What’s at the heart of Anglicanism? Is it liturgy, bishops, Synods, robes and Prayer books? No doubt these are important, and they play an important role in the expression of Anglicanism and for ordering our corporate worship and common life. But they’re not the heart of Anglicanism. In this morning’s Bible exposition on Exodus 24, the Rev. David Short, Rector of St. John’s, Shaughnessy, of the Anglican Network in Canada, expressed the true heart of Anglicanism.

At the heart of Anglicanism is a message, God’s message of redemption to the world. The Gospel is the heart of Anglicanism. It is this message that was recovered for the church at the Reformation and so clearly expressed in the Anglican formularies, Articles and prayer book. It is a message that brings people from every tribe, nation, and language into communion with God and fellowship with one another.

David Short powerfully and clearly expounded the Gospel of Christ from Exodus 24, showing us that God’s aim for human beings is to call for himself a people who will fellowship with him and one another, and enter his glorious presence forever. He does that through redemption, having rescued his people from the slavery of sin through the blood of the sacrificial Lamb of God. The death of Christ on behalf of his people expresses both the holiness of God as he judges sin, and the love of God as he acts simply by grace with no merit on our part to bring us to himself. This message is the heart of Anglicanism and the growth of Anglicanism worldwide is only where this message is clearly taught and lived out.

Those who have broken the fellowship of the Anglican Communion have done so precisely because they have rejected this message. TEC, the Anglican Church in Canada, and indeed all those who deny the message that is the heart of Anglicanism show they have never truly understood what it is to be a Christian, and what it is to practice true Anglicanism. Their revisionist canons, their revisionist liturgies, their policies of persecution of faithful Anglicans stand against them to their shame and show that it is they who have walked away from the Anglican Communion.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 9:46 pm and is filed under GAFCON. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.