What we believe

Latimer Church is an Anglican Church and part of the Church of Confessing Anglican Aotearoa New Zealand (CCAANZ).

We are a reformed, evangelical church, united in our conviction that Jesus is both Lord and Saviour. We hold the Bible to be the supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct.

Our faith is in one God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Our hope is in the only Saviour, Jesus Christ, who died and rose again for us.  Our final authority and unchangeable standard for Christian faith and life is the Bible.  Our doctrine is expressed in the Apostles, Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, the Book of Common Prayer (1662), the 39 Articles of Religion, and the Ordinal.  We accept the Jerusalem Declaration as a contemporary expression of Anglican doctrine and practice. 

We hold to the following summary of the Christian faith:

  • The unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in the Godhead.

  • The sovereignty of God in creation, revelation, redemption and final judgement.

  • The divine inspiration and infallibility of Holy Scripture as originally given, and its supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct.

  • The universal sinfulness and guilt of human nature since the fall, rendering man subject to God’s wrath and condemnation.

  • The full deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God; his virgin birth and his real and sinless humanity; his death on the cross, his bodily resurrection and his present reign in heaven and earth.

  • Redemption from the guilt, penalty and power of sin only through the sacrificial death once and for all time of our representative and substitute, Jesus Christ, the only mediator between God and man.

  • Justification as God’s act of undeserved mercy, in which the sinner is pardoned all his sins, and accepted as righteous in God’s sight, only because of the righteousness of Christ imputed to him, this justification being received by faith alone.

  • The need for the Holy Spirit to make the work of Christ effective to the individual sinner, granting him repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ.

  • The indwelling of the Holy Spirit in all those thus regenerated, producing in them an increasing likeness to Christ in character and behaviour, and empowering them for their witness in the world.

  • The one holy universal Church, which is the Body of Christ, and to which all true believers belong.

  • The future personal return of the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge all humans, executing God’s just condemnation on the impenitent and receiving the redeemed to eternal glory.