Anglicanism grew out of the unique historical circumstances of late 16th and 17th century England, which was marked by a powerful sense of national identity and whose populace was split between Roman Catholics and Protestants. Long before the Protestant Reformation, the English church was notorious for its sense of independence. Finally severed from Rome under Henry VIII, the Anglican Church took shape theologically under Henry’s three children: Edward VI, a firm Protestant who reigned for six years, long enough to institute the first Book of Common Prayer, a decidedly Protestant document; Mary I, a devout Roman Catholic who reigned for five years, long enough to reinstate certain Catholic practices that Edward had proscribed; and finally the pragmatic Elizabeth, who in her forty-year reign labored brilliantly to forge not only a society but an established church that was broad enough to include all but the most extreme Catholics and Protestants.

The result was and is a church of astonishing theological breadth. But it is not breadth in a lax, anything-goes sense. The Anglican Church, when truest to its own theological traditions, views the mind not as a potential instrument of the devil but as a gift from God. And it takes seriously the idea of the community of faith as the context within which people from different backgrounds and with varying perspectives can openly share their experiences of God, can attend to one another in a spirit of love, and can thereby gain insights that may help every member of the community to move somewhat closer to God’s truth. (From Stealing Jesus by Bruce Bawer)