By Robin G. Jordan
What one first notices when one examines The Order for Holy Baptism
that the College of Bishops endorsed at its most recent meeting in Vancouver is
how those who compiled the rite have taken material from the 1662 Baptismal
Service, made significant alterations and omissions, and employ it to serve
their purposes in the rite. The rite bears only a superficial family resemblance
to the 1662 Baptismal Service.
The opening acclamation and the special versicles that
precede the salutation and the collect of the day are taken from the 1979 Book
of Common Prayer. For the salutation “the Lord be with you: and with your
spirit” has been substituted for “the Lord be with you: and also with you.” I
have discussed elsewhere the particular interpretation that Anglo-Catholics give
to “the Lord be with you; and with your spirit” and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s
deliberate omission of this greeting and response from 1552 Book of Common
Prayer (with the exception of the Orders for Morning and Evening Prayer) on the
basis of its longstanding association with the Roman Catholic understanding of
the priesthood and the sacraments.
What is labeled “the exhortation” precedes the presentation
of the candidates. It is at this point the ACNA rite makes its second major
departure from the 1662 Baptismal Office, the first major departure being its
use of the aforementioned greeting and response, which are also omitted from
the 1662 Baptismal Office. The 1662 Baptismal Office begins with an exhortation
to pray for the baptismal candidate. This exhortation does not assume that the
baptismal candidate, when he is baptized with water, will also be baptized with
the Holy Spirit, and received in Christ’s Church and be made a living member of
Christ’s Church. It only urges the congregation to pray that God will grant to
the baptismal candidate “that thing which by nature he cannot have.” What is
labeled “the exhortation” in the ACNA rite is not so much a exhortation to pray
for the baptismal candidate but a statement of the ACNA doctrinal position on
baptism, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and regeneration.
Dearly beloved, Scripture teaches that we were all dead in our sins and trespasses. Our Savior Jesus Christ said, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God,” and he commissioned the Church to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Therefore we will ask our heavenly Father that these candidates, being baptized with water, may be filled with the Holy Spirit, born again, and received as living members of Christ’s holy Church.
From very outset the ACNA baptismal rite affirms the doctrinal
position that the gift of the Holy Spirit and regeneration are conferred in
water baptism—a position over which Anglicans have historically been divided
with Anglo-Catholics espousing this position and Evangelicals rejecting it as
contrary to Scripture. While To Be a
Christian: An Anglican Catechism avoids making a connection between water
baptism and regeneration, the ACNA baptismal rite does not show that hesitancy.
The 1662 exhortation leaves open the possibility that the baptismal candidate
may receive the Holy Spirit and the new birth (or regeneration) at a time other
than at the moment he is dipped in the water in the font or the water in the
font is poured over him. The so-called exhortation in the ACNA baptismal rite
does not leave open this possibility. It infers that the baptismal candidate
will receive the Holy Spirit and the new birth at the moment the water in the
font is applied to him.
The presentation and examination of the baptismal candidates
is to a large extent taken from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. It has two
alterations that distinguish it from the presentation and examination of
baptismal candidates in that book. It incorporates an address to the baptismal
sponsors for infants and younger children which follows the baptismal
candidates’ presentation and in which the celebrant explains their duties to
the baptismal sponsors. What is notable about this address is the emphasis that
it places upon the baptismal candidates’ learning of “the Creeds, the Ten
Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer,” in other words the contents of the ACNA
catechism, and the insistence that they should be presented to the bishop for
confirmation in order to receive the strengthening of the Holy Spirit. The
implication is that confirmation is a sacrament that operates ex opere operato: it is efficious in and
of itself and confers the strengthening of the Holy Spirit to those who are
rightly disposed.
This view of confirmation embodies an unreformed Catholic
view of confirmation, not that of the English Reformers and the historic
Anglican formularies. Their view of confirmation is that it is a catechetical
rite at which those baptized in infancy make a mature profession of faith in
the presence of the gathered church and receive its prayers. Whether God
increases the Holy Spirit in the confirmand in response to the church’s prayers
is solely in God’s hands. God is sovereign in all things.
The presentation and examination of the baptismal candidates
also incorporates a prayer for the deliverance of the baptismal candidates from
“the powers of darkness and evil” and the anointing of the baptismal candidates
with “the Oil of Exorcism.” This prayer and anointing follows the baptismal
candidates’ renunciation of the world, the flesh, and the devil (in reverse
order) and is what is known as the “minor exorcism.” It is a part of the
baptismal rites of the Roman Catholic Church.
Archbishop Cranmer did away with the minor exorcism and
number of other medieval Catholic ceremonies in the 1552 Baptismal Office and
the minor exorcism is not a part of the 1662 Baptismal Office. Cranmer found no
basis for the practice in the Holy Scriptures. Jesus himself refers to driving
out evil spirits with fasting and prayer, not anointing with oil.
While the anointing with “the Oil of Exorcism” is optional
in the ACNA bptismal rite, its inclusion in the rite must be considered in any
evaluation of the overall doctrine of the rite.
What is also notable about the presentation and examination
of the baptismal candidates is the awkwardness of the wording of the baptismal
covenant. This awkwardness would be eliminated if the question and answer
format was discontinued at this point and the congregation joined together with
the baptismal candidates and/or their sponsors in reciting the Apostles’ Creed.
For the four prayers for grace to carry the baptismal vows
into effect, the ACNA baptismal rite substitutes a single prayer adapted from the Flood
Prayer. This adaptation of the Flood Prayer contains a significant omission. It
omits the clause in the Flood Prayer, which refers to God, by the baptism of
Jesus in the river Jordan, sanctifying or setting apart, the element of water
to the mystical, or symbolic, washing away of sin. This clause is important
part of the doctrine of the 1552 Baptismal Office and the 1662 Baptismal Office
on which it is based. Among its implications is that since God by Jesus’
baptism has set apart the element of water for the purpose of baptism, any
prayers for the sanctification of the water in the font are unnecessary. It is
redundant to beseech God to set apart what he has already set apart.
The prayer
that immediately precedes the baptism of the candidate in the 1552 Baptismal
Office simply entreats God to grant that the person baptized in the water in
the font may receive the fullness of God’s grace and be numbered among God’s
faithful and elect people for ever. The Restoration bishops, influenced by the
1637 Scottish Baptismal Office, would add a petition to this prayer entreating
God to do what he had already done, set apart the element of water for the
symbolic washing away of sin. The petition was entirely superfluous. Its
addition, however, would set the Anglican Church on a road that led away from a
Scriptural view of baptism that was solely God’s doing to a sacerdotal view of
baptism in which emphasized the power of priests as mediators between God and humankind
and as dispensers of sacramental grace.
Both the Bible and the primitive Catholic doctrine take the
position that all that is essential for a valid baptism is the right matter—water;
the right minister, which may be a lay person; the right recipient –here there
is some disagreement among Christians; and the right intention—to do what
Church does.
Since the twentieth century this sacerdotal view of baptism
has been manifest in the omission of the Flood Prayer from baptismal rites or
its alteration, the recasting of the prayer over the water in the font along
the lines of a eucharistic prayer, the invocation of the descent of the Holy
Spirit upon the water in the font, and the addition of ceremonies that the
Cranmer and the English Reformers rejected on Scriptural grounds. The ACNA rite
displays all these characteristics.
The thanksgiving over the water in the ACNAbaptismal rite is adapted
from the prayer by the same name in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. Like the
1979 thanksgiving over the water, it ties regeneration to water baptism.
The rubrics direct that celebrant immerse the candidate or
pour water on the candidate three times—a ceremony that Cranmer dropped from
the 1552 Baptismal Office.
The celebrant may use “the Oil of Chrism” to make the sign
of the cross on the forehead of the newly-baptized. The words accompanying the signation do not
do justice to the original words in the 1552 and 1662 Baptismal Offices. They
blunt the force of the original words. The rubrics permit the use of the words
at the signation in the 1979 Book of Common Payer as an alternative. The
revival of this practice appears largely motivated by a fascination with the
1549 Prayer Book and the pre-Reformation medieval Catholic liturgies.. Cranmer discontinued the practice in the 1552 Prayer Book as
it fit into the category of what Cranmer describes as “dark and dumb
ceremonies,” ceremonies that do not serve “a decent Order and godly Discipline”
and do not have a “notable and special signification” by which the congregation
may be edified. Rather they are apt to foster error and superstition.
The post-baptismal thanksgiving is taken from the 1979 Book
of Common Prayer. The words "with your spirit" are substituted for "and also with you" in the salutation that precedes the sursum corda that introduces the prayer.Like the thanksgiving over the water in the 1979 Prayer Book, the prayer infers that the newly baptized receives the Holy Spirit and the new birth when he is baptized.
The rite concludes with the welcoming of the newly-baptized
and the passing of the peace. The wording is taken from the 1979 Book of Common
Prayer. The only difference is that “with your spirit” has been substituted for
“and also with you” in the exchange of the peace.
The requirement in the additional directions that the font
should be filled with clean water immediately before the thanksgiving over the
water would appear to preclude the full immersion of the baptismal candidate and
the use of lakes, rivers, and other bodies of water, including swimming pools, for baptisms.
Among the optional ceremonies authorized in the additional directions are the
vesting of the newly-baptized in a white garment and the giving of a lit
candles to the newly-baptized.
The anointing of the baptismal candidate with the Oil of
Exorcism, the anointing of the newly-baptized with the Oil of Chrism, the
vesting of the newly-baptized in a white garment, and the giving of a lit
candle to the newly-baptized are needless embellishments which are far from
harmless. These embellishments have no clear precedent in Scripture. They draw attention away from the central
symbolism of baptism—the washing of the baptismal candidate in water—and weaken
the sign value of this act. They can, in time, obscure and overshadow the act
of baptism itself. They can be used to teach doctrine that is not agreeable to
Scripture or compatible with its teaching.
Cranmer did away with such embellishments, retaining only
prayer for the candidate, the symbolic washing of the candidate, and the
signing of the newly-baptized on the forehead with the cross. The 1552
Baptismal Office is marked by simplicity and restraint, which along with close
attention to the teaching of Scripture characterize the Anglican genius. The compilers
of the 1789 Baptismal Office would go a step further and permit the omission of
the signation.
As David Phillips point out in a 2002 Cross+Way article, “The reformed worship of 1552,” good
liturgy combines “sound doctrine and the eloquent use of language.” The ACNA baptismal rite falls short in both
areas. The doctrine of the rite is unreformed Catholic. The language of the
rite is awkward in a number of places and could be improved. The rite is also
marred by excessive ritualism that is not characteristic of Anglican liturgy at
its best.
3 comments:
I am surprised at how rarely your posts are commented on, considering the quality and value of both your own analysis and your other links. Once again, a thoughtful and informative essay.
I know that you think a "second province" is the answer for Reformation minded Episcopalians/Anglicans in North America. And you may be right. I honestly think that will never work. We can't keep on hiving off forever into smaller and smaller, un-viable jurisdictions.
As a retired, but still active, minister who was confirmed in what was then called the PROTESTANT Episcopal Church, I have decided to just keep working where I am. Paradoxically, I think there is more hope for the Episcopal Church than for a body which is consciously and overtly rejecting the Reformation. Revival, if it comes, in TEC could actually be a full recovery of our foundational patrimony.
What is it that ACNA would recover or repair to?
What is happening in both the Anglican Church in North America and the Episcopal Church is what happens when ideologs with extreme views occupy the place of power in a denomination. One ideology may be more orthodox than the other in that it fully accepts the faith of the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds but both ideologies depart from the teaching of the Holy Scriptures and the doctrine and principles of the Anglican formularies. Both are doing the same thing—taking their respective denominations away from the historic Anglicanism of the English Reformation and the Elizabethan Settlement and entrenching their views and excluding those who do not agree.
Only God knows the future of both denominations and what he purposes to do through present events.
I personally do not believe that God would inspire a spiritual movement like the Reformation and the accompanying recovery of the gospel in the sixteenth century to allow us to undo what he has done in the twenty-first century. God is at work in the midst of present events albeit we are unable to discern what he purposes. On our part I believe that it is important to remain faithful to the gospel wherever God has placed us.
I also believe that we should keep in mind that no part of the visible Church is permanent. When one part of the visible Church grows cold or strays from his ways, God will raise up a new part.
At the same God is like the vineyard keeper in the Parable of the Barren Fig Tree. He dig around the tree and put in fertilizer and give it every opportunity to bear fruit before he cuts it down.
God may also raise up a new part of the visible Church to bring an older part to its senses or raise up a second new part when the first new part begins to stray.
I still don't understand the need for a new prayer book in the first place. Why did they not just take the 1662 and remove the refences to England, replace them with generic government language and use that. If they would have they would have been much more faithful to Anglicanism, to the faith, to Cranmer and to the history of the church. I do not believe for a moment the Anglo-Catholics want to be Anglican, they want to be roman without the pope as is seen by these documents. As far as the charismatics go, I worry about strange fire and I am waiting for God to open the ground and swallow them like he did with the Israelite priests that offered Him strange fire.
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