The fact that a community has had such a long history raises some important questions about how best to tell its story. This book is not a history of Anglicanism. Rather it is an introduction to a particular tradition of Christianity. In order to enter into the nature of contemporary world Anglicanism we need an interpretative standpoint from which to make some sense of what we see today. There are a number of different frameworks that could be used: Marxist class struggle, a study of social power and manipulation, conflict between nationalist sentiments, the impact of modernity and the fragmenting effects of postmodernism or postcolonialism, to name just a few. This book is written from a theological standpoint. It sees Anglicanism as part of the response to the presence of God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth and of the struggle to give expression to that presence in the life circumstances of the Christian community and the believer. The contemporary encounter with Jesus Christ is not just a process of leaping from the present to the first century. We make that encounter within the framework of a living tradition of faith and life.

Within Christianity there are a number of discrete traditions of faith, and Anglicanism is one of them. What Anglicans bring to the contemporary encounter is thus a complex mix of practices and beliefs that have developed over many generations. These provide the framework for understanding contemporary world Anglicanism.