Broad church

[2] 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.

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".

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, and took the middle way in terms of liturgical practices, following the rubrics of the Prayer Book closely.

"[6] Church historian Robert W. Prichard says that the Church Congress' emphasis on denominational unity helped TEC "avoid[] the divisions over biblical scholarship that marked some other American denominations," and largely credits the Congress for the fact that TEC never endured "wholesale inquisitions of seminaries or college faculties.

"[10] The Broad Church movement provided a space for liberal and progressive theologians who might have been frozen out of more conservative factions.

"[13] Figures like R. Heber Newton (who was accused of heresy several times[15][16]), his brother William Wilberforce Newton, and Church Congress chairman Charles Lewis Slattery were commonly identified with the Broad Church, although their views might be described as conventionally liberal years after the fact.

Heber Newton is now remembered by TEC as a "leading liberal preacher";[17] William Newton "called for the church ... to appropriate the truths of evolution and science";[18] and Slattery chaired the commission that revised the Book of Common Prayer to be more gender-inclusive and to de-emphasize the doctrine of original sin.

"[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.