In Anglican Christianity, the term low church refers to those who give little emphasis to ritual, often having an emphasis on preaching, individual salvation, and personal conversion. The term is most often used in a liturgical sense, denoting a Protestant emphasis, whereas high church denotes an emphasis on ritual, often Anglo-Catholic (with respect to Anglicanism) and Evangelical Catholic (with respect to Lutheranism).
The term was initially pejorative. During the series of doctrinal and ecclesiastic challenges to the established church in the 17th century, commentators and others – who favoured the theology, worship, and hierarchical structure of Anglicanism (such as the episcopate) as the true form of Christianity – began referring to that outlook (and the related practices) as high church, and by the early 18th century those theologians and politicians who sought more reform in the English church and a greater liberalisation of church structure were in contrast called low church.
