With the rise of the Internet and advances in telecommunications over the past decade, Americans have felt more connected to the rest of the world than perhaps during any time in our history. In a like manner, globalization has more and more impacted Episcopalians since the turn of the millennium.

In recent years, we have been more conscious of the fact that the Episcopal Church is but one of thirty-eight branches (“Provinces”) of an Anglican Communion that spans the world. And while numerically the Episcopal Church no longer even ranks in the top ten denominations in America (it is fifteenth), the Anglican Communion constitutes the third largest Christian body in the world. The main reason it holds that distinction is because of the explosive growth of Anglicanism in Africa over the past century. Nigeria alone is home to nineteen million Anglicans, more than eight times the number in the United States.

The spread of Anglicanism within the former British colonies (and elsewhere) has prompted Anglicans around the world to explore more deeply what it is that unites our branch of Christianity. To be sure, there have been in place for some time various unifying persons or structures, the so-called “Instruments of Unity”: the Archbishop of Canterbury (the historic leader of the Communion), the yearly gathering of the heads of each of the thirty-eight Provinces (“the Primates Meeting”), the once-every-ten-year gathering of all Anglican bishops in the world at Lambeth Palace, and the Anglican Consultative Council, a representative group of the Communion that meets irregularly.

For more than a hundred years, there has also been the unifying statement of the “Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral” (see BCP pp. 876-877). This holds essential the place of Scripture as the “revealed Word of God,” the Nicene Creed as “the sufficient statement of the Christian Faith,” Baptism and Holy Communion as the two Sacraments instituted by Christ, and the role of the Historic Episcopate (that a bishop’s lineage of ordination can be traced back to the early church).

Yet pointing to these persons, structures and statements leaves unanswered the larger question of what it means to be an Anglican, and how this should be actualized at the level of a Province, Diocese, Parish - and, for that matter, the individual.

Just what does it mean to be an Anglican?

That is the topic my Rector’s Class will address when it begins meeting again in October during the Sunday School hour (10:15 am - 11:05 am). Together, we will explore the roots of Anglicanism as it emerged in England, and then follow its development beyond the confines of that island as it spread throughout the colonies of the old British Empire. My hope is that this exploration will give a wider context for understanding the present difficulties facing the Anglican Communion - and offer a theological foundation for guiding us towards resolving them.