Were Episcopalians Deceived?

By Robin G. Jordan

In her article, “Episcopalians Deceived. 1928 vs 1979 - Deception revealed,” Roberta Bayer, the editor of Mandate magazine, commends to our attention a book review, “How Episcopalians Were Deceived,” written by Francis W. Read and originally published in July-August, 1981 edition of the New Oxford Review. In his review of Worship Leads the Way: a celebration of the life and work of Massey Hamilton Shepherd, Jr, a collection of essays published in honor of the late Massey Shepherd, Read alleges that in its adoption of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer the Episcopal Church was a victim of deception. He bases this accusation upon his interpretation of the late Urban T. Holmes’ contribution to the book. What caught my attention was the following claim in the review:

“In The Theology of Confirmation in Relation to Baptism (1946), Dix states and defends the classical Anglican understanding of Confirmation as set forth in the 1928 American Prayer Book.”

With this assertion Read, while he himself may have believed what he had written, is misleading Episcopalians (and other Anglicans.) Dix’s view of Confirmation was a cause of sharp division in the Church of England and its daughter churches. The doctrine of Confirmation of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, as articulated in its Offices of Instruction and Order for the Confirmation, represented a significant departure from that of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the first two American Prayer Books.

The late Peter Toon, like Read, championed Dix’s two-stage theory of Christian initiation and incorporated the 1928 Book of Common Prayer’s theology of Confirmation into An Anglican Prayer Book (2008), which he edited. In a series of articles originally published on Virtue Online in 2008 and now archived at http://exploringananglicanprayerbook.blogspot.com, I critiqued a number of services in that book, including the Catechism and Order for Confirmation. My critique of the Catechism and Order for Confirmation of An Anglican Prayer Book (2008) includes a brief examination of the origin of Confirmation as a rite, its history, and its development in Anglicanism. It also takes a close look at how the extensive revision of the American Prayer Book adopted in 1928 changed the doctrine of Confirmation in that Prayer Book. The complete article is on the Internet at: http://exploringananglicanprayerbook.blogspot.com/2008/04/anglican-prayer-book-2008-catechism-and.html.

While the idea that the adoption of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer was the result of a conspiracy may appeal to conspiracy theorists, the reality is that one part of the Episcopal Church in the 1960s and 1970s wanted a new Prayer Book while another part of the Church was happy with the old Prayer Book. The part of the Church that desired the new Prayer Book triumphed. It is not surprising that the side that lost would attribute the victory of the winning side to trickery and deceit. The simple fact, however, is that the side that won had the strength of numbers. What won people over was not the new book’s theology but its contemporary language and greater variety. Only later—only after the liberals in the Episcopal Church started to use their interpretation of the new book to support their agenda of radical change—did people begin to pay attention to the doctrine of the new book and its possible implications.

One thing that has not received enough attention in this rehashing of past struggles over Prayer Book revision is the doctrinal changes that the 1928 Book of Common Prayer introduced into the American Prayer Book. It was not the “gentle revision” that the late Peter Toon made it out to be. In a number of ways the 1928 Prayer Book is a repudiation of the biblical and Reformation theology of the historic Anglican formularies—the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion of the 1571 and the Book of Common Prayer of 1662 and the Ordinal attached to it. Those who desire to see the restoration of confessional Anglicanism in North America can take an important step forward in that direction by making use of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer or a service book that actually translates the 1662 services into contemporary English and adapts them to the North American mission field.