8/20/2014 The Difference Between Low Church and High Church

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"Low Church" and "High Church"
Dennis Bratcher
Evangelical Protestants sometimes become offended when they hear that
they are from a "low church" tradition. Indeed, in some cases those from
more liturgical traditions use that term in a pejorative way to mean "less
sophisticated" or "uneducated." But then, Protestant Evangelicals are
not beyond throwing around the term "high church" to mean "less
spiritual than we." The fact is, neither term in itself carries any of those
negative connotations.
"Low Church" is a neutral term that simply describes a type of worship
that does not follow a prescribed order of service, that does not follow
certain liturgical patterns, and does not make use of developed ritual,
ceremony, or worship accouterments like vestments. From Webster's
Dictionary: "Low Church (1710) tending esp. in Anglican worship to
minimize emphasis on the priesthood, sacraments, and the ceremonial in
worship and often to emphasize evangelical principles." By contrast:
"High Church (1687) tending esp. in Anglican worship to stress the
sacerdotal [priestly], liturgical, ceremonial, traditional, and Catholic
elements in worship."
So the two terms simply describe attitudes, forms, or theologies of
worship. Those traditions that follow more priestly models, ranging from
Catholic to Anglican, or those that tend to follow a more liturgical form of
worship in which the service is structured around a Theology of Word and
Table, ranging from Lutheran to some Methodists, are considered "high
church." Many of the American-born traditions or those that reacted to
the formality of other traditions, such as the Quakers and Puritans,
adopted a low church approach to worship in which spontaneity was
emphasized in matters ranging from prayer to sermons.
The differences between these two approaches to worship emerged from
the Protestant Reformation. Many commonly understand the Reformation
to be a theological revival (from the Protestant perspective) or a schism
within the church over theological differences (from the Catholic
perspective). While that is certainly true on one level, those theological
differences were interwoven with other issues, including the nature of
worship. While the Protestant confessions that emerged from the
Reformation dealt with the theological issues, they also attempted to
define the church in distinction from Catholic practices of worship that
were seen at best as improper and at worst as heretical.
This can be exemplified in the split between Luther and Zwingli over this
Related pages
Theology Topics
Teach Us to Pray
What is Liturgy?
Evangelicals and
Liturgical Worship
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very issue. Zwingli thought that Luther had not gone nearly far enough
in breaking from Rome, while Luther genuinely wanted only to reform the
Church, not totally remake it. This led to the two well known criteria for
church practice. Luther held a maximalist view that whatever was not
specifically forbidden in Scripture could be practiced by the Church in its
worship. So he continued many of the long established practices of the
Church. Zwingli took the minimalist view and held that only those things
that were specifically allowed in Scripture could be practiced in the
Church.
Of course there were those like Menno Simons who thought Zwingli had
not gone far enough and so spawned the Radical Reformation
(Anabaptists, Mennonites). Invariably, some like Jacob Amman thought
Simons had sold out and moved still further (Amish). The same thing
happened in England as Cranmer followed Luther, with more radical
reactions from George Fox (Quakers) and the Puritans.
For example the language of the Westminster Confession of the Puritans
is especially pointed in declaring that the Popish sacrifice of the mass,
as they call it, is most abominably injurious to Christ's one only sacrifice,
the only propitiation for all the sins of the elect. (Westminster
Confession, Chapter 29.2. Of the Lord's Supper; note the Scots
Confession Chapter 18 - The Notes by Which the True Kirk Is Discerned
from The False, and Who Shall Be Judge of Doctrine). The Westminster
Confession reflects not only theological differences but also the necessity
of distinguishing emerging Protestantism from Catholicism in matters of
practice. Especially relevant here is Zwingli's minimalist approach to
worship or what some have called a regulative principle:
Chapter 21. Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath-day.
21.1. The light of nature shows that there is a God, who has
lordship and sovereignty over all; is good, and does good unto all;
and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted
in, and served with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all
the might. But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is
instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that
he may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and
devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible
representation or any other way not prescribed in the holy
Scripture. (The Westminster Confession)
In other words, this presents Zwingli's view of worship in which only
those practices that are specifically commanded in Scripture or that have
justification from Scripture in the practice of the early church are
acceptable as legitimate means of worship. In the context of the
Reformation, this was not only a working out of the principle of sola
scruptura, scripture alone as the basis for doctrine, but also a direct
attack on what was understood to be unbiblical practices in worship in
Catholicism. This included such things as Catholic mass (as a
reenactment of the death of Jesus), the multiplication of sacraments,
and the more elaborate aspects of worship that had developed in the
medieval period such as ornate vestments, incense, the proliferation of
statues, the use of scepters, crucifixes, etc.. Along with this came
criticism of opulent cathedrals and the call for more simplicity in worship.
This laid the groundwork for what would emerge as low church
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approaches to worship that attempted to return to a simplicity that was
assumed to be biblically based. It should be noted however, that the
return to a biblical basis for worship only went as far as the New
Testament church. Ignored in this back to the Bible approach to
worship were the very same elaborate rituals, priestly vestments, and
magnificent places of worship that were characteristic of much of Old
Testament worship, as well as that of first century Judaism. It also
ignores the rather obvious fact that Jesus himself as a first century Jew
participated in those rituals of worship in those places without much
condemnation (Jesus attack on the moneychangers in the Temple was
not an attack on the practices of worship conducted there or on the
Temple itself).
This reveals that there were other forces at work in the Reformation than
simply a recovery of the acceptable way of worshipping God instituted
by himself. In the concern to reject the excesses of medieval
Catholicism, this minimalist approach to worship tended to invoke a
subtle supercessionist approach to Scripture, which assumed that only
what was directly commanded in the New Testament as a means of
worship was revealed by God and therefore valid. In any case, the
rejection of any practice not specifically commanded in the New
Testament or practiced by the early church with biblical justification
solidly laid the groundwork for the development of low church traditions
of worship.
In another direction, the Anglican tradition also rejected Catholicism,
largely to reject the authority of the papacy over the Church of England.
But there were also both theological and practical aspects.
As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred: so
also the Church of Rome has erred, not only in their living and
manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith. (The Thirty-
Nine Articles of Religion, Article 19 - The Church)
However, while moving away from some aspects of Catholicism, the
Anglican tradition took a more traditionalist approach to worship.
Article 34 - The Traditions of the Church
It is not necessary that traditions and ceremonies be in all places
one or utterly alike; for at all times they have been diverse, and
may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and
men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's word.
Whosoever through his private judgement willingly and purposely
openly breaks the traditions and ceremonies of the Church which
are not repugnant to the word of God, and are ordained and
approved by common authority, ought to be rebuked openly that
others may fear to do the like, as he that offends against common
order of the Church, and hurts the authority of the magistrate, and
wounds the conscience of the weak brethren.
Every particular or national Church has authority to ordain, change,
and abolish ceremonies or rites of the Church ordained only by
man's authority, so that all things be done to edifying. (The Thirty-
Nine Articles of Religion)
This might be described as a maximilist approach to worship, or what
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some have called a normative principle. That is, while the minimalist
approach viewed as acceptable in worship only what Scripture directly
commands, this approach tends to view as acceptable in worship what
Scripture does not directly forbid.
That what the Scripture forbids not, it allows, and what it allows, is
not unlawful, and what is not unlawful, may lawfully be done.
(Attributed to Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1566, by
Henry Danvers, Innocency and Truth Vindicated, 1675).
Some have termed this approach a via media, a middle way between
Catholicism and the more radical tendencies of Protestantism toward
individualism, innovation, and rejection of all church tradition. It is from
this preservation of traditional practices of worship but within a decidedly
Protestant context that high-church traditions of worship emerge.
While the Anglican tradition, along with Lutherans and other Protestant
tradition, tended to gravitate to high church forms of worship, even
within those traditions the influence of low church approaches came to
be felt. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist tradition, was
sometimes accused by his detractors of being "low church" because of his
field preaching and training of lay-preachers outside the confines of
normal church structure and structures. But he vigorously defended
against the charge. He remained thoroughly Anglican and high church,
while still continuing to emphasize evangelical principles.
The Methodist church, especially as it grew in the new United States,
emerged as an interesting blend of low and high church practices. Modern
Methodism still preserves both approaches in various congregations.
Many American Presbyterians also managed to retain features of both
types of worship. However, the American versions of both Methodists
and Presbyterians that emerged in the American Holiness Movement,
along with Pentecostals, and others like Quakers, Brethren, and Churches
of Christ, intentionally chose to move to "low church."
While there were certainly limits as to what might be allowed in worship
with the Anglican approach, such as practices repugnant to the word of
God, there is a great deal of freedom allowed in worship both in
accepting traditional practices and in adapting the practices of worship to
varying circumstances. There is an interesting balance between practices
accepted from church tradition and therefore seen as a source of unity in
the church, and the disclaimer that such rules of practice are not decreed
by God or Scripture.
. . . these orders and rules ensuing have been thought meet and
convenient to be used and followed: not yet prescribing these rules
as laws equivalent with the eternal word of God, and as of
necessity to bind the consciences of her subjects in the nature of
them considered in themselves; or as they should add any efficacy
or more holiness to the virtue of public prayer, and to the
sacraments, but as temporal orders mere ecclesiastical, without
any vain superstition, and as rules in some part of discipline
concerning decency, distinction, and order for the time. (Matthew
Parker, The Advertisements, 1566)
It is perhaps in this balance between a recognition of the value of
tradition in its role in unifying the church and fostering some degree of
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commonality between various communions of the Faith, and the
allowance of adaptations of those traditions into different circumstances
and contexts that strikes the via media between minimalist and
maxamilist, between regulative and normative, approaches to worship.
Low Church attitudes, especially among American evangelicals, are often
suspicious of structured worship, including emphasis on the sacraments
and observance of rituals such as the Seasons of the Church Year.
Services are usually marked by an informality in which the congregation
participates in the service in various ways, especially in prayer and
testimony, which is often spontaneous. Eucharist is generally celebrated
infrequently and irregularly, sometimes only observed once or twice a
year or not at all.
Yet, there is a renewed movement in many traditionally low church
traditions to an emphasis on services of word and table, especially
among heirs of the American Holiness tradition (see Word and Table:
Reflections on a Theology of Worship and What Is Liturgy?). This seems
to be an attempt to reintegrate the two dimensions of a concern with the
sacramental and liturgical that is a part of Anglican and Wesleyan
heritage with the evangelical emphasis that is also a crucial part of that
identity.
Some criticize the modern Anglican/Episcopalian tradition for collapsing
the via media back into Catholic forms of worship, and of being inflexible
in allowing adaptation of worship into different contexts. Yet it may well
be that the spirit of the Anglican tradition in trying to strike a balance
between the value of tradition and liturgical worship on the one hand
with the changing demands of a growing church and the dynamics of
history on the other will provide the revitalization necessary to overcome
the debates over worship in the modern church. Rather than a point of
contention, the growing influence of some aspects of more traditional
forms of worship may instead provide some sense of unity. It may well
be that rather than high church or low church, the Wesleyan tradition as
heirs of Anglicanism may provide Protestantism with a viable model of a
via media for worship as well as for theology.
For further Reading:
Robert Webber, Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail: Why Evangelicals
Are Attracted to the Liturgical Church, Morehouse, 1985.
Robert Webber, Ancient-Future Faith: Rethinking Evangelicalism for a
Post-Modern World, Baker, 1999.
-Dennis Bratcher, Copyright 2013, Dennis Bratcher, All Rights Reserved
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