This section is aimed at people who've never been inside an
Anglican church, or who are entirely new to Christianity. Perhaps
you've walked past a church and wondered what goes on inside, or perhaps
you've heard a lot about Christianity from the media and you're wondering
if what you've heard is representative of Christianity as a whole. (A
lot of it isn't. The extremists at both edges get most of the
publicity, while the Anglican Church sits firmly in the middle of the
spectrum.)
This page isn't meant as a comprehensive
guide to Christian belief. It's intended to give you some background
information so that - we hope - you'll feel comfortable enough to
come along to a church service and begin finding out more about us.
We welcome visitors; coming along for a look doesn't commit you
to anything.
Please click on one of the section titles
below if you want to go directly to that section.
Introduction
1: What do Christians Believe?
2: What about the Anglican Church?
3: What Happens in Church?
4: Where do I Go from Here?
Glossary of Terms
Introduction
The Anglican Church is one of the most important Christian denominations
worldwide, with about 75 million
members.
Much of Anglican worship, like that of
other churches, is based on traditions stretching back for centuries.
The Anglican Church welcomes new members, but faces a serious difficulty;
to a newcomer, much of what we do in church looks puzzling or entirely
incomprehensible.
This web page attempts to explain the basics
of Anglican Christian belief, and to serve as an introduction to
what we do, and why. There are sections on general Christian
beliefs, on the Anglican Church in particular, and on what actually
goes on in a church service. There is a glossary of terms at
the bottom of the page.
The most vocal Christians are often the
minorities who hold extreme views, and so the general public view
of Christianity is not necessarily accurate. (Some Anglicans
are actually nice, sensible people.) Please read on - we hope
you might be pleasantly surprised by what you find.
What is the Church
for? Why not be a Christian in private?
The Church fulfills three important functions. Worship
is one of them. We don't worship God because we have
to, or because we're afraid of what God might do to us if we don't.
We worship God because we believe that God is a being who fully
deserves our respect and love. Worshiping God is simply the
most appropriate behavior for the beings He has created, and a church
service is an effective and time-honoured way of carrying out this behavior.
The second purpose of the Church is teaching.
Partly this is something we do to each other; passages from
the Bible are read out in church, and sermons comment and enlarge on
them and other issues, and relate Christianity to real life. But
Christians also have a responsibility to make their own insights about
God available to the rest of the world, and an organized Church can attempt
to do this in ways that individual Christians cannot.
Our third purpose is fellowship; we are a community
of people with a common goal, supporting and strengthening each other
as we work towards that goal. An important part of Christian teaching
is the need to have compassion for others, and so this, too, is an external
as well as an internal activity. The Church provides material support
for the needy, and it attempts to promote social justice to the rest
of society.
Who can come to an
Anglican service?
Anyone! You don't need to be an Anglican or even a Christian
to come along. (Holy Communion, a ceremony which takes place
during many of our services, is technically restricted to baptized Christians;
see section 3 below.) Attending a service doesn't commit you to
anything. We will (hopefully) try to be friendly, but that's all.
You can become a Christian at your own pace.
We don't charge membership fees. (We're
always after donations, but how much you contribute is up to you, and
entirely private.) There's plenty of ceremony in a typical Anglican
church, but we don't have secret initiation rites or anything else
scary or sinister. We don't even have a dress code - people normally
dress tidily for church, but you don't have to wear a suit or a big
flowery hat.
Audience participation in an Anglican service
isn't particularly strenuous. The words of the service are provided,
either in the New Zealand Prayer Book or an equivalent, or on
a piece of paper. If you're not familiar with the service, just sit
near the back and do what everyone else does. You can stay in your
place when people go up to the altar for Communion, if you don't want to
take part in this section of the service.
1: What do Christians Believe?
There are two important parts to Christian belief. Firstly,
Christians believe in a God who is an all-powerful intelligent being,
existing independently of the physical Universe, and responsible for
its creation. We also believe that God cares deeply about the
Universe and all of its inhabitants.
This belief is common to many major religions.
Jews, Muslims and Christians all worship the same God, in different
ways.
Secondly, Christians believe that Jesus
of Nazareth (c. 6 BC to AD 27) was a manifestation of God on Earth
as a human, and that His teaching as recorded in the Bible is therefore
a direct insight into God's wishes for humanity.
Lots of people have
claimed to be gods. Why do Christians believe Jesus really
was?
There are several good reasons. Firstly, He taught a path
of self-denial and caring for others, and followed these teachings
Himself, and as a result He was executed by the Romans. This is
hardly the behaviour you'd expect from a person claiming to be the Ruler
of the Universe – unless He was telling the truth.
Secondly, He was clearly not a construct
of people's expectations. The Jewish people of the time had
prophecies concerning a Messiah, but they were expecting an Earthly
ruler - although with God's authority - who would kick out the Romans
and make Israel great again. Jesus was not at all what they had
expected. Later theologians had great difficulty in finding Old
Testament ‘prophecies’ which actually seemed relevant. And yet
- without once commanding an army or any material wealth - Jesus became
the most influential person in recorded history.
Finally, Jesus rose from the dead shortly
after His execution, and appeared to hundreds of his followers before
(we assume) returning to God. Whether you believe this or
not depends on how much weight you give to these eyewitness accounts,
and to the simple fact of Jesus’ continuing, dramatic influence on
history through the people who had known him.
So what did Jesus teach?
Jesus came not to form a new religion, but to reinforce and improve
people's existing relationships with God. His main commandments
were to worship God, and to care for other people. He said that
God has very high standards - but that God understands that we usually
can't live up to them, and loves us nonetheless. God is always willing
to forgive, and let us make a clean start, as long as we keep trying.
The very presence of Jesus shows that the
God who created the universe, and who probably knows the position
and state of every subatomic particle, also cares deeply about individual
humans, and wants us to love Him and live fulfilling lives in accordance
with good moral principles.
Christians believe that when Jesus became
a human, He opened the door for us to become more closely connected
with God. And no, we do not actually know how.
Where does the Bible
come in?
The Bible is the record of humanity's gradually increasing knowledge
of God, culminating in the Gospels - four accounts by different writers
of the life of Jesus.
Is every word of the
Bible true? Do Christians believe that the Earth was created
in seven days?
Some do, but this is not a common view in mainstream churches.
Christians believe that the Bible was inspired by God. However,
different parts of it were written for different audiences and not
all of it is intended as literal history. Christians take the
teachings of Jesus, as recorded in the Gospels, very seriously indeed.
Is Christianity incompatible
with science?
No. It can't be, because science is a self-correcting method
of finding truths about the Universe, and we believe that Christianity
is one of these truths. As a general principle, science tells
us ‘what’ and ‘how’ and religion tells us ‘why’.
What about life after
death?
Christians believe that human consciousness doesn't cease when we
die. We don't know what Heaven is actually like; it's probably
something well beyond our current capacity for understanding. We
believe that we will have a permanent existence in the presence of God,
in a form fuller and richer than our current physical one.
What is the Trinity?
The short answer is; we don't know. Christians see God as
having three aspects; God the creator, Jesus of Nazareth, and the
Holy Spirit, which is the manifestation of God which we believe can
still interact directly with human beings. We do not
believe that God is a sort of committee; the idea is more that a single
God appears in different forms for different purposes. In the
past, theologians have attempted to explain and codify the idea of
the Trinity, but in fact it's something which we don't fully understand.
2: What about the Anglican Church?
The Anglican Church is an organization with branches in 164 countries
and a total of about 75 million members worldwide. The national Churches
have a good deal of autonomy, but all recognise the spiritual leadership
of the Archbishop of Canterbury and they talk to each other via a body called the Anglican
Consultative Council. Also, all Anglican bishops come together at
the Lambeth Conference, held every ten years.
There are many differences between individual Anglican
churches, but we hold four things in common:
- The Bible
as a basis of our faith;
- The Nicene
and Apostles' Creeds, basic statements of Christian belief;
- Recognition
of the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion, and
- The historic
episcopate; that is, the continuity of the line of bishops since the
time of Christ.
It has been said that the Anglican Church rests on the three pillars
of Faith, Reason and Tradition.
The unique strength of Anglicanism lies in our balance of these three
aspects of our religion.
Wasn't the Anglican
Church formed by Henry VIII so that he could annul his marriage?
Ouch. Yes, it was, but leaders in the Church of England
took the opportunity to make a number of reforms which the central
authorities of the Roman Catholic Church opposed. Something
like the Anglican Church would probably have happened without Henry
VIII’s political interference, but it might have taken longer.
King Henry's main concern was simply independence from Rome.
So what else changed?
At the time, there were a number of doctrinal concerns, such as the
exact nature of the Eucharist. The main practical difference
between the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches nowadays is that the
Anglicans, while maintaining a hierarchy of priests and bishops, give
much more autonomy to individual churches. This means that, while
the basics of our belief are fixed, there are wide differences in our
style of worship from parish to parish.
Is the Anglican Church
male-dominated?
It's trying not to be. The Diocese of Nova Scotia was the first
in Canada to appoint a female Bishop, and there are now many female
priests in the Anglican Church in Canada. Most services and
modern hymns use inclusive language. Some traditional hymns and
forms of service do unfortunately contain male-specific language which
can't be removed without damage to their poetic quality. We still
often (but not always) refer to God as ‘He’ and ‘Father’, because sadly
the English language has no suitable neutral terms other than the horribly
impersonal ‘it’. We are working on improvements in this area.
3: What Happens in Church?
The core of many Anglican services is Holy Communion, also
known as Eucharist. This is a ceremony derived
from the supper which Jesus held with his followers on the night
before his arrest and execution. Christians believe that this
ceremony creates a special sort of contact with God, which helps to strengthen
us as Christians.
What actually happens?
Holy Communion involves the giving out of bread and wine which has
been consecrated, or made holy, with special prayers.
In some parishes real bread is used; others use special wafers. Normally the congregation walk
up to the front of the church and kneel at the altar, receiving the
bread from the priest in cupped hands. The chalice,
the ceremonial goblet containing the wine, is usually taken round by
an assistant.
Won't I catch
horrible diseases from sharing a cup?
No! Alcohol is a disinfectant and the rim of the chalice
is wiped between uses.
Does anything weird
happen when you receive Communion?
Mostly, no. People do have mystical experiences, but they
are not a normal part of Communion in most churches. (Some
branches of Christianity actively encourage them) In general, Communion
strengthens your relationship with God in the same way as you can get
to know people well by spending a lot of time with them over many years.
Can anyone take part
in this ceremony?
Officially, you have to be baptized in order to receive Communion.
It doesn't have to be an Anglican baptism; any branch of the Christian
Church will do.
The ceremony of Confirmation (a deliberate
reaffirmation of the vows of baptism, made when we're old enough to
know what we're doing) still exists in the Anglican Church, but it's
no longer necessary to go through this process before you can receive
Communion.
Will I go to Hell if
I don't receive Communion regularly?
We sincerely hope not! Holy Communion, like most of the Church's
activities, is a means to an end rather than an end in itself.
However, the Anglican Church believes that Communion is a valuable
component of our relationship with God.
What else happens in
a church service?
Anglican services are extremely varied and flexible. Set forms
of words are available, in the Book of Alternative Services as well
as the Book of Common Prayer. There is much variation in style between individual parishes, and some
parishes use different services on different Sundays.
There are specific words to accompany Communion,
and the Lord's Prayer will normally find its way into a service.
There will often be a Creed, a formal statement of basic
Christian beliefs. Most services include hymns, which may
be either traditional or modern. There will be prayers; some
of these will be in set words, but we also pray about current issues.
Services also include readings from the Bible.
And a sermon?
Quite often. We're fully aware that sermons have a reputation
for inducing sleep. This doesn't have to be the case.
Some preachers are very good speakers, adept at making Christianity
relevant to everyday life.
And . . . ?
Yes, we admit it. There will normally be a collection.
We need to meet running costs and pay salaries, and the Anglican Church
is also a major social service organization. No one will pay
attention to how much you're dropping in the basket, and you don't
have to make a contribution at all. If you see any
value in what we're doing, you'll probably want to help if you can.
Why do priests wear
funny clothes?
Like many of the details of our worship, this is a historical accident.
A priest's robes are based roughly on the garments worn by Roman
officials in the early days of the Church. We've added Christian
symbols to them, but (being Anglicans) we haven't actually changed
anything much.
4: Where do I Go from Here?
Newcomers are always welcome at any Anglican church. There
are no membership fees and you don't have to fill in any forms.
Anyone can attend any Anglican service and see what happens.
What if I like what
I see?
There are two ceremonies relevant to becoming a fully functional
Anglican. The first is Baptism, and the second is Confirmation.
Baptism is a ceremony representative
of spiritual cleansing, ‘renewing’ a person upon entry into the Church.
Originally the recipient was fully immersed in water; a modern baptism
in the Anglican Church involves a ceremonial sprinkling of water
on the head, and special prayers.
Some people are baptised as babies.
This is an indication that the parents have decided to bring up their
child as a Christian. In this case, people can be Confirmed
when they are old enough to make their own decision to be part of the
Church.
You can take part in most of the activities of the
Church without going through either of these procedures, and there are
no rules about how soon, or how late, you should make a formal commitment.
Talk to your friendly parish priest about it some time.
What can the Church
do for you?
The Church can bring you closer to God. We believe this is
more important than anything in ‘ordinary’ physical existence.
It can also help teach you to become a better person by living in a
more ‘God-like’ way. The Church answers the human need for something
greater than themselves in which to believe, and gives our lives a sense
of meaning.
The Church also provides community with
fellow humans, all working towards a common goal.
What can you do for
the Church?
Many Christians become involved in the life of their Church in ways
other than simple attendance. Many functions in a church service,
such as reading lessons from the Bible, can be undertaken by any member
of the congregation. Many churches have choirs and music groups.
Parishes also run groups which operate
outside the confines of Sunday services. These include youth
groups, studies and courses, and community service organisations.
Christians can also become qualified as
ministers. Becoming a priest requires several years of study, and
a deep commitment to Christianity. However, all Christians
have a part to play, using their own individual talents in their everyday
lives to further the work of the Church and bring the world a little
closer to the way God wants it to be.
Glossary of Terms
Baptism:
the ceremony of cleansing used when a person becomes a member of
the Christian Church.
Confirmation: a conscious reaffirmation
of baptismal vows, for those baptised as babies.
Congregation: the group of people who attend
a church.
Creed: a formal statement of Christian
belief.
Diocese: a regional grouping of parishes
under the direction of a bishop.
Eucharist: another term for Holy Communion,
or the service containing it.
Gospel: one of the four accounts of the
life of Jesus in the New Testament.
New Testament: the part of the Bible dealing
specifically with Christianity, and containing the Gospels.
Old Testament: the part of the Bible predating
Jesus, and containing Jewish religious laws and traditions.
Parish: an individual church, and the area
for which it has responsibility.
Sacrament: one of the core ceremonies of the Church,
defined as 'outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace'.
Theologian: a scholar who studies questions
of God and religion.
Trinity: the combination of the three recognized
aspects of God, known as Father, Son (Jesus of Nazareth) and Holy
Spirit.
Portions of text taken from the Parish of St. John's Roslyn, New Zealand. Used with permission.
|
|