# Latitude in belief, rather than a named opponent

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH03.P007](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH03.P007/#char=307,333): "The modern latitudinarians"

The word carries a history of allowing latitude in religious belief and discipline. A near-contemporary reference witness, the 1911 *Encyclopædia Britannica*, distinguishes an older use, associated with early eighteenth-century Low Churchmen, from the nineteenth-century Broad Church emphasis on ethical teaching and reduced insistence on orthodoxy. Its account also warns against treating these changing party names as interchangeable. See [‘Low Churchman,’ final historical discussion](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Low_Churchman).

Chesterton's adjective ‘modern’ makes the broader, contemporary application especially relevant: he is attacking people who dismiss the rationale for binding religious authority. The paragraph supplies no names or documents that would identify all his targets with one Anglican party. The term supplies a polemical orientation, not a reliable membership list. Nor does religious latitude itself logically entail the radical doubt about thinking that the next paragraph introduces; that connection belongs to Chesterton's argument.

## Sources

- [Encyclopædia Britannica, eleventh edition (1911), ‘Low Churchman’ — Wikisource transcription](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Low_Churchman), Historical discussion beginning ‘The name was used in the early part of the 18th century’; especially paragraph on Broad Churchman

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