement. Breadth without confessional ballast risks losing the gospel center that the Reformers recovered and bequeathed to us.

Our Invitation

At the Center for Reformation Anglicanism we exist to promote the truth of the gospel by teaching, defending, and commending Anglicanism as the Reformers defined it and the formularies preserve it. If you’re longing for Anglicanism with doctrinal clarity and pastoral warmth—Scriptural, confessional, sacramental, and evangelically alive—we invite you to explore our work: www.anglicanism.info

Anglicanism doesn’t need to be reimagined. It needs to be received afresh, believed deeply, and proclaimed faithfully. That is Reformation Anglicanism—and that is our joyful task in this generation.