What We Believe
St. James is an evangelical parish of about 50 members in the Episcopal Diocese of West Tennessee, which is a constituent member of the word-wide Anglican Communion. Our worship, centered on the Holy Bible and the Book of Common Prayer, is intended first and foremost to glorify God in Jesus Christ, and we stand in a theological tradition that owes a great debt of gratitude to the great reformers of the English Reformation; with those who stand in the Reformation tradition, we ascribe to the following:
A belief in the Triune God: The Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit; three distinct Persons co-equal in Glory and co-eternal in majesty and of one substantial Godhead, such that there are not three gods but one God.
A belief that the primary purpose of humankind is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. A belief that the only authority for glorifying and enjoying God is Holy Scripture.
A belief that the Holy Scripture is God's Word written. It is, without error, inspired by God and given by the Holy Spirit through prophets and apostles as the revelation of God and His acts in human history, and is therefore the Church's final authority in all matters of faith and practice, containing all things necessary for salvation.
A belief in the One Savior of humankind, Jesus Christ, who in His person is both fully God and fully man, of one substance with the Father as regards His Godhead and at the same time of one substance with us as regards His manhood.
A belief in the perfect obedience of Christ, His true and actual suffering, His substitutionary and atoning death on the cross, and His bodily resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven as the only means given for our salvation and reconciliation with God. As our redeemer, Christ is a prophet, priest and king in both His humiliation and his exaltation.
A belief in faith alone as the only grounds for the merits of Christ being imputed to us for our justification before God. Justification is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
A belief in the consummate return of Jesus Christ in glory to judge the living and the dead, and a belief in the bodily resurrection of the dead and their entrance into either eternal damnation or everlasting blessedness.
A belief in the one, holy catholic, and apostolic Church as those souls that have been redeemed entirely by the work of Christ and called out of bondage into freedom, out of darkness into light, out of error into truth, and out of death into eternal life.
A belief in the historic Nicene, Apostles' and Athanasian Creeds of the Church as accurate representations of the essence of the Christian faith, and in the Thirty-nine Articles of the historic Anglican Church as a coherent and concise expression of Anglican doctrine.
St. James is an evangelical parish of about 50 members in the Episcopal Diocese of West Tennessee, which is a constituent member of the word-wide Anglican Communion. Our worship, centered on the Holy Bible and the Book of Common Prayer, is intended first and foremost to glorify God in Jesus Christ, and we stand in a theological tradition that owes a great debt of gratitude to the great reformers of the English Reformation; with those who stand in the Reformation tradition, we ascribe to the following:
A belief in the Triune God: The Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit; three distinct Persons co-equal in Glory and co-eternal in majesty and of one substantial Godhead, such that there are not three gods but one God.
A belief that the primary purpose of humankind is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. A belief that the only authority for glorifying and enjoying God is Holy Scripture.
A belief that the Holy Scripture is God's Word written. It is, without error, inspired by God and given by the Holy Spirit through prophets and apostles as the revelation of God and His acts in human history, and is therefore the Church's final authority in all matters of faith and practice, containing all things necessary for salvation.
A belief in the One Savior of humankind, Jesus Christ, who in His person is both fully God and fully man, of one substance with the Father as regards His Godhead and at the same time of one substance with us as regards His manhood.
A belief in the perfect obedience of Christ, His true and actual suffering, His substitutionary and atoning death on the cross, and His bodily resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven as the only means given for our salvation and reconciliation with God. As our redeemer, Christ is a prophet, priest and king in both His humiliation and his exaltation.
A belief in faith alone as the only grounds for the merits of Christ being imputed to us for our justification before God. Justification is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
A belief in the consummate return of Jesus Christ in glory to judge the living and the dead, and a belief in the bodily resurrection of the dead and their entrance into either eternal damnation or everlasting blessedness.
A belief in the one, holy catholic, and apostolic Church as those souls that have been redeemed entirely by the work of Christ and called out of bondage into freedom, out of darkness into light, out of error into truth, and out of death into eternal life.
A belief in the historic Nicene, Apostles' and Athanasian Creeds of the Church as accurate representations of the essence of the Christian faith, and in the Thirty-nine Articles of the historic Anglican Church as a coherent and concise expression of Anglican doctrine.