What we believe …
We are Christian and members of the Anglican Church of Canada and worship in the style that comes down to us through the practices in England as developed in the Reformation beginning in the 15th Century. But, what does that mean, exactly.
The vast majority of people worldwide, including in Canada and even Quebec believe in God. Most of those believers in Canada are affiliated with a Christian Church. They have been raised in, or have chosen to follow, the teachings of Jesus about God, humanity, love and relationships. In Quebec most people have connections with the Roman Catholic Church.
Some Christian beliefs are shared with other faiths and philosophies
Many other worldwide faiths believe in prayer and spirituality, and the command to love God. Further many humanist, agnostic and atheist beliefs share a commitment to love our neighbours as ourselves and to serve and respect each human being and the whole of creation.
“A lawyer, asked Jesus a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’ (Matthew 22: 35 – 40)
Some Christian beliefs are different.
Like many other faiths, the Christian understanding of God is complex and sophisticated. God is mysterious and ultimately incomprehensible, and yet Christians believe that we can experience the divine in our lives. It is paradoxical, but Christians make three mutually exclusive claims about God: God is the ultimate source and upholder of life and all creation, unknowable and unknown; God is also the life breathing in and through and beyond all creation, experienced by each one of us every day and closer to us than our very breath; God is also mysteriously present in all things, with every flesh and blood human being – and is specifically embodied in the person of Jesus. The word Christians use to describe God being all these things, transcendent source, immanent Spirit and incarnate Word is ‘Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit’. And yet there is only one God – complex and sophisticated.
“The Spirit blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ (John 3 : 8)
Christians also have a different understanding of ethics
Although it is obvious that our actions on earth have consequences here and now for ourselves and for other people, Christians believe that eternal life and eternal healing are the free gift of God for all people and that we do not need to earn it. God is in essence loving, merciful and forgiving. There are no qualifying phrases to add to that. Whenever Christians might feel the human urge to want revenge we are reminded once again that God’s love and mercy and forgiveness are stratospherically greater than ours.
This is lived out in our liturgies.
The Sacraments are both signs and means of the gift of life and grace freely given to each and every one of us. They are not rewards for good behaviour.
“‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:16)