Church of The Province of West Africa - Doctrine and Practice

Doctrine and Practice

See also: Anglicanism and Anglican doctrine

The center of the Church of the Province of West Africa's teaching is the life and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The basic teachings of the church, or catechism, includes:

  • Jesus Christ is fully human and fully God. He died and was resurrected from the dead.
  • Jesus provides the way of eternal life for those who believe.
  • The Old and New Testaments of the Bible were written by people "under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit". The Apocrypha are additional books that are used in Christian worship, but not for the formation of doctrine.
  • The two great and necessary sacraments are Holy Baptism and Holy Eucharist
  • Other sacramental rites are confirmation, ordination, marriage, reconciliation of a penitent, and unction.
  • Belief in heaven, hell, and Jesus's return in glory.

The threefold sources of authority in Anglicanism are scripture, tradition, and reason. These three sources uphold and critique each other in a dynamic way. This balance of scripture, tradition and reason is traced to the work of Richard Hooker, a sixteenth century apologist. In Hooker's model, scripture is the primary means of arriving at doctrine and things stated plainly in scripture are accepted as true. Issues that are ambiguous are determined by tradition, which is checked by reason.

Read more about this topic:  Church Of The Province Of West Africa

Famous quotes containing the words doctrine and/or practice:

    “I have found little that is “good” about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all. That is something that you cannot say aloud, or perhaps even think.”
    —Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)

    “No exile at the South Pole or on the summit of Mont Blanc separates us more effectively from others than the practice of a hidden vice.”
    —Marcel Proust (1871–1922)