What we believe
Christians believe in God. God is the creator of all that exists. God’s love sustains the whole universe, and each one of us, every moment of our lives.
Christians know God to be One, yet three Persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
God constantly reaches out to the human race. We read in the Bible, in the books of the Old Testament, the story of God’s love for His people, and our faltering response.
We believe that Jesus is God’s Son.
Jesus Christ was born about 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem, a date celebrated each year at Christmas. In Jesus Christ, God the Son unites himself with our humanity. Christians call this the Incarnation: God ‘takes flesh’ in Mary’s womb. In the person of Jesus, God lives a fully human life, sharing in all that it means to be one like us.
The story of Jesus’s birth, life, death and resurrection is told in the four Gospels of the Bible, in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Jesus teaches us how to pray; he heals the sick, and even raises the dead to new life.
Jesus gathers around him a band of followers, known as his disciples. Despite – perhaps because of – his proclamation of God’s love and the coming of his kingdom, Jesus is arrested and put to death.
Three days later, Jesus is seen again by his disciples and others. He is risen from the dead! Christians celebrate this extraordinary event at Easter.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is at the very heart of the Christian faith. Because of Easter, we know that God’s love is stronger than death and has overcome all the evil and suffering in the world.
After his resurrection, the disciples receive the gift of God the Holy Spirit. Led by these same disciples, the Church begins to grow. Many come to know and follow Jesus.
When we are baptised (christened), we are united with Jesus in his death and in his resurrection; and because Jesus is God the Son, we share, through Jesus, in God’s life. We become members of the Church.
The Church calls everyone to follow Jesus; for his sake, the Church serves the world which God made and which God loves, and for which Jesus died and rose again. As the Diocese of London, part of the Church in this place, we try to do just that: to make Jesus known, and to serve God’s people here in our city.
You can find out more on the Church of England website, or the Christianity website.
The Church of England
Members of the Church of England (Anglicans) trace their Christian roots back to the early Church. The basis of the faith of the Church of England is the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments (the Bible) and the teachings of the early Church Fathers. The Church of England is part of the Anglican Communion, a worldwide family of churches with more than 70 million adherents in 38 Provinces spreading across 161 countries. Although these churches are autonomous, they are also uniquely unified through their history, their theology, their worship and their relationship to the ancient See of Canterbury, seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury.