WHAT IS ANGLICANISM?

To be Anglican is not to embrace a distinct version of Christianity, but a distinct way of being a “Mere Christian,” at the same time evangelical, apostolic, catholic, reformed, and Spirit-filled. We belong to a world-wide Anglican Communion, constituting the third largest Christian body globally.


The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) unites over 112,000 Anglicans in nearly 1,000 congregations across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. In April of 2009 it was recognized as a province of the global Anglican Communion by the Primates of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans. The Most Rev. Stephen D. Wood became the third Archbishop of the Province of the ACNA in June of 2024.

OUR BISHOP

The Rt. Rev. Dr. M. Keith Andrews

The College of Bishops of the Anglican Church in North America appointed the Rev. M. Keith Andrews as bishop of the Diocese of Western Anglicans in succession to the Rt. Rev. William Thompson on October 10, 2014 in Atlanta. 


Since 2005 Bishop Keith Andrews has served as rector of Living Faith Anglican Church in Tempe and was later appointed Dean of Arizona and Nevada. The largest geographic diocese in the ACNA, the Diocese of Western Anglicans is based in Southern California and has 29 congregations in four deaneries: San Diego, Orange County/Los Angeles, Arizona/Nevada and the Pacific Northwest.

We believe and confess Jesus Christ to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no one comes to the Father but by Him. Therefore, the Anglican Church in North America identifies the following seven elements as characteristic of the Anglican Way, and essential for membership:


  1. We confess the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired Word of God, containing all things necessary for salvation, and to be the final authority and unchangeable standard for Christian faith and life. 
  2. We confess Baptism and the Supper of the Lord to be Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself in the Gospel, and thus to be ministered with unfailing use of His words of institution and of the elements ordained by Him.
  3. We confess the godly historic Episcopate as an inherent part of the apostolic faith and practice, and therefore as integral to the fullness and unity of the Body of Christ.
  4. We confess as proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture the historic faith of the undivided church as declared in the three Catholic Creeds: the Apostles’, the Nicene, and the Athanasian.
  5. Concerning the seven Councils of the undivided Church, we affirm the teaching of the first four Councils and the Christological clarifications of the fifth, sixth and seventh Councils, in so far as they are agreeable to the Holy Scriptures.
  6. We receive The Book of Common Prayer as set forth by the Church of England in 1662, together with the Ordinal attached to the same, as a standard for Anglican doctrine and discipline, and, with the Books which preceded it, as the standard for the Anglican tradition of worship.
  7. We receive the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of 1571, taken in their literal and grammatical sense, as expressing the Anglican response to certain doctrinal issues controverted at that time, and as expressing the fundamental principles of authentic Anglican belief.


Members of the Anglican Church in North America are in the mainstream, both globally and historically, of Christianity – the biblically-faithful way of following Jesus and being part of the “One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.” As Anglicans, this orthodoxy is defined by and centered on our church’s classic formularies – the Book of Common Prayer, including the Ordinal, and the Thirty-nine Articles – which all point back to the authority of the Holy Bible and articulate foundational principles of the Anglican tradition throughout the world. We wholeheartedly embrace The Jerusalem Declaration [PDF], the founding declaration of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, and the Theological Statement of the Common Cause Partnership – the precursor to the Anglican Church in North America. More information about our Christian beliefs and practice can be found at the Anglican Church of North America’s website.