Anglicans from around Australia have formed the National Comprehensive Anglicanism Network (NCAN) out of concern for the church’s unity and witness to the gospel. This has come at a time when hardline conservative forces within the church have for several years been increasingly fomenting controversy, fracture and division. Anglicans advocating for comprehensiveness have done so, not out of reactionary fears, but out of a deep love for the Church and a desire to see faith, hope and love flourish amongst Anglicans of all traditions. NCAN has been established to support communication across local churches, agencies and individuals; to encourage grassroots Anglicans through resources relevant to Anglican life, spirituality and mission; and to facilitate responses on a range of issues that concern the well-being and unity of the Anglican Church of Australia.
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We value the diversity of perspectives within Anglicanism across the world, so we seek to share a broad spectrum of beliefs and practices, as men and women of all ages and cultures seek to be genuinely faithful to God.
We value mutual respect for differing views and interpretations of Scripture and theology, as we seek prayerfully to discern God's will together in faith, hope and love.
Despite theological differences, Comprehensive Anglicanism seeks to maintain unity in essential matters of faith and order while allowing for diversity in non-essential matters.
Central to Anglican comprehensiveness is a rich tradition of liturgical worship and prayer that allows for a variety of expressions and styles, centred on our relationship with God through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Anglicans emphasis the centrality of Scripture, alongside tradition and reason in theological interpretation and decision-making.
We value engagement with contemporary issues and respectful dialogue with fellow Anglicans, other Christian traditions, and other religions as we strive for peace, justice and equality throughout the world.
The Anglican Church of Australia today consists of 23 Dioceses across the Australian continent and Tasmania. Each diocese is led by a Diocesan Bishop supported by a team of clergy and lay people. Each diocese is made up of many parishes and agencies in which Anglicans come together in prayer and worship, express their faith, endeavour to serve one another and the wider community, and strive for peace and justice. The Australian church is made up of a variety of different expressions of the Anglican tradition which have developed over decades and centuries.
The Anglican Church of Australia claims continuity with the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church called into being by Jesus Christ himself and shaped by those he first called to follow him. These claims are enshrined in its Constitution, in its unalterable Fundamental Declarations. The third Declaration says: "This Church will ever obey the commands of Christ, teach His doctrine, administer His sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, follow and uphold His discipline and preserve the three orders of bishops, priests and deacons."
Anglicanism incorporates truths grasped at the time of the English Reformation in the 16th and 17th centuries, when abuses in the Western Church were challenged and theological distortions corrected. So, Anglicanism claims to be both catholic and reformed. Anglicanism also embraces truth discovered and established by all fields of investigation and enquiry. It embraces truth that is discovered through human reason and experience.
Our understanding of 'comprehensiveness' can be summarised using a statement made at the 1968 Lambeth Conference of Bishops: "Comprehensiveness is an attitude of mind which Anglicans have learned from the thought-provoking controversies of their history... Comprehensiveness demands agreement on fundamentals, while tolerating disagreement on matters in which Christians may differ without… breaking communion. In the mind of an Anglican, comprehensiveness is not compromise. Nor is it to bargain one truth for another… Rather it implies that the apprehension of truth is a growing thing: we only gradually succeed in knowing the truth… [W]e believe that in leading us into the truth the Holy Spirit may have some surprises in store for us in the future as he has had in the past."
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