Free Republic

Late preaching professor Calvin Miller once quipped to Christianity Today that many Southern Baptist churches “probably could hardly spell Advent” in the early 1990s. Not so anymore. So why the shift? Church historian Stan Norman said Baptists have begun to see the usefulness of traditions once viewed as too liturgical or high church. Advent wreaths, calendars and readings “seem to provide a bit of structure in a tradition that has maybe gone too far without structure,” Norman, provost of Oklahoma Baptist University, told Baptist Press. The focus on Christ inherent in Advent celebrations is needed “in a cultural context in...

Anglo-Catholicism or "High" Church Anglicanism is facing extreme isolation and demonization, as the movement finds itself marginalized by the American Episcopal Church on the one hand and the Roman Catholic Church on the other. The term "High Church" was first applied in the late seventeenth century to those individuals who were opposed to the Puritan wing of the Church of England. It is also called the "Oxford Movement." Later, in the nineteenth century, it was applied to the Anglo-Catholic or Tractarian movement in England from 1833 going forward. The best-known members of the High Church/Anglo-Catholic Movement were John Henry Newman,...