Constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church, USA

                                    

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, amen.

Preamble:

The Protestant Episcopal Church declares itself to be part of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. We declare ourselves to be Anglican inasmuch as we maintain within the universal Church the witness of the English Reformation.

Article One. Of Our Faith:

We believe that the Holy Scriptures, Old and New Testaments, do not merely contain the Word of God but are the Word of God by divine, verbal, and plenary inspiration. We receive the Word of God as our rule of faith and practice. We believe as Article VI of the Thirty-nine Articles says that the Holy Scriptures “containeth all things necessary to salvation.” We believe that the Scriptures as God’s word in human language require interpretation, but neither the limits of human language, nor the perspectives of the age in which they were inspired preclude God communicating or our understanding his intended meaning. We believe the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, and Athanasian Creed to be faithful summaries of essential, Biblical truth. We receive the judgments of the first four Ecumenical Councils. We receive the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion as expressions of our Reformed Faith.

Article Two. Of Our Practice:

We believe that our lives as Christians should be ordered according to the proclamation of the Gospel, preaching of the Word, faithful administration of the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and liturgical worship using the Book of Common Prayer, recognizing that its use should neither preclude free prayer nor accommodation to local use, and that the church has the right to amend it as long as the faith is kept entire. We receive for use in the church the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer and it's Antecedents retaining full right to revise as long as the faith is kept entire.

Article Three. Of Church Order:

We believe that the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church has one head, the Lord Jesus Christ. All charged with authority in their generation must follow his example of humility and instruction that the first be last and the servant of all.

We receive as consistent with the Biblical record that there are two orders of Christian ministry, deacons and presbyters. We recognize that the presbyter is charged with spiritual authority in the local church setting. We believe that from ancient times certain roles fulfilled by presbyters and the apostles themselves devolved to presbyters given a wider charge and office as bishops. In this sense, we believe in an historic episcopacy. Those branches of Christ’s church are successors of the Apostles that maintain the Apostles’ doctrine and thereby apostolic fellowship.

We believe that church councils and synods are a necessary means of determining the divine will for the church and that their consensus should not be ignored, suppressed, or manipulated by those in church orders and offices.

We believe that the church has learned that church property should reside with the local parish lest coercion replace conscience in the order of the church.

We believe the final calling of a pastor should reside with the local parish in cooperation with the godly counsel of the Bishop Ordinary.


Article Four. Our Witness to the Means of Righteousness:

We dedicate ourselves to fulfilling the Great Commission through the proclamation of the Gospel, the establishment of churches, the support of missions, Christian schooling, ministries devoted to raising children in the faith, and the fostering of continual spiritual growth of lay and ordained adults.


Article Five. Our Witness for Righteousness:

We dedicate ourselves to speaking publicly for the liberty and dignity of each person as created in the image of God. Additionally, we dedicate ourselves to speaking for the protection of the unborn, infirm, and unwanted, and for biblical morality and marriage.


Article Six. Our Relation to the Anglican Communion:

We are not a part of the Anglican Communion of Churches. We seek no institutional reform of, recognition by, or union with the Anglican Communion. We believe that churches of the Anglican Communion have not only tolerated, but also embraced doctrines, practices, and morality contrary to the teaching of the Bible.


Article Seven. Of Doctrines and Practices We find contrary to Biblical doctrine and the historic practice of the faith:

In endeavoring to preserve an evangelical and Reformed witness,

1) We believe that the following doctrines are contrary to Scripture: a) that the Church of Christ exists only in one order or form of ecclesiastical polity, b) that the Lord’s table is an altar on which the body and blood of Jesus is offered anew and, that the presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper is a real presence in the elements of bread and wine, c) that regeneration is inseparably connected with Christian baptism d) that Christian presbyters are “priests” in another sense than that in which each believer is a priest in “a royal priesthood.” When the term “priest” is used of ministers in this church, it should be understood to mean simply “presbyter.”

2) We believe that the Holy Spirit does not speak to the Church today in ways contrary to or that would amend the Word of God. The canonical books of the Old and New Testament constitute God’s complete, special, verbal revelation to mankind. We reject theories of biblical interpretation that justify placing personal and private meanings upon the text. We understand that faithful interpretation of the Word of God seeks the original, intended meaning of God.

3) We believe that it is contrary to the Word of God both to ordain a woman deacon or presbyter, and to consecrate a woman as bishop. We affirm and encourage the lay ministry of women as vital to the proper function and mission of the body of Christ.

4) We believe that men in sexual relationships other than as God’s Word allows, as “the husband of one wife,” are disqualified from church orders.

5) We believe that baptism by the Holy Spirit brings regeneration. We reject the teaching of baptism by the Holy Spirit as a “second blessing.” We believe that the Holy Spirit produces spiritual fruit in every Christian. We believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are given severally and as God the Holy Spirit wills. We reject that any gift of the Spirit is for every believer. We reject that the gift of Apostleship continued beyond the first generation of the Church. We pray that God the Holy Spirit will continually fill our Church, bringing us spiritual renewal.

Article Eight. Of the Charge to the Presbyters met in Synod:

The presbyters met in synod shall work together to provide for the material and spiritual life and mission of the church.

We the undersigned unanimously consent to this constitution, on the third day of February, in the year of our Lord, Two-Thousand and Ten.

In witness whereof, we set our hands upon this document at the meeting of a Synod at St. Augustine, Florida.


May God in his grace have mercy upon the Protestant Episcopal Church, amen.