WHAT’S UP WITH “HIGH CHURCH/LOW CHURCH”?
When my Virginia cousin Henry was in confirmation class in
the 1950’s one of the questions raised by the students concerned the difference
between “High Church” and “Low Church.” “That’s easy,” the teacher replied,
“St. Thomas’ in Richmond is ‘Low Church.” What made it so? Because “any church
that observes ‘Stonewall Jackson Sunday’ is Low Church.”
That may be one of the more eccentric definitions, but it
serves to illustrate how much variety one may expect when exploring their
meaning. In the 18th Century, “High Church” meant that you opposed
doing anything to relax restrictions upon non-Anglican Protestants and Roman
Catholics. In 1710 a mob were so inspired by a High Church sermon that they
burned several Presbyterian chapels in London! During this period, “Low Church”
meant you were Whig in your politics and kindly disposed to Protestants in
general. By the 19th Century the “Low Church” had been energized by
the Evangelical Movement inaugurated by John Wesley and others a century
before, which emphasized personal conversion and holiness. Beginning with the
“Oxford Movement” in 1833, the ‘High Church’ party (I am serious…they all spoke
of their affiliations as “parties”) was inspired to emphasize the continuity of
Anglicanism with the pre-reformation church.
All Saints’ Margaret Street, London
In the 1880’s a High Church Bishop in England was prosecuted
for having lit candles on the altar during Holy Communion, while in the United
States a group of High Church clergy left the Episcopal Church and became Roman
Catholics because the General Convention approved the practice, on occasion, of
allowing ministers of other denominations to preach in Episcopal pulpits. It is
hard for us now to imagine why such commonplace things were major issues, which
is the point I would like to make on this subject: the meaning of terms like
“High” and “Low” has changed so much they have lost whatever meaning they may
have once conveyed.
In the 1950’s, when I was being enculturated into the
Episcopal Church, it was still common to hear such terms used, but they meant
something very different from what they had in the 18th Century. The
major division at that time was about the “centrality of the Eucharist.” If you
had Holy Communion as the main service on most Sundays, you were more -or-less
“High”. If you had Morning Prayer and Sermon on most Sundays, you were
more-or-less “low.” All that changed in the 1970’s, when ordination of women
was approved (1976), and a new Book of Common Prayer authorized (1979), and old
affiliations dissolved and rearranged themselves around the new developments.
Most of the women being ordained would be considered “High” by the old
terminology, because they had not gone to the trouble of getting ordained as
priests only to refrain from exercising their ministry at the altar. Among the opponents of Women’s ordination were
extremists from both the High and the Low ends of the spectrum. The result has
been a new set of “parties” in the church, which have been described variously
as “liberal”, “traditionalist”, “inclusive”, “orthodox”, and, as the humorous
website “Ship of Fools” puts it, as “Stiff Upper Lip” or “Happy Clappy.”
The Diocese of Michigan, before the 1970’s, was known as “Low
Church.” Today, that description would not apply to any church in the diocese.
The only congregations in this diocese where the Eucharist is not the main
service on Sunday are the ones where no priest is available to preside, and
Morning Prayer is offered by lay persons. This consensus doesn’t mean there is
no variety in worship: Christ Church Cranbrook is known for the “cathedral
style” dignity and beauty of its liturgy and music, whereas the
Happy Clappy?
Church of the Messiah in Detroit adheres to spirited “Black
Church” norms of worship. At the same time, gospel music and other forms that
might be considered “happy clappy” are regular features of worship at CCC and
throughout the Episcopal Church.
If there is
anything to be learned from this, it concerns the transitory nature of
“parties” in the church and the limitations of partisanship in general. The
fiercely contested issues of the past often seem trivial to us now, which ought
to encourage a measure of humility in us, and a desire to cultivate “inquiring
and discerning hearts” with regard to the issues of our own day. Reflection
upon the past can sometimes reveal key moments when outspoken partisanship made
a difference that still impacts our lives today. Such reflection can also
reveal the way old controversies often synthesize into enduring assumptions
accepted by nearly everyone.
What are the controversial issues of our own time that may
have lasting consequences for future generations?
