He was the most important theologian of the English Reformation, and arguably the most important in the five-hundred-year history of the Church of England if, for no other reason, he was responsible for all the recognized formularies of our Anglican heritage: the Articles of Religion, the Homilies (of which he wrote four of the original twelve in the first book), and the Book of Common Prayer (including the Ordinal). In so many ways it is fair to call this "Cranmer's Church."

Our unity was theological, not conciliar, as Tay and Kolini wrote George Carey (the occasion of the consecration of John Rogers and Chuck Murphy): "Any strategy that seeks to ground the unity of the Anglican Communion with its foundation in political accommodation rather than in the essentials of the Christian faith is doomed.

Since Thomas Cranmer's 1552 Book of Common Prayer until the 1979 Prayer Book revision, the communion table was called a "table" so that is wasn't confused with an "altar" and the medieval Catholic understanding of the sacrament.

The real question in our understanding of baptism is whether the baptism service wording stands on its own (borrowed from the Medieval Catholic liturgy and understanding), or whether the Thirty-nine Articles and the Homilies must be considered as commentaries to give us a full understanding. A fair look at all the historic formularies will help us understand Anglican sacramental theology.