To me, Anglo-Catholic is about the level of ceremony in the service - so incense etc.

Catholic is more about spirituality and the view that God made the world and so that world is to be celebrated not despised.

High is primarily about Sacramental theology, but also includes liturgy - but without the ritual of A-Cism.

Low is again about Sacramental theology and liturgy, and often overlaps with Evangelical but not always. (For example I'd probably say that while the Welsh congregation at Llanbadarn were low, but non-evangelical).

Evangelical [struggles to be objective, having had bad experiences] implies things about attitude to Bible, tends to be low sacramentally and non-liturgical. Also the world is something which we escape from, not something to be celebrated.

Well that's my attempt to capture the connotations those words have for me.

So I'm a high and Catholic Anglican without being Anglo-Catholic.

Then I would use High and Low to describe the style and form of worship, which includes attitudes to communion etc. So High would place a high value of communion, and might therefore surround the service with lots of ceremony. Low would place a high value on community and fellowship.

as for traditional, evangelical, liberal - none of these fit my churchmanship.

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as for traditional, evangelical, liberal - none of these fit my churchmanship.

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Same here; to me, scripture, tradition and experience interweave in my understanding of my faith, I can't say I emphasise one above the other two.

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Certainly the labels mentioned seem to have an Anglican origin.

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Do they? Anglo-Catholic is probably the only specifically Anglican one. Catholic and Evangelical certainly have a wider meaning (and non-Anglican origin) and as Angel's said high and low came up in the Methodist-Anglican thread.

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Originally posted by the Angel of the North:
as for traditional, evangelical, liberal - none of these fit my churchmanship.

Angel

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Originally posted by The Coot:
My dears. There has been simply too much talk about ac and ep and h and l and - and all the while tat is being neglected.

I think we should get back to the central overweeningly important aspects of organised religion, such as 'Who wore rose on Gaudete Sunday'.

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i would say that it isn't talked about enough, and that the latter belongs on another thread

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Originally posted by The Coot:
I think we should get back to the central overweeningly important aspects of organised religion, such as 'Who wore rose on Gaudete Sunday'.

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Shame, shame, Coot! I only asked that silly question because of the tat addiction on this board.

Actually, I do not know that there is a definition for any of these terms today, for all that the lines may have been drawn more clearly a century ago. (I agree that this is an "Anglican thing," particularly because, as far as I know, ours is the only sister church where we glory in that some of us are very Protestant, others very Catholic.) My own definition once would have been that the difference between Catholic and Evangelical was mainly one of emphasis rather than essential belief, and that the former's would be more sacramental, the latter purely scriptural.

However, although I would not call my churchmanship liberal, it's more of a personal thing: I would describe my approach to Christianity as liberal. Whether everyone else in my church is liberal I am not so sure.

So for me, the high-low definition describes the church; but the liberal, fundamentalist, etc labels describe more how we as individuals think about our faith.

My father is protestant, reformed, or calvinist. He is a continental evanglelical without being a British one. That is to say that he is his theology over liturgy is main stream English (maybe slightly on the liberal side of British) Calvinism.

However it is putting together a phrase to incorporates his approach to this worship in that alludes me. I have tried 'High Calvinism' which got me into trouble as he is not that sort of Calvinist. I tried 'High Church Calvinist' which as in England there are Calvinists whose worship would be familiar to High Anglicans, with slightly differing wording, also causes problems. Main stream approach does not take kindly to overt ritual.

What is so distinctive is the care with which he approaches the ritual of reformed worship. It is an approach that is very exacting though not exhibitionist at all. For instance when I was a child one year we were driven to distraction one year trying to find charcoal grey V-neck jumpers.

So I am Post Modern Liberal Anglican Catholic, or Pomolianca for short.

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Originally posted by The Coot:
Hm. I thought as we already had:
'Evangelicalism/Protestantism for beginners'
'High Church, low church, no church'
'Anglocatholicism for beginners'
the subject would have been milked dry by now. Hmmmm.

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On which threads terms were thrown around with gay abandon, and no one thought what they actually meant, and how each of us was using them.

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Originally posted by Miffy:
Chorister - Can you elaborate a little on 'middle of the road', please.

thanks

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Originally posted by Miffy:
Chorister - Can you elaborate a little on 'middle of the road', please.

thanks

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hello again!, back from my crimbo 'bug' and busyness: 'MOTR'= in the Church of England there is a large number of churches who call themselves 'central', ie. not at the extremes of evangelicalism or a-c but in the 'middle' - some argue this group is getting smaller and smaller now as people tend to polarise towards evangelical or a-c. The type of church which was called central when I was younger is seen as too popish by the low church and too low by the a-c's! so I feel the goalposts have changed as they try to become more acceptable to the others and have lost faith in their own distinctiveness and viability. It is interesting to read the blurb on the Affirming Catholicism website: http://www.affirmingcatholicism.org.uk
which claims to hold the middle ground, but not all would agree with this.

We attract a wide range of churchpersonships, from Evangelical to Traditional to Anglo-Catholic, who all seem to co-exist with our emphasis on good children's work, all age worship* and multisensory worship#. We have a Family service once a month~

We are growing.

Some people would (have) describe(d) us as Liberal Catholic, although I know many congregants would balk at this label. The clergy all represent the catholic wing of the CofE, although other people strongly involved in the ministry of the church are from a lower church background.

This to me is what being a Parish church is all about. Those who want the "Extremes" have plenty of options in the city.

*All ages are involved in the service, in the choir, as servers, etc. No-one dresses up as superman, although when all our clergy are fully coped one does wonder.

#We have stained glass, congregational and choral music, bells, nice vestments, and we try to make the play smell nice. Sometimes with flowers, sometimes with smoke.

However, I suppose a lot depends on the area. If it were in Rochester Diocese, OLSP, Primrose Hill would be screamingly high. In the Edmonton area of the London Diocese it is distinctly low, as it only uses an Anglican rite and has no Roman features. This is with a High Mass with incense every Sunday!

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Originally posted by the Angel of the North:
On which threads terms were thrown around with gay abandon, and no one thought what they actually meant, and how each of us was using them.

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Anglican Low church as identified by dress, I think can range from alb and stole, surplice and stole, surplice and tippet, and suits with clerical collar or collar crosses can sneak in provided they include most of the prayer book liturgy.

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Originally posted by Sarum Sleuth:
I "Middle" generally means vestments, or at least the dreaded cassock-alb.

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In the Western tradition the whole of the Anglican Church can be seen as MOTR, as it stands between the Roman Catholic Church and the more fully protestant Baptist, Presbyterian (and other) Churches. Anglo-Catholics can be regarded as MOTR because they stand between the RC Church and the broad sweep of the Anglican Church. Within the Protestant tradition Low Church Anglicans can be seen as MOTR as they stand between the broad sweep of the Anglican Church and the more fully protestant Churches (partly they are suffering from moving goalposts).

The 1662 BCP can be regarded as MOTR because it is a Protestant prayer book with many Roman Catholic influences.

The language of the BCP and the King James Bible can be viewed as MOTR because it is neither the traditional language of the Church (Latin) not contemporary English.

Of course, this situation is not unique to the Anglican Church, shipmates will be aware that there are groups who do not regard the Pope as a "proper" Catholic (the Pope MOTR, anyone!).

So how to identify MOTR Anglicanism? A few suggestions (and these are only suggestions): -

Holy Communion as the usual service, but no "smells and bells"
Mattins as the usual service (probably too low).
Priest in alb and stole, no use of other vestments etc.
Entrance procession and recession, but no gospel procession.
Acolytes but no thurifer.

The terms high and low have also changed over time, and not simply up and down the scale. Until the tractarian and evangelical movements of the C19th it was more to do with politics and the role of the Church in society than our idea of churchmanship. Have a look at your Barchester Chronicles. Archdeacon Grantleigh is described as high but I doubt you could tell the difference between him and Obadiah Slope when they're dressed for church.

The churchmanship which has all but disappeared is traditional low (formal mattins as the main service) leaving older people like my parents high and dry (especially if they like BCP too). Bath Abbey is one of the few churches I've seen that does it with no sense of embarrassment.

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Originally posted by leo:
Bath Abbey is a particular case - its patrons are the Simeon's Trust, a conservative evangelical body. They know that, with a big church like that, they cannot go 100% along the party line. Gowever, they tolerate surplice and stoles providing that the clergy are 'sound'; in their preaching.

You realise the patronage on occasions like Christmas eve, when the abbey's doors stay locked when some are looking for a midnight mass.

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Originally posted by Fiddleback:
the dreaded "All Age Family Service' (catering for all ages from 65 to 90) on the last Sunday of the month. What does Middle of the Road Anglicanism stand for? Bugger all, diddly squit, zilch. All it means is " We don't know what we believe, we don't want to believe in it anyway, and we don't care".

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Two things, stop banging on about All Age Worship. Next time take it to Hell where you have a really good whinge about it.

Might be good idea not to be quite so insulting about other groups within the church. It is most definitely not allowed. You have come pretty close to breaking the Third Commandment:

Attack the issue, not the person
Name-calling and personal insults are not allowed, regardless of the context.

This applies to identifiable groups as well as individuals.

An apology would definitely be in order.

[biretta off]

And don't you think that ypour assuming an item of headgear, no matter hopw virtual, that you have no right to wear just a tiny bit insulting to us Neanderthals who take such things seriously?

Why don't we try this: Describe what you like/do, and then give each of the items in the description a number. Then, you can just join the numbers and describe it perfectly.

e.g.

Tat - Need it - 1
Like it a lot - 2
It's OK - 3
Lose it - 4
Bible - Strict interpretation - 10
Not so strict - 11
Just a guideline - 12
etc...

then you can say, for example, 3,10,...

Saves time, keystrokes and confusion.

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Originally posted by Chapelhead:
Would that make "Chick" of "Chick Tract" infamy a 7-11 (standing on the corner of the road, peaching at passers-by)?

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Originally posted by Chorister:
How common is it still to retain Mattins?

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I can think of 2 parishes in Washington that Mattins on alternate Sundays.

St David's is one. The use of the word "traditional" is interesting:

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Most people are curious about the worship style of parishes. We at Saint David’s are unabashedly “traditional.” That means
we enjoy the more formal worship style and music in a broad church context. Our beautiful buildings lend a stateliness to our
services. Our services follow the prayer forms of both Rite I and Rite II in The Book of Common Prayer. We enjoy the rich
Hymnody of our Anglican/Episcopal heritage. We have vested choirs of all ages and continue to offer Morning Prayer as a
principal service on two Sundays a month. In other words, we offer a familiar atmosphere for the many of us raised in that
fashion.

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