Why Are We Named “Anglican Church of the Reformation”?

That is a very good question. It is not a common name. Many Anglican churches take the name of a saint (such as All Saints, Saint Botolph’s, or Saint George’s), while others use familiar Christian terms (such as Trinity, Christ, Resurrection, or Redemption). All of these are excellent choices.

A Protestant and Reformed Church

In Great Britain, where Anglicanism was born, and throughout the global Anglican family, it has long been understood that the Anglican Church is a Protestant and Reformed church. It was born of the Protestant Reformation, specifically the English Reformation, which emphasized the authority of Holy Scripture over tradition and salvation by faith alone rather than by works. When we say “Reformation,” we mean this English Reformation, led by Thomas Cranmer, whose theology stood with the Reformed churches of Switzerland and southern Germany rather than with Luther. As the church historian Philip Schaff observed:

“Continental historians, both Protestant and Catholic, rank the Church of England among the Reformed Churches as distinct from the Lutheran, and her Articles are found in every collection of Reformed Confessions.” (Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, vol. 1 [1877], pp. 622–623)

Even today, when a new sovereign is crowned, as King Charles III was in 2023, the monarch must take an oath that includes these words:

“Will you, to the utmost of your power, maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law?”

In North America, however, this history is less widely known. It has been obscured in two ways. Liberal revisionism in the Episcopal Church and elsewhere set the Formularies aside. More recently, the popular “three streams” model has presented Anglicanism as a blend of Anglo-Catholic, Evangelical, and Pentecostal/Charismatic traditions, quietly sidelining the Reformers and the Formularies. Our page What Is Anglicanism? explains why historic Anglicanism has one stream, not three.

What “Reformation” Means

The word reformation means “to restore something to its original form or condition.” For the Church, reformation means restoring beliefs and practices that have drifted away from the standard and primary authority of God’s Word.

The Articles themselves make this case:

“As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, have erred; so also, the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith” (Article XIX).

Every church can drift, and every church must be brought back to God’s Word. The English Reformers did not leave the catholic Church; they restored the Church of England to it.

The challenge Anglicanism faces today is the same one facing most denominations: Do we remain faithful to the historic faith and piety handed down to us, as set out in the official standards of the church? Or do we allow factions to ignore those standards and redefine what it means to be Anglican (or Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, and so on) according to the whims of the age or the size of their following?

The older and larger a denomination is, the greater this challenge becomes. Over time, cracks in confessional unity and biblical faithfulness creep in. Time and size—and Anglicanism is very large globally—allow divisive factions to promote revisionist narratives that weaken the authority of Scripture and dilute the shared faith and piety that made the Church so effective for the gospel.

Why We Chose the Name

With this in mind, we chose the name Reformation. It reminds us of our origins in the English Reformation and of the English martyrs who died for the gospel of Jesus Christ, among them nearly three hundred men and women burned under Mary I. Among the martyrs were the architects of the Anglican faith: William Tyndale, Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer, and Nicholas Ridley, who built on the work of the forerunner John Wycliffe.

It also reminds us that, since the Reformation, what it means to be Anglican has been defined by the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion (1571), the Book of Common Prayer (1662), the Homilies, and the Ordinal. In North America these standards have too often been marginalized and ignored, even though they were reaffirmed in the Jerusalem Declaration of 2008.

Thankfully, this is not true in our diocese, the Diocese of the Rocky Mountains, where our clergy are required to take the following oath of subscription:

“I subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s Word and as authoritative for Anglicans today; I uphold The Book of Common Prayer as set forth by the Church of England in 1662, together with the Ordinal attached to the same, as setting out the theological, liturgical, and ministry principles that are the standard for Anglican doctrine and worship; I affirm the Jerusalem Declaration of 2008.”

Our name, then, is not a party badge. It is a pledge to be Anglican on the Church’s own terms: to conform to the Formularies that have always defined the Anglican faith, rather than to any modern eclectic stream or faction.

Here at Anglican Church of the Reformation, we hope to build a church family that faithfully adheres to the authority of the Bible and that, together with the prophets, apostles, and martyrs, reverently worships Jesus Christ as Lord and boldly proclaims His gospel to a lost and dying world.