Latitudinarians, also called latitude men, were initially a group of 17th-century English theologiansclerics and academicsfrom the University of Cambridge who were moderate Anglicans (members of the Church of England). In particular, they believed that adhering to very specific doctrines, liturgical practices, and church organizational forms, as did the Puritans, was not necessary and could be harmful: "The sense that one had special instructions from God made individuals less amenable to moderation and compromise, or to reason itself." Thus, the latitudinarians supported a broad-based (sensu lato, with "laxitude") Protestantism. They were later referred to as broad church (see also Inclusivism).
Examples of the latitudinarian philosophy underlying the theology were found among the Cambridge Platonists and Sir Thomas Browne in his Religio Medici. Additionally, the term latitudinarian has been applied to ministers of the Scottish Episcopal Church who were educated at the Episcopal-sympathizing universities at Aberdeen and StAndrews, and who broadly subscribed to the beliefs of their moderate Anglican English counterparts. to act in church affairs, and the various groups of the religious debates being balanced against one another, the dioceses became tolerant of variation in local practice. Furthermore, after George I of Great Britain dismissed the Convocation, there was very little internal Church power to either sanction or approve.
Thus, with no Archbishop of Canterbury officially adopting it, latitudinarianism was the operative philosophy of the English church in the 18th century. For the 18th-century English church in the United States (which would become the Episcopal Church after the American Revolution), some are of the opinion that latitudinarianism was the only practical course because the nation had official pluralism, diversity of opinion, and diffusion of clerical power.
See also
- Anglo-Catholic
- Bangorian Controversy
- Liberal Christianity
- John Tillotson