Broad church
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Broad church is latitudinarian churchmanship in the Church of England in particular and Anglicanism in general, meaning that the church permits a broad range of opinion on various issues of Anglican doctrine. In the American Episcopal Church, the term "broad church" historically denoted latitudinarian churchmanship and connoted theological liberalism and modernism, particularly in the years between 1874 and 1934. In modern Episcopal usage, the term largely overlaps with central churchmanship.
Church of England
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After the terms
Broad church as an expression is now increasingly replaced by references in the Church of England to liberalism. For example, Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, in his "text of reflection" The Challenge and Hope of Being an Anglican Today, released in 2006,[3] described the three "components in our heritage" as "strict evangelical Protestantism", "Roman Catholicism" and "religious liberalism", accepting that "each of these has a place in the church's life". These would broadly correspond to the low church, high church and broad church parties in the Church of England. It has been suggested that "broad" tended to be used to describe those of middle of the road liturgical preferences who leaned theologically towards liberal Protestantism; whilst "central" described those who were theologically conservative, but took the middle way in terms of liturgical practices. Broad churchmen might best be described as those who are generally liberal in theology, often culturally conservative, but also supportive of a broad—that is, comprehensive—Anglican Church including Evangelical Anglicans, "middle of the road" or "vanilla Anglicans" or "central churchmen", liberal or "progressive" Anglicans, moderate high churchmen, and Anglo-Catholic Anglicans (though not fundamentalist on the one extreme nor papalists on the other). It is not possible to draw sharp lines between some of these traditions.
Episcopal Church (United States)
According to Bishop Thomas J. Brown, the term "broad church" is not commonly used today, but "was common throughout much of the 20th century."[4]
Historical connotations of liberalism
In the American Episcopal Church (TEC), the term "broad church" traditionally represented a desire to accommodate a range of conservative and liberal theological views under one Episcopal umbrella, as opposed to disputes over ritualism, where the terms "low church"/"evangelical" and "high church" ordinarily applied.
On paper and perhaps in practice, Broad Church institutions like the Church Congress in the United States (founded in 1874) and the
However, the practical significance of the Broad Church movement was that it gave theological liberalism a foothold in TEC at a time when the low church and high church factions were both dominated by conservatives. Although ostensibly anti-factional, the Church Congress' leaders were "all progressive liberals in a basically conservative church."[8] Until the 1870s, TEC's conservative leadership had generally taken a neutral stance towards hot-button issues like abolitionism.[9] Following the Civil War, the Broad Church organized to actively support liberal causes.[5] According to TEC, the movement sought to be "more tolerant and liberal than the views of the existing low church and high church parties," and emphasized "reason as a mediator of religious truth, as opposed to the exclusive reliance on scripture and tradition in the other parties."[10]
The Broad Church movement provided a space for liberal and progressive theologians who might have been frozen out of more conservative factions.
Once TEC accepted its progressives, the Broad Church's emphasis on tolerance became somewhat anachronistic. The revised Book of Common Prayer was published in 1928,[20] and the Church Congress held its last convention in 1934.[21] Many of the Congress' leaders migrated to the newly established Liberal Evangelical Congress, which first convened in 1933.[21] (The term "evangelical" is a historical artifact. In the 1860s and 1870s, most conservative evangelicals left TEC, often for the Reformed Episcopal Church; as a result, by the mid-1870s, within TEC, the term "evangelical" was largely synonymous with "low-church liberal."[22][23] For example, the TEC dictionary describes Broad Church preacher Phillips Brooks, a theological liberal, as a "broad church evangelical,"[24] and stresses that TEC's "liberal evangelical" tendency "accept[ed] a critical stance toward the biblical text."[25])
Contemporary usage
Although the term is no longer in general use, certain modern-day Episcopal churches use "broad church" to describe an attitude towards ritual that is between the low church and the high church, somewhat akin to
Today, institutions historically associated with the Broad Church (in the Church Congress sense) may now style themselves as low church. Examples include Trinity Church in Boston, which was considered low church under the leadership of Anne Bonnymann (r. 2006-11) but still "continu[ed] to be a Broad Church parish";[30] and Groton School, where Morning Prayer is still celebrated.[31][32][33]
In politics
By way of an analogy, the term has also been used with regard to political parties, particularly the British Labour Party.[34] It can denote both a wide range of ideological views within a single organisation, as well as describe a party that seeks to attract a wide voter base with differing points of view.[35][36] "Big tent" is a similar term in American politics, also with religious origins.[37]
See also
References
- ^ Cross, F. L. (1957); p. 199
- ^ Cross, F. L. (1957); p. 199
- ^ Williams, Rowan (27 June 2006). "The Challenge and Hope of Being an Anglican Today: A Reflection for the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Anglican Communion". Dr. Rowan Williams, 104th Archbishop of Canterbury. Archived from the original on 8 November 2015. Retrieved 13 May 2015.
- ^ Brown, Thomas J. "Reflection: On being a broad church". Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. Retrieved 2024-06-05.
- ^ a b Spielmann, p. 51.
- ^ Pagán, Jonathan Warren (2014-06-23). "The Broad Churchmanship of William Reed Huntington". Anglican Compass. Retrieved 2024-06-05.
- ISBN 978-0-8192-2896-3.
- ^ Spielmann, p. 61.
- ISSN 0896-8039– via JSTOR.
- ^ "Broad Church Movement". The Episcopal Church. Retrieved 2024-06-05.
- ^ C.K.S. (October 1962). "Henry Bradford Washburn" (PDF). Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society: 255.
- ^ a b "Charles Lewis Slattery". St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Ayer. 2024-02-23. Archived from the original on 2024-02-23. Retrieved 2024-02-23.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-55635-152-5.
- ^ a b "Episcopal Theological School (ETS) - An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church". The Episcopal Church. Retrieved 2024-04-23.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-06-05.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-06-05.
- ^ "Newton, Richard Heber". The Episcopal Church. Retrieved 2024-06-05.
- ^ "Newton, William Wilberforce". The Episcopal Church. Retrieved 2024-06-05.
- ^ "BISHOP SLATTERY DIES SUDDENLY". The New York Times. 1930-03-13.
- ^ a b "The New American Prayer Book, by E. Clowes Chorley (1929)". anglicanhistory.org. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
- ^ a b Spielmann, pp. 78-80.
- ISSN 0896-8039.
- ISSN 0896-8039.
- ^ "Brooks, Phillips". The Episcopal Church. Retrieved 2024-06-05.
- ^ "Liberal Evangelicalism". The Episcopal Church. Retrieved 2024-06-05.
- ^ "How We Worship". St. John's Episcopal Church, Marion, NC. Retrieved 2024-06-06.
- ^ Terry, Bill (2014-01-24). "Part II. Ok, so what are we Anglo-Catholic or what?". Saint Anna's Episcopal Church New Orleans. Retrieved 2024-06-06.
- ^ "Anglican Terminology". Orangeburg's Church of The Redeemer. Retrieved 2024-06-06.
- ^ "Worship | St. Paul's Rock Creek | Participate online or in-person". stpaulsrockcreek.org. Retrieved 2024-06-06.
- ^ "Trinity Church". wfrjr.com. Retrieved 2024-06-06.
- ISBN 978-1-4696-2698-7.
- ^ Dobbins, Gage S., ed. (2000). St. John's Chapel: 1900-2000. Groton School. p. 20.
- ^ "Parents Weekend". Groton School. Retrieved 2024-06-06.
- ISBN 978-0-85771-111-3.
- ^ "broad church". dictionary.cambridge.org. Cambridge English Dictionary. Retrieved 2 May 2018.
- ISBN 978-1-134-84403-6.
- ISBN 9781317153573.
Further reading
- Chadwick, Owen. The Victorian Church (1960), vol. 1.
- Cornish, F. W. (1910) The English Church in the Nineteenth Century. 2 vols. London: Macmillan (particularly relevant are: vol. 1. pp. 186–96, 299-316; vol. 2, pp. 201–44).
- Cross, F. L. (ed.) (1957) The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. London: Oxford U. P.; Broad Church, p. 199.
- Jones, Tod E. (2003) The Broad Church: Biography of a Movement Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0739106112.