Broad church
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Liturgy and Worship Book of Common Prayer High Church · Low Church Broad Church Oxford Movement Thirty-Nine Articles Saints in Anglicanism | |
Broad Church is a term referring to Latitudinarian churchmanship in the Church of England, in particular, and Anglicanism, in general. After the terms High Church and Low Church came to distinguish the tendency toward Ritualism and Anglo-Catholicism, on the one hand, and Puritanism, on the other, those Anglicans tolerant of multiple forms of conformity to ecclesiastical authority came to be referred to as "Broad." As the name implies, parishes associated with this variety of churchmanship will mix High and Low forms, reflective of the often eclectic liturgical and doctrinal preferences of clergy and laity. The emphasis is on allowing individual parishioners choice.
Nancy Mitford is alleged to have said that the three types of churchmanship one finds in the English Church are "High and crazy, low and lazy, broad and hazy." Alternatively, the look and feel of worship according to the three churchmanships sees "High" referred to as "smells and bells" (angelus bells and Incense), "Low" as "pine and pain" (hard pews, little decoration and discomfort - both physically trying and spiritually demanding), and Broad as "brass and class" (brass candlesticks and eagle lecterns, and well-heeled congregations hearing short, erudite sermons from urbane preachers).
The term 'broad church' is sometimes used to refer to secular political organisations, meaning that they encompass a broad range of opinion.
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