Anglican doctrine

Anglican doctrine (also called Episcopal doctrine in some countries) is the body of Christian teachings used to guide the religious and moral practices of Anglicanism.

Describing its doctrine as "Catholic and Reformed", Anglicanism has historically aimed to be a via media between Roman Catholic doctrine and Reformed Protestant doctrine, with Lutheran doctrine also having some influence. Over time, the tension between catholicity and nonconformist Protestantism resulted in a latitudinarian or "broad church" mainstream, within a low church to high church spectrum of sanctioned approaches to ritual and tolerance of the associated beliefs. Evangelicals (low church) and Anglo Catholics (high church) represent the far ends of this spectrum, with most Anglicans falling somewhere in between.

Thomas Cranmer compiled the original Book of Common Prayer, which forms the basis of Anglican worship and practice. By 1571 it included the Thirty-nine Articles, the historic doctrinal statement of the Church of England. Richard Hooker and the Caroline divines later developed Anglican doctrine of religious authority as being derived from scripture, tradition, and "redeemed" reason, in contrast to both the supremacy of the Pope's Magisterium and the solā scripturā ("by scripture alone") principle of the reformers. Rather, Anglicans affirmed the primacy of scriptural revelation (prima scriptura), informed by the Church fathers, the historic Nicene and Apostles' creeds, and a latitudinarian interpretation of scholasticism. Charles Simeon espoused and popularised evangelical positions in the 18th and 19th centuries, while the Oxford Movement re-introduced monasticism, religious orders and various other Catholic practices and beliefs in the 19th century.