The new ACNA eucharistic rites on closer inspection (Part 1)

By Robin G. Jordan

What elements are used in a liturgy and where and how they are used affects the theology of the liturgy. This includes elements that are optional, that is, those which are available as a choice but are not required. They still are constituent part of the liturgy and therefore they must be considered in any discussion of its theology. In this four-part article I will be examining the new eucharistic rites of the Anglican Church in North America and their theology. I will be looking at the elements of these rites and their use in the rites and what they tell us about the theology of the rites themselves, the theology of the Prayer Book and Common Worship Task Force that compiled them, and the theology of the College of Bishops that approved them.

Before beginning my examination of the new ACNA eucharistic rites, I believe that it is important to provide a brief history of the Anglican Prayer Book. The first Anglican Prayer Book was compiled in 1549. It was only partially reformed. The evidence is that the 1549 Prayer Book was from the outset intended to serve as a transitional service book until a more reformed Prayer Book could be compiled. This was the 1552 Prayer Book. It would be the Prayer Book of the Church of the England for almost 100 years, undergoing slight revisions in its 1559 and 1604 editions. It is the 1552 Prayer Book upon which the classical Anglican Prayer Book, the 1662 Prayer Book, is based. The Restoration bishops would make only modest changes in the Prayer Book in 1662. The 1662 Prayer Book is essentially the 1552 reformed Prayer Book.

With the Thirty-Nine Articles, the 1661 Ordinal, and the two Books of Homilies, the 1662 Prayer Book is recognized by the global Anglican community as a classic formulary of authentic historic Anglicanism. In 2008 the first GAFCON conference in the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration called Anglicans to return to the authority of the Bible and the classic Anglican formularies in response to the twin challenges of Anglo-Catholicism and liberalism. In its official commentary on the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration GAFCON stressed the importance of the 1662 Prayer Book as a standard against which all revisions of the Prayer Book should be measured and tested. In 2013 the second GAFCON conference reaffirmed the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration.

In 1789 the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America was the first independent Anglican Province to adopt its own Prayer Book. The 1789 Prayer Book was largely based upon the 1662 Prayer Book. A major exception was the 1789 Communion Office. The 1789 Prayer of Consecration was an adaptation of the Prayer of Consecration from the 1764 Scottish Usager Non-Juror Communion Office. The Usagers were a minority wing of the Non-Jurors who originally broke with the Church of England over the oath of loyalty to the King at the time of the Glorious Revolution in the late seventeenth century. Among the beliefs peculiar to the Usagers was that Christ offered himself for the sins of the world at the Last Supper and not on the cross. The priest reoffered Christ’s offering of himself for the sins of the world at every celebration of the Holy Eucharist. One might say that the PECUSA’s Prayer Book tradition got a bad start from the very beginning. As we shall see, the ACNA eucharistic rites are a continuation of that tradition.

The 1764 Prayer of Consecration was the work of two superannuated Usager bishops who happened to outlive their rivals in the majority Non-Usager wing of the Non-Jurors. While 1764 Prayer of Consecration is often compared to the 1549 Prayer of Consecration, this comparison is erroneous. In the 1549 Prayer of Consecration the Words of Institution follow the Epiclesis; in the 1764 Prayer of Consecration they precede it. The 1549 Epiclesis the priest asks God with His Holy Spirit and Word to bless and sanctify the bread and wine that they may be to the communicant Christ’s Body and Blood; in the 1764 Prayer of Consecration the priest asks God to bless and sanctify with His Word and Holy Spirit the bread and wine that they may become Christ’s Body and Blood. In the 1549 Prayer of Consecration the Anamnesis follows the Epiclesis and contains no oblation of the bread and wine. In the 1764 Prayer of Consecration the Anamnesis precedes the Epiclesis and contains an oblation of the bread and wine. The 1549 Prayer of Consecration refers to Christ offering himself on the cross for the sins of the world; the 1764 Prayer of Consecration does not.

The resemblance between the two prayers is at best superficial. They embody quite different theologies. The Scotish Usager Non-Jurists believed that that through the priest’s offering of the consecrated bread and wine to God Christ reoffered himself to God for the sins of the world. The elements in the Prayer of Consecration and the particular order in which they were arranged were essential to a valid consecration of the bread and wine and to Christ’s reoffering of himself through the priest’s offering of the consecrated bread and wine. While Bishop Samuel Seabury wanted to use the 1764 Prayer of Consecration without any alterations or additions, the PECUSA General Convention did not agree with him and modified the prayer, removing what it viewed as objectionable from the prayer and making a number of other changes in the prayer.

The twentieth century may be described as the century of Prayer Book Revision. It would produce a number of Anglican service books that would introduce radical changes in the Prayer Book in a number of Anglican Provinces and would move the Prayer Book in these provinces in a decidedly Anglo-Catholic and liberal direction in doctrine and liturgical practices. Among these service books were the PECUSA’s 1928 and 1979 Prayer Books.

A watershed event was the 1958 Lambeth Conference. The 1958 Lambeth Conference sanctioned the drastic revision of the Prayer Book and established guidelines for that revision. It endorsed what is known as the ecumenical pattern of the Holy Eucharist. This is the pattern used in the 1979 Prayer Book and the new ACNA Eucharistic rites. The 1958 Lambeth Conference also commended to the Anglican Communion what has been described as the Lambeth doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice. In The Thirty-Nine Articles: Their Place and Use Today, J. I Packer summarizes the two basic principles upon which this doctrine is based.

…first, that the sacrifice of Christ is more than his once-for-all death on Calvary, and in some sense continues in the present; second, that the church’s union with Christ is such that Christian are incorporated, not merely into his death an resurrection, but into his present sacrificing activity as well.

In this view the Church does not repeat Christ’s sacrifice. Nor does the Church add to it. However, the Church does more than commemorate Christ’s sacrifice. The Church participates in it.

Packer goes on to show that the Thirty-Nine Articles rule out the Lambeth doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice as “misshapen.” See J. I Packer’s The Thirty-Nine Articles: Their Place and Use Today, pages 81-85. This doctrine is embodied in the eucharistic prayers of the 1979 Prayer Book. According to William Thompson who chairs the ACNA Prayer Book and Common Worship Task Force, it is also the doctrine of the new ACNA eucharistic rites.

I believe that it is also important to point out that, while J.I. Packer was initially a member of the ACNA Prayer Book and Common Worship Task Force, he later withdrew from that task force. He was not a member of the task force that produced the final draft of the new ACNA eucharistic rites. From the ACNA “theological lens” and the one task force report posted on the Internet, I gather that his views were largely ignored by the other members of the task force. This was not surprising as the task force is dominated by individuals whose thinking had been strongly influenced by the convergence, ecumenical, and liturgical movements of the twentieth century as well as the Anglo-Catholic movement of the preceding century. Packer was, for the brief time he served on the task force, the only Reformed-Evangelical.

In the second part of this article I will examine the entrance rite and liturgy of the word of the two forms of the new ACNA eucharistic rites.