Sven:

"broad church" in this context means "a community with a wide range of views", standard english usage, as commented by TBG:

Poemless responds:

True, but either irrelevant or not understanding the usage in current dickensian (=tied to the UK) english.  Maybe humorous?

Sven (pointing out, as TBG does, that it doesn't reference 'religion' in common usage):

(Maybe a bit snarky at the end, there.  Also, the reference to 'organisations' can mean that ET is some kind of organisation)

You respond:

My note: the term is not oudated or obscure, that is "reading into" the phrase, but okay--it may be one of those phrases that doesn't travel the atlantic well.

My second note: it must be clear at this point that "a broad church" is part of current standard english usage and does not refer to religion, though it has religious roots (as do many words), but maybe you didn't know that--okay.  Still, you ramped up the tone here and you also said, "I don't think using this term is appropriate"--i.e., you are disagreeing with Sven's usage (though you misinterpreted its meaning), but okay, you don't like the use of words that have religious history--(remember that christians have usurped many words [church was not originally a chrisian word, though it was a religious word], so that's a lot of words to avoid--communion, for example)

Then you take that discussion to the open thread and edit it as follows:

?  The expression was "broad church" and you had already been told that it had no connection to religion, so for me as it stands your sentence is bad faith.  But maybe you posted this before Sven explained the meaning of the term?  The last sentence ramps things up further.  Now you're threatening to leave the site (!) because Sven said, let us remember the original phrase:

Nordic storm follows your comment up with some humour (assuming you are being humorous, I suppose):

And you reply:

Okay, so there's no humour.  You are deadly serious.  You are feeling physically sick...at what?  Sven had already explained that the phrase is commonly used in UK english to descibe a community (stronger term = organisation) with a wide range of interests/opinions.

Other people try to calm the situation down, then Wife of Bath mentions censorship:

So, huh, censorship?

That's true.  You are saying "ET is not a church."  Sven, however, had not said "ET is a church", he had said "ET is a broad church" and made it clear in his first immediate comment to your "ET is not a church" (as did others prior to this comment of yours) that "broad church" is a non-religious (except in its history) term to describe...etc...etc...

....overall, for this reader you have conflated your thoughts with Sven's common-UK-english expression to make it sound as though Sven has somewhere said words to the effect of "ET is (like) a church."

Then you add this:

Triple huh????

The choice of words you have misconstrued; the words themselves (let us remember them!):

demonstrate (mildly) the opposite of your accusation: that there is an assumption that we share a set of beliefs; because "broad church" means "a wide and varied set of beliefs"--though under the umbrella of some aggretating factor, in this case 'ET'.

....ya know, I'll get hammered for writing this but it just annoys me for some reason that things can get so bent from the starting point--

To finish your comment:

Who is insisting that you belong to a church?  It's as if someone said "you're always nit picking" and a few comments later I was replying:

So now we come to this har post I'm replying to.  You start:

Who exactly are you disagreeing with?  Who is this person you have a disagreement with?  Sven?  You disagree with his choice of expression?  Fine.  Now why are you still banging on about "churches" when it has been made clear over and over that the expression "broad church" has as much to do with churches as "nit picking" has to do with small animals and, as TBG had it, "saying that someone has a strong suit suggests they're going to spend the rest of their lives playing bridge."

This is very very clear from all the comments but for some reason you just can't do what Sven already did just to smooth the choppy seas: write "Sorry, my misunderstanding, no problem!"  So now we're deep into this church idea.

But....but but but!  "Broad church" is a description of a group; it means the group holds a wide diversity of views...so how can you not belong to a broad church?  By not being a member of a group that holds a wide diversity of views, right?

Of course you can say, "I don't like to be associated with the expression 'broad church' as it has too many religious overtones for me."  You could even (if you wanted) examine the difference the word 'church' has in modern U.S. compared to U.K.--because there is a sense in which "broad church" is a hangover to ecclesiastical battles and divisions, hey, we still have an established church!  We still have a queen!

Triple ach!  I'll post and be damned--the joys of the interwebs, eh?

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.