Editor’s note: This post touches on the issue of common prayer and liturgical revision in the Episcopal Church. The pages of The Living Church are currently hosting regular submissions on the same topics, in the series Necessary or Expedient? The first post of that series was Mark Michael’s “Are we done with the ’79 Prayer Book?” Other essays in the series will appear online in due course.
By Andrew Pearson
Two essays have recently appeared at Covenant, both dealing with the idea of “common prayer” and the role of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer in the life of the Episcopal Church: Bishop Dan Martins, “Eschew liturgical idiosyncrasy,” and Dean Neal Michell, “A call to common prayer.” Both caught my attention because this is the very question my congregation, the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama, is engaging.
Bishop Martins and Dean Michell’s insistence upon the exclusive use of those rites approved by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, and strict adherence to the rubrics, is baffling to me. In the 1870s, there was an attempt by the Protestant establishment to stave off Tractarianism in the church; it didn’t work. The House of Bishops’ 1871 pastoral letter made little to no impact on the growth of Anglo-Catholicism. The latter would ultimately triumph with the adoption of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. The historical practice of our church has been to conform to the innovators. Like it or not, our modus operandi is to begin a practice, promising to come up with a theology later, but we never do.
I am not advocating a free for all when it comes to liturgical practice in the church, but I am dead set against conformity, if the 1979 Book of Common Prayer is the standard. Thankfully, the most recent General Convention has allowed local congregations “to create worship that is meaningful to their context,” allowing the use of the guidelines of “Rite III” for Sunday morning worship, with the approval of the diocesan bishop (see Resolution 2015 D050).[1]
In our context, we have elected to use the eucharistic prayer from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which has no epiclesis. As a congregation that identifies itself as Protestant and evangelical, this was a welcome change, a change that places our congregation with the majority of Anglican Communion.[2]
To be sure, some in our diocese expressed worry that a change in our Sunday liturgy would create disunity. (It should be noted that we are a Morning Prayer parish in the first place, already differentiating ourselves from nearly every other Episcopal church in the United States.) Both Bishop Martins and Dean Michell express a similar sentiment. My response is that if our unity is primarily expressed through using the same, or similar, liturgy at all Episcopal churches, it is a thin unity. Such unity is only a projection that denies that we are, in fact, a divided church.
The issue is not one of liturgy, but doctrine. Because we do not have an agreed upon doctrine, we have varied liturgical practices in our church. The Articles of Religion relegated to “Historical Documents” still have a place in articulating Anglican doctrine. That being the case, it seems (in the words of Dean Michell) that nearly every Episcopal ordinand must have “their fingers crossed” when the word doctrine is uttered in the ordination service.
What if doctrine and liturgy are in conflict, as they are in our church? What is the authority that we appeal to? Bishops? Canons? Convention resolutions? The Bible?
Diversity in liturgy is the reality of our Anglican Communion. One need only look at the rest of the Communion to see that liturgical conformity emanates only from North America. The Church of England has a wide range of liturgical diversity on Sunday mornings. From Pusey House to All Souls, Langham Place, to Westminster Abbey to Southwark Cathedral, you will see it all. And, most likely, you will find the 1662 Book of Common Prayer Holy Communion service being used only at 7:30 a.m., if at all.
Rather than advocating liturgical conformity to a “Book of Common Prayer,” I wonder if we don’t apply the Gamaliel test to this.[3] The Episcopal Church does not have the stomach to police individual congregations, and diocesan officials may not need to. We continue to atrophy as a church, and it seems to me that the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
As I said to my bishop, “You have allowed many in our diocese to pursue an unbiblical direction; I want the freedom to pursue a biblical one.” Why not allow them what they want? A bishop in the church who often spoke up for the orthodox side in the House of Bishops one day decided to no longer stand up. When asked why, he replied, “I’m tired of interposing myself between the Episcopal Church and the wrath of God.”
I’m afraid that any dream of common prayer may be just that, a dream. The notion of common prayer died in the United States in 1928 (with the introduction of prayers for the dead, among other things), if not before then (with the introduction of the Scottish non-jurors’ prayer of consecration — a political consideration at best, unbiblical at worst).
If common prayer has not been a reality for much of our history, why should we expect it now?
This concern also demonstrates a misunderstanding of our culture. People don’t care what the shingle says out front; institutional loyalty is a thing of the past. What they care about is what happens inside the building during corporate worship and how that manifests itself the rest of the week. When parishioners move away from my church, almost none of them attend an Episcopal church in their new town.
Is Anglicanism primarily an aesthetic consideration or a theological identity that manifests itself in its liturgy? Can we find our unity in something deeper than outward conformity to a Book of Common Prayer that is on its way out?[4]
I have the deepest respect for both Dean Michell and Bishop Martins and find myself in agreement with them on many of the prevailing issues in our church, but I would caution them not to repeat the mistakes of our forbears. We may find ourselves on the other side of liturgical tyranny when our church gets its new Book of (not so) Common Prayer in the coming years.
The Very Rev. Andrew Pearson is dean of the Cathedral Church of the Advent, Birmingham, Alabama.
[divider]Footnotes[/divider]
[1] The phrase “to create worship that is meaningful to their context” was part of the explanation provided in resolution D050.
[2] With few exceptions (Scotland, Canada, and the United States), no Anglican prayer book contained an epiclesis after the anamnesis until the 20th century. See Ron Dowling, “Text, Shape, and Communion: What Unites Us When Nothing’s the Same Anymore?,” Anglican Theological Review 95:3, pp. 435-46. Available online here.
[3] Acts 5:33-39.
[4] A169, 2015 General Convention, calls for a comprehensive revision of the 1979 BCP, with the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music to present a plan for this revision at the 2018 General Convention.
Dean Pearson: I appreciate your piece here, not least because it raises the question of prayer in the Anglican Communion. Of course, empirically, there is quite a bit of liturgical diversity. But the principle of common prayer itself (expressed especially with regard to the form of Eucharistic worship) has been articulated in a number of inter-Anglican statements as a part of our core identity, beginning with the 1662 BCP (of which I am a great fan), but not ending there.
So I suppose my question to you would be: How do you resolve the tension between the Anglican Communion’s valorization of common prayer, and its witness to diversity? Or is that not a concern? It seems that even appeal to the 1662 BCP is essentially using the prayer book tradition and common prayer ethos, but mostly as a wedge to dislodge use of the 1979 BCP in the Episcopal Church. Is that a fair assessment?
Dr. Guiliano, you have hit the nail on the head. This is the very question the International Anglican Liturgical Consultation tackled at their 1995 Dublin meeting. Dealing with such diversity, the consultation recommended the following:
“In the future, Anglican unity will find its liturgical expression not so much in uniform texts as in a common approach to eucharistic celebration and a structure which will ensure a balance of word, prayer, and sacrament, and which bears witness to the catholic calling of the Anglican Communion” (http://www.anglican.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/IALC-Dublin-Renewing-the-Anglican-Eucharist.pdf).
But what is the “common agreed to approach?” The IALC made some general recommendations, but they are very vague.
If we begin with the 1662, I do not think the 1979 American Book of Common Prayer would hold up. Urban Holmes, in his essay in ‘Worship Points the Way’ admitted that the ’79 Book of Common Prayer was an intentional departure from the ‘classical theology’ of Cranmer’s Prayer Book.
Dr. Guiliano, that is the very question that the 1995 International Anglican Liturgical Consultation discussed in Dublin. With so many changes in liturgy in the latter part of the 20th Century, what then unifies us? The IALC recommended:
“In the future, Anglican unity will find its liturgical expression not so much in uniform texts as in a common approach to eucharistic celebration and a structure which will ensure a balance of word, prayer, and sacrament, and which bears witness to the catholic calling of the Anglican Communion” (http://www.anglican.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/IALC-Dublin-Renewing-the-Anglican-Eucharist.pdf).
They also recommended a structure for a service of Holy Communion. This order resembles what we call Rite III in the American Book of Common Prayer (1979). And, as I noted in my essay, a number of provinces put this loose order to use on Sunday mornings (the Church of England being the most obvious example).
Ron Downing, former chair of the IALC, said that looking beyond the liturgy was necessary for maintaining unity. He noted that the common use of the RCL may be a unifying factor, even if the liturgy varies from place to place.
But to your final question, if the 1662 Book of Common Prayer is held up as the standard (the Prayer Book of our Anglican formularies), then the ’79 won’t hold water. Urban Holmes, in his essay in ‘Worship Points the Way,’ writing about the revision said, “It is evident that Episcopalians as a whole are not clear about what has happened. The renewal movement in the 1970’s[…]often reflects a nostalgia for a classical theology which many theologians know has not been viable for almost two hundred years. The 1979 BCP is a product of a corporate, differentiated theological mind, which is not totally congruent with many of the inherited formularies of the last few centuries. This reality must soon ‘come home to roost’.”
It has come home to roost and I’m not sure we can put the toothpaste back into the tube in The Episcopal Church. So, what does it look like moving forward (especially for those who hold to sixteenth century classical theology)?
I could go pretty far with you on the question of liturgical diversity, although I think there are good reasons to fight for some kind of commonality in our corporate prayer.
But there seems to be a deeper divide between us that gets exposed in this paragraph:
“As I said to my bishop, “You have allowed many in our diocese to pursue an unbiblical direction; I want the freedom to pursue a biblical one.” Why not allow them what they want? A bishop in the church who often spoke up for the orthodox side in the House of Bishops one day decided to no longer stand up. When asked why, he replied, “I’m tired of interposing myself between the Episcopal Church and the wrath of God.””
What do we say to a bishop who no longers seeks to call their fellow bishops to faithfulness?
What do we say to a bishop who allows “unbiblical direction” in their diocese.
What do we say to a priest who will not stay engaged with their bishop who allows those directions?
(See the promises the bishop makes B***C***P p 518, especially the guarding the faith one and the one about taking council with your fellow presbyters)
If we do not engage now with these questions, we will indeed find ourselves, “…on the other side of liturgical tyranny when our church gets its new Book of (not so) Common Prayer in the coming years.”
Dean Pearson — this is a most welcome reflection. I wonder, though, if your concern is to live into, as you put it, classical sixteenth-century theology, then why the 1662 liturgy? I can see a desire to use the 1662 as a commitment to global Anglicanism (the 1662 has traveled widely and has been used more than any other iteration). However, 1662 has some serious departures from the vision of Thomas Cranmer (which I think is what you mean when you say “classical sixteenth-century theology”). Colin Buchanan’s essay “What did Cranmer think he was doing” is very helpful in outlining those elements (the subtle Amen at the close of the institution narrative, the requirement that all the elements be consumed, the need to read the institution narrative again if the elements run out). I suppose my question is why not simply use the 1552 liturgy? I can’t see anything in your essay that would prevent that. Many thanks for you post!
Calvin Lane, You are absolutely correct. Our commitment is not so much to a form, but to a theology. The 1662 was not a great departure from 1552 and is widely considered THE Prayer Book in the Anglican Communion. The trajectory of Cranmer was clear and, had he lived, we would have seen further revision beyond ’52. I would welcome even that.
I should say that I would also welcome Common Prayer. I would very much like to see an agreed to liturgy. There have been calls for the Communion to create a commission to work on just that. (You can read Pierre Whalon’s essay in the Oxford Companion to the BCP.) However, as stated before, until there is doctrinal agreement, Common Prayer will prove elusive.
Essentially the argument made is a theological gloss on the playground banter “they did it first, so I can do it too.” So, if context is the determinative factor of liturgical usage, and if praying shapes believing, why should not context be the sole determining factor of theology? It is stated below that there needs to be doctrinal agreement before there can be Common Prayer, yet what is being argued is insularity and peculiarity, thereby eliminating the potential for doctrinal agreement as each context determines its own liturgical usage, and therefore, doctrinal statements.