Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion

Definition and Meaning

The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion are a statement of faith in thirty-nine articles, finalized by the Church of England in the sixteenth century, that sets out point by point what the church believes. They were drafted to clarify where the Church of England stood between Roman Catholicism and the radical reformers. Accordingly, they address both doctrines held in common with the ancient church, such as the Trinity, and issues disputed during the Reformation.

Their principal contents include the following:

• Article 6: States that everything necessary for salvation is contained in Holy Scripture.
• Article 7: Holds that the portion of the law given through Moses that concerns ceremonies and rites, namely the ceremonial law, does not bind Christians, while affirming that the moral commandments are to be obeyed by all Christians.
• Article 11: Sets forth the doctrine of justification, teaching that a person is accounted righteous not by works but by faith alone.
• Article 17: Addresses predestination.
• Article 25: Limits the sacraments of the Gospel to two, Baptism and the Lord's Supper.
• Article 28: Rejects transubstantiation, the teaching that the bread and wine are substantially changed into the body and blood of Christ.

Historical Background

The Thirty-Nine Articles were based on the Forty-Two Articles of 1553, produced under the leadership of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. During the reign of Elizabeth I, an abridged and revised version was adopted by the Convocation of 1563, and the Articles were finalized in their present form in 1571.

The Articles were influenced by Continental Protestant confessions such as the Augsburg Confession. They are generally regarded, however, as having been written to allow relatively broad interpretation rather than to define their contents in detail. For this reason, Calvinists and Arminians have read Article 17, on predestination, in differing ways.

The Westminster Assembly of the seventeenth century likewise began its work as a revision of the Thirty-Nine Articles. It later changed course and produced a new document, the Westminster Confession of Faith.

In the eighteenth century, John Wesley abridged and revised the Thirty-Nine Articles into twenty-five Articles of Religion, which he sent to the Methodist church in America in 1784.

Reception in Anglican and Korean Churches

Anglican: Within the worldwide Anglican Communion, the authority of the Thirty-Nine Articles varies from province to province. The Church of England honors them as a historic document of faith. The common standard for the Anglican Communion as a whole, however, is generally held to be the Lambeth Quadrilateral, which sets forth the Scriptures, the creeds, the two sacraments, and the historic episcopate. In Korea, the Anglican Church of Korea has a strong tradition of emphasizing liturgy and the sacraments; when it speaks of its standards of faith, it is generally said to give priority to the Nicene Creed, the Apostles' Creed, and the Book of Common Prayer rather than to the Thirty-Nine Articles.

Methodist: Through Wesley's Twenty-Five Articles, the content of the Thirty-Nine Articles is understood to have passed indirectly, by way of American Methodism, into the Korean Methodist tradition. The Korean Methodist Church also maintains its own doctrinal documents.

Presbyterian: Korean Presbyterian churches take the Westminster Confession of Faith as their standard. Among them, the Thirty-Nine Articles are mentioned chiefly in explaining the historical background of that confession.