“Every member of the ReNew Planning Committee and all those the Committee invite to
address the ReNew Conference will be asked to confirm that what they believe and teach is
faithful to this ReNew Basis of Faith.”
Knowing that unity is a work of the Holy Spirit which can only be established through the
atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ, we rejoice in the fellowship of all those who subscribe to
the 2008 Jerusalem Declaration.
We accept the definition of the doctrine of the Church of England as set out in Canon A5:
The doctrine of the Church of England is grounded in the Holy Scriptures, and in such teachings
of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In
particular such doctrine is to be found in the 39 Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer,
and the Ordinal.
In particular:
We receive the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments in their intended literal sense
as the inspired and unerring Word of God, the sole sufficient and perspicuous rule of Christian
faith and practice and the final court of appeal in all controversies relating thereto. The Old
Testament is to be interpreted in the light of the New, and all parts of the New Testament are of
equal and apostolic authority. No part of Scripture is to be interpreted in a way which
contradicts or excludes any other part.
We acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ as our only Priest and Mediator who took our place on
the cross and by his sacrificial death paid the price for all our sins, thereby fully satisfying the
demands of the Father’s justice and reconciling both us to God and God to us. Through his
death alone, we gain full access to God and, therefore confident of God’s mercy and by an act
of his free grace, we are accepted as righteous by faith alone for Christ’s sake alone, apart
from our good works. Nevertheless, a true and living faith in Christ brings forth good works and
a loving heart to obey his commandments.
We affirm that men and women are equal as human beings created in the image and likeness
of God. We also affirm that God created male and female differently, in order for them to be
complementary to each other. This complementarity is specially to be seen in the marriage
relationship and in the roles given to men and women in the family of the church. Thus
matrimony is the lifelong union between one man and one woman, and sexual relations outside
that context are sinful in God’s eyes. Furthermore, within the church there is a divinely
appointed order in which eldership/oversight roles are given to men only, not for the purpose of
domination, but in order to protect and nourish the entire body of Christ. The ministry of men
and women is equally valid, valuable and necessary in God’s eyes, but the Church must take
care to study and to obey Scripture with regard to preserving the complementarity of roles.