The Latitudinarian Ethos

Perhaps the supreme—certainly a most pernicious heresy of the church over the last four centuries has been latitudinarianism. Referring originally to the views of Anglicans like William Chillingsworth (1602-1644) and Edward Stillingfleet (1635-1699) and to Broad Churchmen in the nineteenth century, latitudinarianism is the notion that the Bible, confessional symbols, and tradition are insufficient sources of religious authority, and should be supplemented by human reason. The Cambridge Platonists, perhaps the earliest Protestants to embrace the priority of "natural law,” are often classified with the latitudinarians.

The Church of England had never wholly conformed to the continental Reformation (a condition largely due to its compromising royalty) despite the most earnest objectives of the Puritans, whose efforts, while marginally successful, eventually proved futile. Particularly after the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 (aided, ironically, by the Presbyterians, who were later ousted from their pulpits for their efforts), Anglicanism drifted into a cold, rationalist religion, eventually succumbing (like all other mainline Protestant churches) to Enlightenment premises. The Oxford Movement in the 1830s and 1840s was largely a reaction to the liberalizing effects of latitudinarianism. It is hard to imagine the emergence of English Deism without the transitional groundwork of latitudinarianism.

While latitudinarianism as a movement was limited to the Anglican fold, its tenets and spirit have since pervaded all branches of Western Christendom. Anywhere human reason is allowed to supplant, fundamentally the Holy Scriptures, and secondarily, the confessional standards of the church, there latitudinarianism reigns. A prime example of Enlightenment latitudinarianism is Immanuel Kant’s repudiation of the efficacy of the Christian atonement and of justification by faith. He states in his work, appropriately titled, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone:

[I]t is quite impossible to see how a reasonable man, who knows himself to merit punishment, can in all seriousness believe that he needs only to credit the news of an atonement rendered for him, and to accept this atonement utiliter (as the lawyers say), in order to regard his guilt as annihilated,—indeed, so completely annihilated (to the very root) that good life-conduct, for which he has hitherto not taken the least pains, will in the future be the inevitable consequence of this faith and this acceptance of the proffered favor. No thoughtful person can bring himself to believe this.... (Immanuel Kant, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone [New York {1934}, 1960], 107)

Christian atonement and the ethical effects of justification by faith alone strain reasonable credulity, so they must go! This is the unavoidable conclusion of consistent latitudinarianism.

Latitudinarianism was the key tenet of theological liberalism, both Protestant and Roman Catholic; and while liberalism has seen its heyday, its latitudinarian premises have become enculturated in every sector of the church. It was expressed succinctly by liberal spokesman Harold DeWolf when he asserted:

The more we know about the institution and ideas current in Biblical times, the better we can distinguish the kernel of divine wisdom from the husk of transient human customs and ideas, and the better we can understand the true meaning of the divine word spoken among ancient men. In this process we need no diminishing of modern scientific or historical learning... Whatever we read [in the Bible] that is contrary to our systematic, substantiated knowledge, we recognize as part of the dated human error. (L. Harold DeWolf, The Case for Theology in Liberal Perspective [Philadelphia, n.d.], 55, 56)

In the latitudinarian scheme. Scripture and human reason cannot survive as coordinate authorities: eventually the latter undermines the former.

Latitudinarianism buttressed Barth’s and Brunner’s rejection of the infallibility of Holy Scripture, as well as its recent questioning among the evangelicals at Fuller Seminary and elsewhere. Both higher and lower criticism as commonly practiced are impossible without the searing heat of latitudinarian assumptions. Leading Anglican, Reformed, Presbyterian, and Lutheran denominations have signalled their surrender to latitudinarianism in their admission of women to positions of eldership and in the commitment to "rethink” their traditional (and Biblical) opposition to homosexuality. When these same denominations (or their successors) in the next century worship fertility goddesses and feature sexual orgies in their sanctuaries, they will have simply carried latitudinarian premises to their logical conclusions.

Unlike historic Protestants, most modern opponents of tradition in the Roman Catholic Church operate on distinctly latitudinarian principles: certain church tradition is wrong not because it conflicts with the Holy Scriptures, but because it is repugnant to the modern egalitarian temper. To these "liberated” Roman Catholics, the Faith is subject to the trendy whims of the mind of man.

Charismatics are notorious latitudinarians. Many abandon the orthodox view of the Trinity in favor of modalism and other heresies because the intricacies of the expression of Trinitarian dogma are too hard for their reason to grasp. Human reason, not the word of God and confessional orthodoxy, is the unmistakable latitudinarian standard in such quarters.

The latitudinarian spirit pervades modern evangelicalism and fundamentalism—for instance, in their typical views that Biblical law is "too harsh” for modern society (or even the church), that divine predestination is evil because it destroys human freedom, and that covenant theology cannot he a Biblical teaching since it is "unfair.” These "conservatives” should recognize that their latitudinarianism does not differ in principle from that of theological liberals; it is merely a less advanced form, and if not arrested will lead to the same conclusions that it has in liberalism.

The modern latitudinarian ethos is an arch-enemy of the Faith. Its only alternative is an unapologetically Biblical and confessionally orthodox Faith, not merely affirmed, but consistently practiced.