What We Believe—Our Statement of Faith

This document has three sections: first, an overall vision for the life of our church today; second, the historical, theological grounding of our doctrine; and third, key notes about what is normative for our common life and ministry.  We hope this Statement helps convey to you our joyful commitment to classical Anglican Christianity. We count on God to give us the grace to stand with love for all in the unchanging Good News of Jesus Christ, in the gift of Biblical revelation, and in the moral vision expressed in historic, Anglican Christianity.  Conversation can take understanding further – please contact us at 828-606-0764.

Vision
St. Andrew’s Church has one great purpose: “Go and Make Disciples” (Matthew 28:19). This is the Biblical command that Jesus gives to His followers, and it stands over all that we do.  Therefore, “we believe that God intends for St. Andrew’s Church to be a church where many lives are transformed for Jesus Christ.”  If you are interested in learning about, following and being like Jesus, while sharing life with others who seek the same, come join us!

Beliefs
Received from Christian Tradition as a sure theological foundation about God, ourselves, and the life of the Church, we ascribe to the following core doctrines:

  • A belief in the triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; three distinct persons co-equal in glory and co-eternal in majesty and of one substantial Godhead, such that there are not three gods but one God.
  • A belief in the Holy Scriptures as divine revelation, trustworthy, carrying the full measure of God’s authority, containing all things necessary to salvation, and to be submitted to in all matters of faith and practice of life.
  • A belief in the one Savior of humanity, Jesus Christ, who in His person is both fully God (“of one Being with the Father,” The Nicene Creed, Book of Common Prayer p. 358) and at the same time fully human.
  • A belief in the perfect obedience of Christ; His suffering, His substitutionary and atoning death on the cross, and His bodily resurrection and ascension as the only means given for our salvation and reconciliation with God.
  • A belief in faith alone as the only grounds for the merits of Jesus Christ being imputed to us for our justification before God (justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone), leading to good works empowered by the Holy Spirit.
  • A belief in the return of Jesus Christ in glory to judge the living and dead, and a belief in the bodily resurrection of the dead and their entrance into either eternal blessedness or damnation.
  • A belief in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church as those that have been redeemed entirely by the work of Jesus Christ and called out of bondage into freedom, out of darkness into light, out of error into truth, out of death into eternal life.
  • A belief in the Nicene and Apostles’ creeds as accurate representations and sufficient statements of the Christian faith, and affirmation of the (39) Articles of Religion as a coherent and concise expression of Anglican doctrine.
  • A belief that historic Anglican polity organizes the visible Church under the offices of Bishop, Presbyter (Priest), and Deacon; and furthermore, that the Church exists to worship the Triune God and to lift up the Savior Jesus Christ before all people through the faithful preaching and teaching of the Gospel, through prayer, and through the faithful administration of the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper (Holy Communion or the Eucharist).