An often-used putdown in the Episcopal Church is, "Ah, but that's not Anglican." These words send most of us scurrying for cover - God forbid that we should commit the unforgivable sin of being un-Anglican. Recently I heard this said of some of the finest Anglicans I know, and my blood boiled.

Those who say this really mean that their very personalized notion of what Anglicanism is will not accept what they do not like in someone else's believing. Usually the identity of those who say this kind of thing is related more to what they want the Episcopal Church to be, than the reality of membership in the body of Christ. The truth is that our ecclesial affiliation should not be so vaunted on the pecking order of Christian priorities.

Those tending to disparage others' Anglicanism tend to be those who see faith in terms of inclusivity. They bristle that the Christian faith might ask us to make choices for or against God, or a particular moral system, then attempt to block it out. Their thinking is so entwined in the prevailing culture that their predominant concern is to be culturally acceptable, especially to those on the left, and to be on the cutting edge of where culture is going.

It is not Anglican, we are told, to affirm scripture's authority. Those who do are written off as "biblical literalists," fundamentalist wolves in Episcopal sheep's clothing. Then it is not Anglican, we are also told, to uphold the sexual values rooted in the great monotheistic faiths - this is unnecessarily "unloving." We modern people should know better than that.

Yet General Convention, acting in the name of inclusive Anglicanism, has done the extraordinarily un-Anglican thing of pronouncing beyond the pail those with misgivings about ordaining women. This despite a strong mainstream Christian tradition that questions a practice which has a long way to go before full acceptance by the Church Universal. Diversity is OK, it seems, but only on certain terms. This suggests a certain idiosyncratic selectivity in defining what is and is not "Anglican."

Before I go on, let me share my credentials. I was baptized in an ancient parish of the Church of England. I was led to Christ by an Anglican priest, went to an Anglican high school, and was confirmed by the Bishop of St. Albans. I studied theology among Anglican scholars at the universities of London and Bristol, and at what is today St. John's College, Nottingham. I was ordained in St. Paul's Cathedral, have served in five dioceses on both sides of the Atlantic, and visited more than a dozen Anglican provinces. As he left the Episcopal Church a friend told me, "You would still be an Anglican if the Devil were Archbishop of Canterbury." That's going a little far, but the point is a fair one.

I have been thoroughly marinated in Anglican culture. But Anglicanism is not about celebrating this culture. It must be grounded in what we believe and how we live those beliefs. Genuine Anglicans are drenched in the creedal Christianity received from our forebears. Anglicanism is not something we can make up as we go along, or adapt to suit changing values. This is to sacrifice truth on the altar of fashion.

Having said this, Anglican Christianity is a jackdaw tradition fostered by a mongrel race. From Romans to Celts, then through the medieval church, the ingredients were borrowed and mixed. However, the real spices and substance that make Anglicanism unique were kneaded in during the Reformation. Those who applaud our diversity are right in the sense that Anglican Christianity has never been one narrow, closely defined tradition, despite efforts to make it such. But the rich variety of legitimate Anglican rivers flows within clearly defined banks.

My summer reading, Diarmaid MacCulloch's magisterial biography of Thomas Cranmer, the Reformation archbishop who provided the distinctive sauces and flavorings of Anglicanism, has me rejoicing afresh in our rich heritage. With patience Cranmer steered the English church through murderous shoals and setbacks, laying the foundation of our worshiping life and theological emphases. Cranmer scavenged ideas and words from all over as he molded English Christianity, borrowing from Spanish Catholic pietists to reformers like Bucer and Osiander (whose niece he married).

Before his conversion to the Reformation cause, Cranmer had been well schooled in the scriptures at Cambridge, and throughout his archiepiscopate he championed the doctrine of justification by faith. Cranmer was prepared to take on Henry VIII, whose typically medieval works theology he meticulously purged from the church. He read the Bible with the Fathers looking over his shoulder, and let them illuminate his understanding of scripture rather than cramp its style. Cranmer's maturing theology of grace soaked into every aspect of his believing. It influenced his understanding of sacraments, prayer, education and the priesthood. The shape he gave the liturgy was the mere tip of a life-altering "iceberg." Cranmer was tolerant by the standard of that intolerant age, but occasionally critics would find themselves cooling their heels in the Tower of London!

Traditions do not stand still, and Anglicanism has developed considerably since Cranmer. The old archbishop would be amazed by the breadth of this worldwide expression of faith. The question we urgently need to ask, however, is which developments are healthy and appropriate, and which are not.

Is it still possible to identify genuine Anglicanism? I think so. Here is my attempt, although I do not claim to have covered all bases.

1. Genuine Anglicanism, like all healthy Christianity, is centered in the incarnate Christ, crucified, risen, ascended. He is the historic Jesus of Nazareth, Messiah, Heavenly King and Redeemer.

2. Anglican Christianity is trinitarian. It affirms the doctrine of God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) as revealed in scripture and spelled out by the great ecumenical councils. Those who try to re-vision God's nature are involved in a fascinating adventure into interesting philosophical territory, but this does not make their constructs Anglican - or even Christian.

3. Anglicanism affirms the 66 books of Old and New Testaments as "God's word written," containing all things necessary for salvation. Nevertheless, faithful Anglicans are not anti-intellectual Bible thumpers. We are prepared to use whatever critical tools, research and learning are available to cast light on what God has said, and then to act upon it.

4. Anglican Christianity's key points are summarized by the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral. To be Anglican, the Quadrilateral says, is to accept Old and New Testaments as "the revealed Word of God" and the Nicene Creed as a sufficient statement of faith. A faithful church celebrates the two dominical sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and values the order provided by the historic episcopate.

5. The historic Books of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion display the richness and diversity of Anglicanism. The one expresses our worshiping tradition; the other our believing tradition. I am bafffled by the popular notion that ours is not a confessional church. The articles may not carry canonical weight in the U.S., but they belong to our history and make us confessional to our fingertips.

6. Anglicanism is missionary, our message being Christ crucified. The Episcopal Church's image of itself seems to be at odds with this reality. We tend to forget that we are a community of God's people called to go into all the world with the life-changing message. When contrasted with world Anglicanism, the Episcopal terror of evangelism is incredibly un-Anglican!

7. Anglicanism's ethical values were nurtured in the heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The moral relativism of recent generations is an inadmissible import - an unfortunate by-product of our extremely healthy impetus to engage the culture. To avoid slithering into the swamp of legalism, we have instead enthroned relativism, which, like the cuckoo in the nest, eagerly tips out true born offspring.

8. Anglicanism engages both mind and heart. This is our strength and our Achilles' heel. We are unafraid of learning and new ideas, but this leads to intellectual pride. In our conceit, we lay aside the tried and true in favor of the new, flashy and fashionable. Today's three-legged stool (a questionable concept, even at the best of times) enthrones secularized reason at the expense of scripture and tradition. Some now add a fourth leg, experience, and allowing the crude paganism of any and every spirituality to come prancing onto center stage pretending to be Anglican - and we are silly enough to take it seriously!

Let me sum up with words from Alister McGrath's book, The Renewal of Anglicanism: "Anglicanism may stand on the brink of a renewal - a renewal that it can and must embrace by reclaiming a vision of what it means to be Christian, returning to our Christian roots and rediscovering why the Church came into being in the first place. It means recovering a sense of excitement and exhilaration over the Gospel, as we seek to understand how attractive it can be for ourselves before proclaiming its attraction to others. It means regaining confidence in the Christian message in the modern world. It means appreciating the stabilizing influence of the long Anglican tradition and the sense of 'belonging in history' that it brings us."

The Rev. Richard Kew is coordinator of the Russian Ministry Network. He lives in Murfreesboro, Tenn.