Anglican Mainstream is a conservative

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

organization from the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

. It describes itself as "a community within the

Anglican Communion The Anglican Communion is a Christian Full communion, communion consisting of the Church of England and other autocephalous national and regional churches in full communion. The archbishop of Canterbury in England acts as a focus of unity, ...

committed to promote, teach and maintain the Scriptural truths on which the Anglican Church was founded". It is best known through its website, which posts items of interest or concern to its constituency. The convenor of the organization's UK steering committee is

Philip Giddings Philip Giddings is a British retired political scientist and academic, specialising in parliamentary government. He is a lecturer in politics at the University of Reading. He is also a lay leader in the Church of England, and heads the conservative ...

Britain and Ireland

It brings together Anglicans in the British Isles who are concerned to maintain a traditional position on controversial issues. Participating organisations include evangelical groups in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, such as

Reform Reform refers to the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The modern usage of the word emerged in the late 18th century and is believed to have originated from Christopher Wyvill's Association movement, which ...

Church Society Church Society is a conservative, evangelical Anglican organisation and registered charity formed in 1950 by the merger of the Anglican Church Association (founded 1865) and National Church League (founded 1906 by amalgamation of two earlier bo ...

, the Church of England Evangelical Council, the New Wine network, the Scottish Anglican Network and mission agencies. It has close links with similar groups in North America and South Africa.

Anglican realignment

Anglican Mainstream is also involved in partnering with growing churches in the developing world through Anglican International Development (AID). It has strong links with the

Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans The Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (branded as GAFCON or Gafcon) is a communion of conservative Anglican churches, aligned with the Confessing Movement, that formed in 2008 in response to ongoing theological disputes in the worldwide A ...

, and supports the

Anglican realignment The Anglican realignment is a movement among some Anglicans to align themselves under new or alternative oversight within or outside the Anglican Communion. This movement is primarily active in parts of the Episcopal Church (United States), Episco ...

and the

Global Anglican Future Conference The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) is a series of conferences of conservative Anglican bishops and leaders, the first of which was held in Jerusalem from 22 to 29 June 2008 to address the growing controversy of the divisions in the Ang ...

(GAFCON).

Social conservatism

Anglican Mainstream is concerned about a number of social issues including abortion and end of life issues, the status of marriage and family, evangelism, the cultural challenge of secular society and general Anglican church life in Britain and overseas. Of all the issues with which it is concerned, its stance on issues of sexuality has drawn controversy, particularly its support for abstinence from homosexual activity and the

ex-gay movement The ex-gay movement consists of people and organizations that encourage people to refrain from entering or pursuing same-sex relationships, to eliminate homosexual desires and to develop heterosexual desires, or to enter into a heterosexual rela ...

, which it considers to be a minority group often ignored or silenced. Liberal pro-LGBTQ+ rights groups such as Changing Attitude have been particularly opposed to Anglican Mainstream, especially over their scientific stance that sexual orientation is an unalterable fact of human nature. In 2012, Anglican Mainstream was part of a coalition of Christian groups intending to run a two-week campaign in which some

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

buses would carry an advertisement reading "Not gay! Post-gay, ex-gay and proud. Get over it!" in the same style as adverts produced by Stonewall, the gay rights group. The intention was to draw attention to the existence of ex-gays and the possibility of change, a claim which is contradicted by mainstream psychologists. After receiving appropriate permissions the campaign was then prohibited by London's mayor,

Boris Johnson Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born 19 June 1964) is a British politician and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He wa ...

, because of the offence he believed it would cause.

References

External links

*{{official website Anglican organizations established in the 21st century Anglican realignment Christian political organizations Church of England societies and organisations Conservatism in the United Kingdom Evangelicalism in the Church of England Organisations based in Oxfordshire Religion in Oxfordshire West Oxfordshire District

Britain and Ireland

Anglican realignment

Social conservatism

See also

References

External links