Our Position
(where we're coming from)

The word 'Anglican' comes from the Thirteenth-Century Latin phrase Ecclesia Anglicana--which means 'The English Church' and was a term applied to the Christian church in England. The English Church itself was the result of the union of old Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Christians at the Synod of Whitby in the year 664. So Anglican roots are ancient and catholic.

The English Church went through several reforms during the Protestant Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, such as a renewed emphasis on justification by faith and the authority of Scripture, but unlike many of the Protestants on the European continent, the English Church retained its historic orders of bishops, priests, and deacons, as well as a high view of the sacraments and a reverence for ancient church teachings. This is why the Church of England has understood itself as 'Catholic, but Reformed.'

Through missionary efforts, the Church of England spread its faith around the globe. Its approach to being Christian came to be called Anglican--acknowledg- ing its roots in the catholic and reformed history of the English Church, but also recognizing that there are now more 'Anglicans' in Africa and Asia than in England and America. While most Provinces around the world use the word 'Anglican' in their name, some use the word 'Episcopal,' instead. Today, the Anglican Communion is the third-largest Christian body in the world, claiming nearly 80 million members.

The Anglican Communion is currently in a crisis (as any internet search of the words Anglican [or Episcopal] crisis will show). While the media (and even many Anglicans) try to reduce the controversy to perspectives on human sexuality, this is only the result of deeper issues: What is the role of the scriptures in the life of the church? What is the place of ancient ecumenical teaching on doctrines and morals in the contemporary church? What does it mean to be in communion with one another? How do unilateral actions by one member of the Communion affect the whole? Should the church bless what God in his Word has not blessed?

Through a series of maneuvers, alliances, controversial ecclesiastical trials, theological rescue missions (and a host of other actions that will one day provide material for college courses in church history) several orthodox Anglicans became convinced that false teachings in faith and morals had risen to such high levels in the North American churches that several Anglican Primates ('head bishops') around the world encouraged the formation of a new Anglican Province. Details can be found here. As of late Summer, 2009, over 70% of active, worshiping, world Anglicanism has endorsed the Anglican Church in North America. Trinity Anglican Fellowship of Erie, Pennsylvania, is a new church plant of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) through the Anglican Mission in the Americas. We are under the ecclesiastical oversight of Bishop Doc Loomis. Our Network Leader is the Reverend Joe Boysel. Although the AMiA is a founding member of the ACNA, it maintains its relationship with the Province of the Anglican Church of Rwanda.

Our intention at Trinity Anglican Fellowship is not to simmer in the controversies of the past, but, freed from the mire of those who "will not endure sound teaching, but accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions" (2 Timothy 4:3), we desire to repent of our own faults, embrace God's forgiveness through Christ's atonement, and move forward in mission, taking the Gospel to our communities and beyond.

Click HERE for Sunday service location and time.

Is Anglicanism 'Confessional?'

    You may here the claim--typically from theological liberals--that "Anglicanism is not a confessional church!" This is true only in the sense that we do not have 'confessions' like the Lutheran and Reformed traditions. But to say that we are not a 'confessing' church is ludicrous:
    We confess Christ. "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9); "No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also" (I John 2:23); "By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist" (I John 4:2-3b).

    We confess our sin. "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (I John 1:9).

    We confess the historic Christian faith. The famous Five-Fold Dictum of Bishop Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626) states this aspect of the Anglican Way well: 1 Canon (the Bible), 2 Testaments (Old and New), 3 Creeds (Apostles', Nicene, Athanasian), 4 Councils (Nicea I in 325. Nicea II in 381, Ephesus in 431, and Chalcedon in 451), 5 Centuries of early Christian teaching. Anglican divines have frequently quoted with approval St. Vincent of Lerins's (d. 450) canon: "quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est"--"that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by everyone" is the true Christian faith.

We confess Reformation Principles. The Anglican Articles of Religion are an expression of Reformation Principles, such as the Authority of Scripture, Evangelical Repentance, Justification by Grace through Faith, and Salvation only through the Redemptive work of Christ. The Articles also offer a corrective to doctrinal abuses circulating during their time.

We confess truth against error. The Scriptures call us to this, the historic faith of the Undivided Church calls us to this, our classical Anglican formularies (the Book of Common Prayer, the Ordinal, the Articles of Religion, and the Homilies) call us to this. Our heritage does not give us an option between right belief and right action. Ideas have consequences. Faith without works is dead (cf. James 2:26). Righteous deeds without faith are filthly rags (cf. Isaiah 64:6, 7).

    So, no, this is not The Lake Erie Anglican Confessionalist. It is The Lake Erie Confessing Anglican. In these page, one will find Christ confessed, sin confessed, the historic Christian faith confessed, the Anglican Way of Reformed Catholicism confessed, and truth against error confessed.

    The Welcome Page can be found here.