Given the very oddball personalities responsible for founding the Episcopal Church, it is a miracle that there are any Anglicans in America today!

It just occurred to me that the first generation Anglican leaders in America were pragmatists, not theologians. The second generation Anglican bishops were solidly grounded theologians and wildly successful missionary bishops.

Given the oddball personalities who formed the Episcopal Church, it is something of a miracle that there are Anglicans in America today!

Seabury stood for strong ecclesiastical control (bishops), and for the diocese as the main unit of ministry rather than the local congregation. Like many who followed in the tracks of William Laud, Samuel Seabury was a flaming Arminian, happily opposed to the adoption of the historic Anglican formularies (the Articles of Religion). After he died, the newly formed Protestant Episcopal Church adopted the Articles as our theological standard in 1801.