"Episcopalianism in the USA - any cause for optimism in next decade?" A Response

Commentary by Robin G. Jordan

In an article titled "Episcopalianism in the USA - any cause for optimism in next decade?" posted on Virtue Online Dr. Peter Toon made the following suggestion:

"I suggest that it would be beneficial for all the forms of Anglicanism in the USA that claim to be orthodox to accept, as a discipline and as a sweet offering to the Lord our God - for say a decade - the use of the historic Anglican Rites for worship - that is the Rites of the 1662 BCP (or its modern equivalents) and to use them either in the original traditional English or in a dignified form of contemporary English (yet to be produced). Of course, there would be local ceremonial and emphases in each parish (with music and vestments and the like) but this proposal to be effective requires all parishes to use this One Rite in either form, or else its power to unite would not be available everywhere."

I for one fail to see the benefit in using the rites of the 1662 English Book of Common Prayer for a decade.

First, in my part of the country - with one or two exceptions the Anglican churches that are using the traditional Anglican Prayer Book in its 1928 American Edition are not faring well. They are struggling to survive. They are not reaching the younger generations. Their congregations are tiny and greying.. A church using the traditional Anglican Prayer Book in its 1662 English Edition is not likely to fare any better. The churches that are thriving and growing are using free-flowing forms of worship and/or alternative rites. A church that abandons services in modern English for services in a language unfamiliar, even alien, to the target group that it is seeking to reach will be unnecessarily hampering its ministry and witness.

Second, the use of the same prayer book will create only an illusion of unity. In the 21st century the prayers and texts that we pray no longer shape what we believe. The use of the rites of the 1662 English Book of Common Prayer by themselves cannot maintain doctrinal purity or promote orthodoxy. Too many traditional Anglican Prayer Book enthusiasts of my acquaintance are far from Biblically orthodox in their beliefs. In the 21st century worshippers in the same congregation can pray the same liturgy and interpret the words of the liturgy differently from each other. Different churches can use the same prayer book and give its prayers and texts different meanings. This is not a new phenomena. In the 19th century Evangelicals and Ritualists did the same thing.

Dr. Toon's article does point to an important need. If they are going to effectively reach the unchurched and unsaved, Biblically orthodox Anglicans do need a collection of alternative services that give clear expression to the Faith proclaimed in the Thirty-Nine Articles and the 1662 English Book of Common Prayer, alternative services that at the same time are "in such Language and Order as is most easy and plain for the understanding of both the Readers and Hearers." Most of today's "Hearers" do not speak Tudor English.

Let us also not forget that the English Reformers who suffered martyrdom for their faith were committed to a vernacular Bible and a vernacular liturgy. Let us remain true to this important principle of Anglicanism.