This summer, the American Anglican Council’s (AAC) Board of Trustees decided it was time to change our logo to better reflect where this movement stands today and who we serve. We still promote the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations and to seek to renew the local church so that it can reach everyone with the good news of Jesus Christ. We still serve clergy and congregations who seek to be faithful witnesses of the apostolic, Biblical and doctrinal foundations of the Anglican Communion. However, most of the people we now serve are in a different place than they were 20 years ago.
Since 1996, the AAC has been standing for biblically faithful Anglicanism. We began serving in The Episcopal Church. Our original logo included the Episcopal Church shield and the bishop’s mitre signifying our beginnings as a renewal movement among bishops and then the entire church—to return TEC to its Biblical, apostolic and doctrinal foundations. In 2003, when the Episcopal Church openly defied the Scriptures and the doctrinal consensus of the Anglican Communion by consecrating a partnered, homosexual bishop, we realized that we could best serve faithful Anglicans by helping them find new homes in Anglican Churches where they would be pastored, equipped and released for mission.
After 20 years of ministry, it has become clear that we are witnessing a great, once-every-500-years Reformation of Christendom, including the Anglican Communion! The locus of biblically faithful Anglicanism is no longer in Canterbury, England or the West. The center of Anglicanism lies in the Global South, and through the GAFCON movement and it’s Jerusalem Statement and Declaration. The AAC’s new logo reflects this reality by exchanging the Episcopal Church shield with the Jerusalem Cross. After all, Jerusalem is where it all began-where the first council of Christians took place in Acts 15! You may also notice that we’ve left the Bishop’s mitre off. This is because we are the American Anglican Council—thus our leadership is comprised not only of bishops, but clergy and lay leaders too!
Most of the people we serve today are no longer in The Episcopal Church or were never in it to begin with. They are in the Anglican Church in North America. On our original logo, you also saw the Anglican Communion’s Compass Rose in the background. We have chosen to leave behind the Communion’s Compass Rose for a traditional compass. This is because our mission includes at its heart giving direction to biblically faithful, Great-Commission Anglicans, but isn’t necessarily tied to the See of Canterbury.
We are the same organization that began in 1996 with the same values. The place we stand is the same place the great Anglican Reformers stood—on the authority and clarity of the Holy Scriptures, the catholic Creeds, the Thirty-Nine Articles and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and its Ordinal as the standard for Anglican worship. Anglicanism is a worldwide reformation movement that can no longer be defined by a geographic relationship with Canterbury. It is defined by the doctrinal foundation upon which the Church must stand.
The one element we did keep in our logo is the shield. From our beginnings, the AAC has had a part of our DNA devoted to defending and promoting the faith once delivered to the saints, and, in particular, faithful Anglicans who are facing false teaching. So, though there is a different look, we are the same organization with the same purpose supporting the same Gospel of Jesus Christ. I invite you to take a fresh look at our website, which has also been updated. Please let us know what you think.
The Rev. Canon Phil Ashey is President & CEO of the American Anglican Council.
