The Rt. Rev. Colin Buchanan, the last of a certain kind of evangelical bishop in the Church of England, died suddenly in the Leeds General Infirmary on November 29, at 89. The Church Times described him as “a devoted Reformation Anglican, which was a rather reactionary and unpopular thing to be in his prime, and he was persistent and focused, and surely was a major figure in ensuring that the Church of England’s modern liturgies have a more Protestant character than those of other Anglican Churches in the Global North.” He was a force for growth of evangelicalism across the Anglican Communion in the last two generations.
In 1964, Archbishop Michael Ramsey, seeking an evangelical to appoint to the Church of England’s Liturgical Commission, discovered Buchanan, an active scholar in the Liturgical Movement, which had been dominated by Catholic Anglicans and Roman Catholics since the 19th century. The movement sought to advance the active participation of the laity in more frequent celebrations of the Eucharist, and to link worship to justice.
Buchanan quickly became well known for his liturgical scholarship. His first important book was Modern Anglican Liturgies (1968). Four books followed on the evolution of new Anglican liturgies, and then the major work Is the Church of England Biblical? (1988) and a memoir, An Evangelical Among Anglican Liturgists (2009).
Buchanan was one of the architects of the Church of England’s Alternative Services Book (1980), which was the first complete revision of the Book of Common Prayer since 1662. His was one of the main influences who assured that none of the eucharistic prayers in the ASB’s successor of 2000, Common Worship, had an explicit offering of the bread and wine, unlike Scottish and American liturgies.
To foster the Liturgical Movement’s goal of active participation, he founded Grove Books Ltd. in 1978, which became known across the Anglican world for its booklets — theologically serious but accessible guides to major topics in liturgical scholarship, often written by major figures in academic and church life. Under his editorship, which continued until 1993, the booklet series gradually expanded its focus to other branches of theological scholarship and has published hundreds of titles. It is based at Ridley Hall, the evangelical Anglican theological college in Cambridge.
He spent 21 years as a member of the faculty and then as principal of the Evangelical St. John’s College in Nottingham from 1979 to 1985. He was appointed Bishop of Aston (1985-89), Bishop of Woolwich (1996-2004), and a series of other positions as an assisting bishop.
Buchanan was elected to the various houses of General Synod beginning in 1970. He thrived on debate in the public sphere and was responsible for steering the new eucharistic liturgies of 1980 through the General Synod in the midst of a mammoth and fraught debate. His book The End of the Offertory (1978) helped secure authorization of the new rites.
He was a passionate advocate of disestablishing the Church of England, and his 1994 book, Cut the Connection, led to a historic full General Synod debate on the subject. Over time he fought against various Anglican/Methodist unity proposals, which he considered theologically inept.
In all of these roles, as pre-eminent liturgist, as ecumenical opponent, as theological watchman, and as energetic bishop, Colin Buchanan was widely respected for his pastoral generosity, intellectual honesty, and abiding faith. Without a doubt, he stands in the line of John Wesley, Charles Simeon, William Wilberforce, and J.I. Packer as a tested guardian of Anglicanism’s evangelical heritage.