Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi

The axiomatic principle of all orthodox Christian theology is the 'law of prayer is the law of belief' or 'we believe as we pray.' The XXXIX Articles of the Church of England are intended to be interpreted by the Book of Common Prayer, which contains through worship the practical expression of what the Anglican Church teaches and believes. Anglicanism has no strictly dogmatic or systematic theology such as that found in the classical protestant bodies or in Roman Catholicism. Our doctrine is preeminently found in Scripture as it is ordered, organised and incorporated in our liturgical worship. Our doctrine is based on liturgical theology - for the Book of Common Prayer is our teaching office, our magisterium. It contains and embodies the Great Tradition of the Undivided Church, the living dynamic doctrinal inheritance of the whole Church of Christ shared by all Christians during the first millennium.

Therefore the Articles of Religion, historically conditioned as they are as articles only intended to address specific religious controversies in the sixteenth century, are subject to interpretation by the Prayer Book. The Articles are useful for understanding the classic Augustinian and Thomistic position on controverted theological matters taken by the Church of England in the 1570s, but they are not now and never were intended to be an exhaustive or comprehensive statement of orthodox Christian doctrine. They set the boundaries within which Anglicans traditionally do the work of the theology, but by their nature they are not creedal and are limited in authority. The Prayer Book is the guide by which we may rightly understand the teaching of the Articles of Religion. In a primary way, we believe what we pray in the liturgy. The test of authentic Anglican doctrine, and therefore Catholic or universally-held doctrine, is the Prayer Book. 2,000 years of unbroken Apostolic teaching, Holy Tradition, is marvellously synthesised and codified in the BCP. The Prayer Book enshrines nothing less but the ancient Christian Faith of the entire Western Church.