Christian Beliefs

First and foremost, we believe in in God as revealed in the Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We Episcopalians join with our brothers and sisters in the Roman Catholic church, the Eastern Orthodox Churches, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, and others that the core of Christian faith is found contained in two Creeds, the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed. In fact, we pray the Nicene Creed as part of our liturgy of Holy Eucharist every Sunday.

The Catechism
A more complete summary of our beliefs is found in something called The Catechism. Catechism comes from an ancient Greek word meaning "to teach by word of mouth" so a catechism is a collection of teachings. Our catechism is printed in our Book of Common Prayer, and you can read the whole thing here. See what you think!

Scripture, Tradition, and Reason
Episcopalians believe that God has blessed humanity with many wonderful gifts, including our ability to think, and our awareness of history. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we discover our theology by exploring three things:

Holy Scripture. The books of the Hebrew Bible and of the New Testament contain a faithful record of God's relationship with humanity throughout the centuries. We find the Scriptures to be the story of God's blessing of creation, of humanity's failings and sinfulness, of God's loving response to our great need, and ultimately of the Good News of Jesus Christ. We say that the Scriptures "contain all things necessary for salvation."
Holy Tradition. The Scriptures were of course written by human beings under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; so they are a record of the apostolic tradition of the church. Tradition doesn't simply mean "the way we've always done things"; it means that we receive the faith from our ancestors. It means that the Church is a living society of Christians, with a rich history of practices, teachings, holidays, prayers, doctrines, songs, and cultures. We honor them, learn from them, and hand them on.
Reason. God has given us brains. We experience the world around us, its joys as well as its sufferings. Our thoughts and our experiences shape the way we view the world around us, and the way we understand ourselves. Episcopalians are honest about the fact that new challenges encourage us to apply Christ's law of love in different ways. We are eager to find out how the sciences, psychology, sociology, and economics can inform and challenge our faith.

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The Creeds

Episcopalians believe that the summary of authentic and orthodox Christian doctrine is summarized in two ancient creeds, or statements of faith. Creed comes from the latin "credo", which means "I believe" and is the first word of these statements in that language. The Apostles' Creed is the older of the two, and we use it in our daily Morning and Evening Prayer, as well as when we baptize a new Christian. The Nicene Creed was a product of the first two ecumenical councils in the 4th century, and provided a statement of the core of Christian faith that withstood the dangers of the heresies of those times.

The Apostles' Creed

The Nicene Creed

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
    creator of heaven and earth;

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
    He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
        and born of the Virgin Mary.
    He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
        was crucified, died, and was buried.
    He descended to the dead.
    On the third day he rose again.
    He ascended into heaven,
        and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
    He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
    the holy catholic Church,
    the communion of saints,
    the forgiveness of sins
    the resurrection of the body,
    and the life everlasting. Amen.

We believe in one God,
    the Father, the Almighty,
    maker of heaven and earth,
    of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
    the only Son of God,
    eternally begotten of the Father,
    God from God, Light from Light,
    true God from true God,
    begotten, not made,
    of one Being with the Father.
    Through him all things were made.
    For us and for our salvation
        he came down from heaven:
    by the power of the Holy Spirit
        he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
        and was made man.
    For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
        he suffered death and was buried.
        On the third day he rose again
            in accordance with the Scriptures;
        he ascended into heaven
            and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living
and the dead,
        and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
    who proceeds from the Father.
    With the Father and the Son he is
worshiped and glorified.
    He has spoken through the Prophets.
    We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
    We acknowledge one baptism
for the forgiveness of sins.
    We look for the resurrection of the dead,
        and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Episcopalian Christians and the Bible

The Bible is a scented garden, delightful, beautiful. It enchants our ears with birdsong in a sweet, divine and spiritual harmony, it touches our heart, comforts us in sorrow, soothes us in a moment of anger, and fills us with eternal joy. Let us knock at its gate with diligence and with perseverance. Let us not be discouraged from knocking. The latch will be opened. If we have read a page of the Bible two or three times and have not understood it, let us not be tired of re-reading it and meditating on it. Let us seek in the fountain of this garden “a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14). We shall taste a joy that will never dry up, because the grace of the Bible garden is inexhaustible. -St. John of Damascus (675-749)

As is true for all Christians, the Bible takes a central place in our shared life of faith. We believe that the whole Bible, the Old and New Testaments, are a faithful record of God's revelation to humanity. They tell the story of God's work in creation and salvation, and particularly in the work of God's son, Jesus Christ.

St. Jerome by Trophîme Bigot

Every one of our services contains extensive readings from Scripture. In the Eucharist we hear readings from the Old Testament, the Psalms, the Epistles, and the Gospels. The Daily Office contains even more readings for each day of the year. Additionally, many of the texts of our prayers are drawn from the Bible.

Unlike some churches, Episcopalians tend not to be biblical literalists. The tendency to demand that every word of the Bible is given directly by God and carries equal weight for the development of doctrine and practice often leads towards a kind of idolatry of the written word. One of our older articles of faith, called the Thirty-Nine Articles, defined Scripture in this way:Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. In the name of the Holy Scripture we do understand those canonical Books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church.

2011 marked the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible, also called the Authorized Version. This masterpiece of English literature is a product of the same Anglican faith that we profess. We honor and revere the beauty of its language, but the truth is that more contemporary translations of Scripture are more accurate and faithful to the ancient Greek and Hebrew texts. While a number of translations are allowed to be used in Episcopal Church liturgies, we use the New Revised Standard Version here at St. Stephen's.