STATEMENT OF PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVES

Statement of Purpose

Both Reformed and Anglican traditions stand upon a shared apostolic and Reformation foundation. This foundation provides coherence, unity, and doctrinal clarity to both traditions. Their weakening is the root cause of today’s doctrinal, liturgical, ethical, and missional drift.

Because the weakened foundations—and the crisis arising from them—are shared, drift in one inevitably affects the other; therefore the responsibility for restoration is likewise shared. Neither tradition can regain apostolic clarity alone, and each carries strengths the other needs: Reformed doctrinal precision and confessional strength; Anglican liturgical stability and pastoral breadth.

The purpose of this Joint Declaration of Principles is to renew the Church’s witness by calling ministers, congregations, and individuals to clarity in doctrine, integrity in worship, fidelity in government, and steadfastness in the gospel and mission of Jesus Christ to make disciples of all nations. It sets forth the shared doctrinal, liturgical, and governmental commitments of churches within the Reformed and Anglican tradition,  anchored in Holy Scripture, the Ancient Creeds, and the Confessional Standards of the Reformation, including the classical Reformed confessions and the Anglican Formularies. In doing so, it provides a faithful framework for visible unity. 

Its aim is to strengthen the unity, purity, and mission of Christ’s Church through a common confession of the gospel, a shared commitment to the faith once delivered to the saints, and a renewed moral and ethical witness governed by Holy Scripture.

Statement of Objectives

  1. To confess and clarify the shared Reformation foundations of the historic Reformed and Anglican traditions, anchoring the Church’s life in the authority of Holy Scripture and the gospel of Jesus Christ, and strengthening the unity of believers in the truth through a common confession of the faith once delivered to the saints.
  2. To establish and strengthen visible ecclesial fellowship within the Reformed and Anglican traditions, grounded in the apostolic pattern of presbyterial episcopacy, affirming the parity of ministers and the pastoral presidency of bishops without sacerdotal or hierarchical claims, so that unity in order may serve unity in doctrine, worship, and mission.
  3. To renew the Church’s doctrine, worship, discipline, and mission according to its Apostolic and Reformation foundations, enabling congregations to walk together in the mission of Jesus Christ to make disciples of all nations, and to bear a faithful moral and ethical witness shaped by the teaching of Holy Scripture.