The Faith We Receive
The Faith Once Delivered
The Holy Trinity and Jesus Christ
At the Church of the Ascension, we believe that the Christian Faith is something we receive, not something each generation is free to reinvent.
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We seek to hold and hand on the Catholic and Apostolic Faith revealed by God in Holy Scripture, confessed in the ancient Creeds, taught by the historic Church, and lived through the sacramental life of Christians throughout the centuries.
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As Anglican Catholics, we understand ourselves not as creating a new form of Christianity, but as continuing within the historic Church of Jesus Christ.
We worship one God in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
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We believe that Jesus Christ is truly God and truly Man—the eternal Son of God who, for us and for our salvation, took our human nature from the Blessed Virgin Mary.
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He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. On the third day He rose bodily from the dead, ascended into heaven, and will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.
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Through His Incarnation, His sacrificial Death upon the Cross, and His glorious Resurrection, Christ has accomplished what we could never accomplish for ourselves: our reconciliation with God and the victory over sin and death.
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The Church’s faith in God and in the Person and work of Jesus Christ is expressed particularly in the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds, which we receive as faithful statements of the historic Christian Faith.
Holy Scripture and the Faith of the Church
We receive the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the inspired Word of God, containing all doctrine necessary for salvation.
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Scripture is not interpreted in isolation from the Church that received, preserved, prayed, and proclaimed it. We read the Bible within the Holy Tradition of the Church, guided by the teaching of the ancient Fathers and the doctrinal witness of the undivided Church.
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We receive the teaching of the Seven Ecumenical Councils insofar as they faithfully express the Apostolic Faith revealed in Holy Scripture and received by the historic Church.
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Reason has an important place in Christian theology, but it serves the truth revealed by God rather than standing in judgment over it.
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For this reason, our faith is both thoroughly biblical and catholic.
Christ and His Church
The Sacramental Life
We believe that Jesus Christ continues to meet, strengthen, forgive, and sanctify His people through the sacramental life of His Church.
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We recognize the seven Sacraments:
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Baptism · Confirmation · Holy Eucharist · Penance · Holy Matrimony · Holy Orders · Unction of the Sick
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The Sacraments are more than outward ceremonies or reminders. They are visible signs through which God truly gives His grace to His people.
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At the center of our common life is the Holy Eucharist.
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We believe that in the Eucharist Christ truly gives us His Body and His Blood under the forms of bread and wine. The Eucharist is not merely a memorial meal, but the sacramental participation of the Church in the one, perfect, and all-sufficient Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross.
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For this reason, the celebration of the Holy Eucharist stands at the heart of our Sunday worship and parish life.
The Church and Apostolic Ministry
We believe that the Church is the Body of Christ, founded by our Lord to proclaim the Gospel, teach the Faith, administer the Sacraments, and continue His saving work in the world.
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The Church is not merely a voluntary association of individual Christians. She is a visible, sacramental, and apostolic body, possessing a faith, ministry, and order received from Christ and handed down through the Apostles.
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We receive the historic threefold ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons as belonging to the Apostolic order of the Church. In continuity with the practice of the historic Church, Holy Orders are conferred upon men who are duly called, examined, and ordained to these ministries.
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Bishops stand within the historic Apostolic Succession, maintaining the continuity of the Church’s sacramental ministry, teaching, and pastoral oversight from one generation to the next. Priests share in the bishop’s ministry through preaching, teaching, pastoral care, and the administration of the Sacraments. Deacons are ordained particularly to ministries of service and assistance in the Church’s worship and pastoral life.
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This Apostolic ministry is one reason the word Catholic is important to us. We believe that Christ did not leave His Church without order or authority, but entrusted His Gospel and Sacraments to a living Church called to preserve faithfully what she has received and to hand it on to succeeding generations.
The Life of Grace
Sin, Grace, and Salvation
Human beings are created in the image of God and are therefore possessed of profound dignity and worth. Yet humanity is also fallen, and every one of us is affected by sin.
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We cannot restore ourselves to communion with God through our own moral effort, accomplishments, or good intentions.
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Our salvation comes through the grace of God in Jesus Christ.
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By His Incarnation, sacrificial Death, and Resurrection, Christ has defeated sin and death and opened to us the way of eternal life. We are called to respond to His grace with faith, repentance, Baptism, obedience, and a life increasingly conformed to Christ.
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Good works do not purchase our salvation. They are the fruit of God’s grace working within us as we grow in holiness and love.
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The Christian life is therefore not simply about becoming a better person. It is about being reconciled to God, transformed by His grace, and brought into communion with Him.
The Christian Life
Christian faith is more than agreement with a collection of doctrines. It is a life lived in communion with God.
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Christians are called to lives of prayer, worship, repentance, charity, holiness, forgiveness, and service.
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We seek to form our lives and consciences according to Holy Scripture and the moral teaching received by the Church rather than according to changing cultural standards.
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We believe in the sacredness of human life and the dignity of every person created in the image of God. We uphold the historic Christian understanding of Holy Matrimony as the lifelong union of one man and one woman, ordered toward their mutual good and, according to God’s providence, the procreation and Christian nurture of children.
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Christian morality, however, is not simply a collection of prohibitions. It is the response of redeemed people to the mercy of God and the transforming grace He gives us in Christ.
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The goal of the Christian life is ultimately holiness—to become, by God’s grace, ever more completely the people He created and redeemed us to be.
Anglican Catholic Faith and Christian Hope
Catholic Faith in the Anglican Tradition
We are Anglican because this Catholic Faith has come to us through the spiritual, liturgical, and theological inheritance of the historic Church of England.
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We treasure the Book of Common Prayer, particularly the American 1928 Prayer Book, together with the wider Catholic liturgical tradition preserved within historic Anglicanism.
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Our worship reflects the ancient pattern of the Christian Church: the reading of Holy Scripture, the offering of prayer and praise, the preaching of the Gospel, the observance of the Church Year, and above all the celebration of the Holy Eucharist.
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We do not believe Anglicanism is meant to represent a compromise between Catholicism and Protestantism. Rather, we understand the Anglican tradition at its best as a particular expression of the Catholic and Apostolic Faith within the English-speaking Church.
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We therefore seek to preserve and proclaim:
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Catholic Faith · Apostolic Order · Orthodox Worship · Evangelical Witness
The Hope of the Christian
Our faith looks not only to the past, but also toward the fulfillment of God’s promises.
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We believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
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Christ will come again in glory. Sin and death will not have the final word. God will bring His work of redemption to its completion, and those who belong to Christ are called to the everlasting enjoyment of God in His Kingdom.
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Christian hope therefore rests not upon human progress or our own accomplishments, but upon the promises of God and the victory already won for us by Jesus Christ.