Introducing Anglicanism
A Catechism on the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion
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“Hello! I’m Father Ben, a priest ordained in the Church of England currently serving in the United States. I never planned to make this contribution to the already saturated space of discipling young Christians. However, during the online classes I was forced to adopt at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, it became uncomfortably clear that the children in my congregation who I had begun to prepare for confirmation knew somewhat the stories of Holy Scripture, but often hadn’t deeply absorbed the ideas therein—those ideas that are supposed to shape us into men and women after the Lord’s own heart. Certainly, the few of ideas, or “theology,” that they had acquired were far too thin to form anything like a ”worldview,” especially not an Anglican one. How could we blame them? Often those of us serious about the Bible and sincerely believing its inspiration, have, in this tradition, for our children, grabbed a little bit of “this” and a little bit of “that” from the curricula of confessionally-Calvinist, nondenominational, or Roman Catholic organizations. We haven’t been serious about the treasures we boast. It is no wonder that our youngest members often drift to other churches—if they remain faithful at all, of course.”
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About the Book
Introducing Anglicanism: A Catechism on the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion is a lively, accessible guide to the distinctives of the largest Protestant denomination as they were definitively articulated in the sixteenth century by the first evangelical archbishop, Thomas Cranmer. It takes the form of a short-course with quizzes here and there to reinforce the most important lessons—theological, philosophical and otherwise; a truly unique resource in the space of preparing teenagers for receiving Communion for the first time and/or to be confirmed. Adults of any age will also find this catechetical approach helpful for their own private study, whether they have been part of a congregation in the Anglican Communion their whole lives or to satisfy the curiosity of newcomers to this particular religious tradition. Readers will be initiated into the history of Anglicanism, be introduced to its leading thinkers—both past and present, and come to discover the Scriptural and reasonable grounds for its deliberately chosen position as neither Roman Catholic nor low-church Calvinist.
About the Author
The Rev. Ben Randall is an English priest currently serving in the Episcopal Church, USA. As an adolescent he started to not just doubt but resent his parents’ Christian convictions, and, like too many millennials, “slipped into a lazy atheism—it was a convenient smokescreen for hedonism, to be honest. Because when I actually delved into the evidence for Jesus—which I began to do in my final year at university, I found it to be overwhelming: the facts just sort of...backed me into a corner. He wasn’t a liar; He wasn’t a lunatic. That left only one option: Lord—just like He said.” Today he is passionate about explaining the Faith, using pulpit and podium to persuade others to stand firm against the chaos of postmodernism on the only foundation that there is: “Christ, and Him crucified.” Ben isn’t just a Christ-follower and a pastor; he’s also Rebekah’s husband and a father.