About Us

Our Mission is to deepen personal faith in Jesus Christ, and to bring others in our various communities to faith in Christ through membership in the church.

St. Anselm’s is a Christian community that has had a close relationship with students, alumni, faculty and staff Fisk University, Meharry Medical College and Tennessee State University.  We seek to continue to strengthen these ties as we feel that it is important to offer students a spiritual home away from home.  We have members from the US as well as those with family overseas in Jamaica, St. Lucia, Trinidad, Guyana and Nigeria.

Working towards racial reconciliation in the church and Middle Tennessee has part of the heart cry of many of our members.  Members serve on the Diocesan Racial Reconciliation Commission: the Beloved Community.

Leadership

St. Anselm’s is part of the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee which is led by the bishop, the Right Reverend John C Bauerschmidt. We are descended from the Church of England and are members of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

The Mission Council includes Linda Pegues-Brinkley, Andrew Green, Bob Jordan, Bill Gittens, Harriet Warner, Tim Eccleston, and Carolyn Davis. The Mission Council Clerk is Flo Blocker.

What do we believe?

We believe the ancient creeds: Nicene and Apostolic Creeds.

The Nicene Creed

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

And we believe that Bible contains all things necessary to salvation.  We baptize all ages and welcome them into the family of God trusting God to carry on to completion their full welcome into the Body of Christ.  We are trinitarians believing in God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  And we worship God in song, reading of scripture, preaching, prayers and in sharing in the bread and wine of Holy Communion.

 

Core Values

Our core values explain why we do what we do as a community at St. Anselm’s. What are the things we most value?  They help us know ourselves and to think about our future as a mission.  And laying out our core values allows our prospective members to know us better as well.

Worshiping God in the tradition of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.

Promoting spiritual growth.

Encouraging Christian fellowship and support in our Church family.

Following the example of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we seek to love our neighbors by:

– helping those in need,

– supporting the people of Fisk, TSU, MMC and all the institutions of higher education in Nashville,

– strengthening education in the community.

 

Who was Saint Anselm?

Anselm of Canterbury^[a] (/ˈænsɛlm/) (1033/4-1109), also called Anselm of Aosta (Italian: Anselmo d’Aosta) after his birthplace and Anselm of Bec(French: Anselme du Bec) after his monastery, was a Benedictine monk, abbot, philosopher and theologian of the Church in England, who held the office of archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. After his death, he was canonized as a saint; his feast day is 21 April.

Beginning at Bec, Anselm composed dialogues and treatises with a rational and philosophical approach, sometimes causing him to be credited as the founder of Scholasticism. Despite his lack of recognition in this field in his own time, Anselm is now famed as the originator of the ontological argument for the existence of God and of the satisfaction theory of atonement. He was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by a bull of Pope Clement XI in 1720.

As archbishop, he defended the church’s interests in England amid the Investiture Controversy. For his resistance to the English kings William II and Henry I, he was exiled twice: once from 1097 to 1100 and then from 1105 to 1107. While in exile, he helped guide the Greek bishops of southern Italy to adopt Roman rites at the Council of Bari. He worked for the primacy of Canterbury over the bishops of York and Wales but, though at his death he appeared to have been successful, Pope Paschal II later reversed himself and restored York’s independence.

For more please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anselm_of_Canterbury