Book of Common Prayer (2011): A Review

By Robin G. Jordan

The Book of Common Prayer (2011) was prepared by the Rev. Keith Acker of the Society of the Holy Cross (see note) for the Rt. Rev. Richard Boyce, Bishop Ordinary of the Diocese of the West of the Reformed Episcopal Church. The BCP 2011 is intended “for trial use by the REC and the Anglican Church in North America for liturgical review.” A disclaimer on the copyright page states, “The trial version has not been authorized, at present, for general use except as permitted by the ordinary of each diocese.” The book is hardbound, 370 pages; published by Lava Rock Media, San Diego, California; and printed in China. The words “Common Prayer 2011” is printed on the spine, in imitation of the 1928 BCP.

An examination of the BCP 2011 reveals that the book is strongly Anglo-Catholic in its doctrine. This is immediately evident from the Table of Contents. Among its contents are sections entitled “On the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation,” “Sacrament of Confession,” and “Sacrament of Marriage.”

The lectionary for the Daily Offices is “organized for reading the Old Testament, Apocrypha, and New Testament over one year.” Most Prayer Books, historic and more recent, contain only limited selections from the Apocrypha. A number of Prayer Books have no selections from the Apocrypha at all.

The Feasts of Saint Mary Magdalene and the Feast of the Holy Cross, which are not found in the historic Prayer Books, has been added to the fixed Holy Days.

The Daily Offices are modeled after the Daily Offices in the 1979 BCP and are missing elements found in the 1662 BCP and the 1928 BCP. The notes describe the Holy Communion as being “the primary worship of Christians as the corporate people of God” and the Daily Offices as being for private devotions.

A noticeable feature of the Order for the Administration of Holy Communion, which is titled "Holy Communion," is the offering of the bread and wine at the Offertory and after the Words of Institution in the Prayer of Consecration, a feature of the pre-Reformation Medieval service books (and not the 1549 BCP) associated with the doctrines of the Sacrifice of the Mass and of Transubstantiation. The Lord’s Prayer follows the Prayer of Consecration and the Fraction follows the Lord’s Prayer as in the 1979 BCP. The Prayer of Humble Access and the Agnus Dei precede the Communion. These liturgical elements were removed from this position in the 1552 BCP because they were suggestive of a change in the substance of the elements and the doctrine of Transubstantiation. Before the distribution of the Communion the Priest, with the Deacon, holds up the elements and says, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, a liturgical element which is taken from the American Missal, and is associated with the doctrine of Transubstantiation and the Anglo-Catholic and Roman Catholic practice of adoring the consecrated elements.

The rubrics in the section titled “Communion of the Sick” enjoin the practice of reservation of the sacrament and the carrying of the reserved sacrament to the sick. The rubrics stating that it is not necessary for a sick person to receive the bread in his mouth but only to believe that Christ died for his sins to be a partaker of Christ has been omitted.

The BCP 2011 makes provision for the anointing of the sick with blessed oil as well as the laying on of hands. The first practice is associated with the Roman Catholic doctrine and practice of Extreme Unction, which the Thirty-Nine Articles rejects as a corrupt following of the apostles. The BCP 2011 also makes provision for the Absolution of the Dead, another Roman Catholic practice.

The rubrics state that Burial Service is intended to be used with Holy Communion, in others word, the service is to be a Requiem Mass. The service includes prayers for the dead. Two pages from the Marriage Service—pages 135 and 136 are inserted into the Burial Service between pages 152 and 153.

The Ordinal contains a section titled “On Apostolic Order” that expresses an Anglo-Catholic view of apostolic succession and ordination, describing bishops as icons of Christ the High Priest, priests as extensions of the bishop’s priestly ministry, and deacons as icons of Christ the Servant (a view which is not found in the Scriptures nor may it be proved from the Scriptures). The Ordinal reverses the order of the ordination services of the 1661 Ordinal, placing the consecration of a bishop first. To the rite for the consecration of a bishop it adds the giving of a pastoral staff to the bishop, which was dropped from the Anglican Ordinal in the sixteenth century along with the giving of a pectoral cross, ring, and miter, and the anointing of the head of the bishop. The BCP 2011 permits the giving of these episcopal insignia and the anointing of the new bishop’s head. To the rite for the ordination of a priest it adds the giving of a chalice and paten. It permits the vesting of the new priest in maniple, stole, and chasuble, and the anointing of the new priest’s hands. All these practices were also dropped from the Anglican Ordinal in the sixteenth century. The BCP 2011 permits the vesting of a new deacon in dalmatic, maniple, and stole after his ordination, another practice that was dropped from the Anglican Ordinal in the sixteenth century. The reintroduction of these practices is decidedly a retrograde movement away from the doctrine of the historic Anglican formularies and authentic historic Anglicanism.

The BCP 2011 contains two new Offices of Instruction that in their teachings depart from the Catechism of the 1662 BCP. These two Offices of Instruction teach a variation of the doctrine of Eucharistic Sacrifice (p. 355) and identify five other sacraments beside Baptism and the Lord’s Supper—Confirmation, Marriage, Unction, Confession, and Holy Orders. In other words, they teach the seven sacraments of the Roman Catholic sacramental system. They describe priests as mediators between the congregation and God. “He is to make visible Jesus Christ the High Priest, making intercessions and offerings on our behalf.” This is the Roman Catholic view of the role of a presbyter—that of a sacrificing priest. The giving of “the cup with the bread” to the new priest after his ordination supports this conclusion.

The different sections of the BCP 2011 crowd each other. The explanatory notes could have been better organized. In a number of places it is difficult to tell if what is printed is a part of the service or explanatory notes.

A number of errors and omissions were made when the book was printed. This includes the positioning of the Collect for Purity after the Acclamation at the beginning of the order for Holy Communion rather than before the direction to stand. The errata that accompanies the book states that the Collect for Purity is intended to be a private prayer of preparation for the priest and not a part of the service. In other more recent service books the rubrics permit the congregation to join the priest in this prayer.

Two requisites of good liturgy are sound doctrine and the eloquent use of language. The BCP 2011, like a number of more recent service books, fails to successfully combine these requisites. The doctrine of the BCP 2011 is not only defective from the standpoint of the historic Anglican formularies and authentic historic Anglicanism but also its use of language is inferior to a number of other more recent service books that I have examined. The language of the BCP 2011 is flat and awkward. It does not flow easily from the tongue when read and lacks other qualities of good liturgical English.

The BCP 2011 is poorly bound and is not likely to stand up well to repeated use. The pages pull up from the stitching when turned and are likely to come loose with not much use.

The doctrine of the BCP 2011 is the antithesis of the principles of the founders of the Reformed Episcopal Church. The BCP 2011 is even further removed from the 1662 BCP than the 1928 BCP and 1979 BCP and even closer to the pre-Reformation Medieval service books and to the Roman Catholic Novo Ordo. Its adoption by the REC would represent a complete repudiation of its founders’ principles. If the ACNA adopts the BCP 2011 or even authorizes the book for widespread trial use, it will be further evidence that the ACNA has fallen away from the doctrine of the historic Anglican formularies and authentic historic Anglicanism and is disingenuous in its affirmation of the tenets of Anglican orthodoxy identified in the Jerusalem Declaration. Archbishop Duncan’s anointing of the head of Bishop Foley Beech with blessed oil at his consecration points to liturgical elements from this book being already in use in the ACNA.

In future articles I plan to examine the changes that the compiler of the BCP 2011 has made in a number of texts from the historic prayer books and to look at other characteristics of this service book.

Note: A number of secret or semi-secret societies associated with Ritualism and the Ritualist movement were organized in the nineteenth century. Among the principal of these societies was the Society of the Holy Cross. The following description of the Society of the Holy Cross comes from A Protestant Dictionary, published in 1904.

This Society was founded in the year 1855. For the first eight years of its existence its statutes and rules existed only in MS. Admission to the Society is granted to bishops, priests, and deacons, and to bona fide candidates for Holy Orders only. No ordinary layman is admitted, and no women. Only those thoroughly devoted to the Romeward Movement are admitted into its ranks. The objects of the Society of the Holy Cross (commonly known among the brethren as the “S.S.C.”), as stated in its Secret statutes, are “to maintain and extend the Catholic faith and discipline, and to form a special bond of union between Catholic priests;” “carrying on and aiding mission work at home and abroad;” “circulating tracts and other publications;” “holding Synods and Chapters for prayer and conference” The “publications” issued by the Society to the public do not appear (with one or two exceptions) under its own name, but under that of “A Committee of Clergy.”

Those wishing to learn more about the Society of the Holy Cross and similar societies organized in the nineteenth century should consult the articles “Ristualistic manuals” and “Ritualistic secret societies” in A Protestant Dictionary.

The Society of the Holy Cross was responsible for issuing a number of Ritualistic manuals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their main purpose was to bring back what the Church of England rejected at the Reformation, and to systematically teach nearly all the distinctive doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. These manuals were influential in the spread of Roman Catholic doctrines and practices both in the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA.