Central churchmanship
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Central churchmanship describes those who adhere to a middle way in the
In The Claims of the Church of England, Cyril Garbett, Archbishop of York, used the term along with Anglo-Catholic, liberal, and evangelical as a label for schools within the Church of England, but also states:
Within the Anglican Church are Anglo-Catholics, Evangelicals, Liberals and the great mass of English Churchmen who are content to describe themselves as Churchmen without any further label.[1]
The term came into use in the late nineteenth century when traditional high churchmen decided to distance themselves from
Perhaps the best-known exponent of the central churchman position in the twentieth century was
Since the 1970s central churchmanship as a distinct school of thought and practice within the Church of England has been in decline. This is partly due to the closure or merger of some theological colleges that used to favor the Central position—namely, Wells Theological College, Lincoln Theological College, and Tenbury Wells—and a drift towards theological liberalism, or Affirming Catholicism in others.
Overlap with "broad church"
Traditionally "broad church" has been used to refer to a particular tendency within Anglicanism which flourished in the 19th century;[5] however, it has recently been used as a virtual synonym for central churchmanship[6] and it appears that this is fairly standard in the United States.
References
- ^ Garbett, Cyril (1947). The Claims of the Church of England. London: Hodder & Stoughton. pp. 13, 26.
- ^ Chadwick, Owen (1972). The Victorian Church (Part II). London: Adam & Charles Black. p. 357.
- ^ McGrath, Alister (1993). The Renewal of Anglicanism. SPCK. p. 112.
- ^ Iremonger, F.A. (1948). William Temple. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 494.
- ^ Cross; Livingstone, eds. (1974). "Broad Church". Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. London: Oxford University Press.
- ^ Hylson-Smith, Kenneth (1993). High Churchmanship in the Church of England. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. p. 339.