Six Guiding Principles for Making Decisions Related to Church Practices

By Robin G. Jordan

In his essay, “Of Ceremonies, Why Some Be Abolished, and Some Retained” Archbishop Cranmer draws attention to the danger of people becoming so addicted to old customs that it is a great matter of conscience for them to depart from a piece of least of their ceremonies. People are as addicted to ceremonies in the twenty-first century as they were in the sixteenth century, if not more so. One of the changes in our culture is that the ceremonies and rituals that once were a normal part of everyday life have disappeared, leaving people with a hunger for ceremony and ritual, which they seek to satisfy with the ceremonies and rituals of religion. One of the appeals of Wicca is its ceremonies and rituals. This development and the influence of the Ancient-Future/Convergence and Emerging Church movements have led to the spread of ritualism to churches that have in past shunned it. There has been not only an increasing openness to ceremony and ritual in their more effusive forms but also a growing recognition of their appeal to certain segments of the unchurched population. In the Anglican Churches these influences, combined with a number of other factors, have resulted in an expansion of ritualism into churches that have historically eschewed it on principle. Among these factors has been the erosion and disappearance of Evangelical practice, the confusion of the Anglo-Catholic practice with Anglican practice in some quarters and the consequent acceptance of Anglo-Catholic practice as a standard for Anglicans, and the spread of Anglican Christianity to populations that have a strong tradition of ceremony and ritual both in everyday life and religion. One of the consequences has been the adoption of ceremony and ritual that expresses and promotes beliefs and attitudes at variance with the reformed Church of England and its formularies, the very heart and soul of authentic Anglicanism.

In The Book of Common Prayer and the Articles of Religion are a number of principles that offer guidance to the local Anglican church and its pastor in determining what usages or customary practices are permissible within the Protestant Reformed Anglican tradition. In this article I take a brief look at six of these principles.

A church practice must edify. It must build up the faith of the congregation. It must be “apt to stir up the dull mind of man to the remembrance of his duty to God, by some notable and special signification, where by he might be edified.” It must have as its meaning something that is worthy of note and quite exceptional. It must not only contribute to “the setting forth of God’s honour and glory but also to the reducing of the people to a most perfect and godly living, without error or superstition. If a practice is not edifying, it must be eschewed. It does not matter if the practice is of great antiquity, adds to the beauty of the Liturgy, or is a much cherished, long-held custom of a particular church. Unedifying practices have no place in the life and worship of an Anglican church.



A church practice must contribute to discipline and order in the Church. It must not undermine that discipline and order. In the nineteenth century Church of England a number of practices were, through the influence of the Ritualists, adopted to the injury of discipline and order in that Church. They did even more injury in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA. Those who adopted these practices put forward all kinds of arguments to justify what they were doing. Similar arguments are used in support of retaining such practices today. We therefore need to examine these arguments and the suppositions upon which they are based.

These practices, one argument ran, beautify and enrich the worship of the Church. God gave specific instructions for the beautification of the Tabernacle. This shows that God loves things of beauty. Consequently, God should have no objections to our adorning of the Holy Table with crosses, candlesticks, and flower vases, and the sanctuary and the body of the church with ornately carved rood screens, stained-glass windows, and other ornaments or our clothing of his priests in beautiful and costly vestments. Appeals are made to 1 Chronicles 16:29, 2 Chronicles 20:21, Psalm 29:2, and Psalm 96:9, which in the Authorized (or King James) Version of the Bible contain references to worshipping God in the beauty of holiness. In the English Standard Version the Hebrew phrase in 1 Chronicles 16:29, Psalm 29:2, and Psalm 96:9 that the AV renders as “in the beauty of holiness” is rendered “in the splendour of holiness, or in holy attire;” the same phrase that in 2 Chronicles 20:21 that the KJV renders as “in the beauty of holiness” is rendered as “in holy attire.” By no stretch of the imagination can this phrase be interpreted to mean “beautiful surroundings and vestments,” or at least beautiful by the aesthetic tastes or the standards of those misinterpreting this phrase. Such appeals are clearly a misuse of the texts. Invariably “the beauty of holiness” argument is used to justify the re-introduction of practices—ceremonies, ornaments, and the like—that the English Reformers rejected and disowned at the Reformation for very good reasons.

If, however, we interpret Scripture by Scripture, the holy attire of a Christian is Christ for we put on Christ in baptism. God may have created beautiful objects and God may have given us a love of beauty, but God delights in the qualities of holiness more than he does physical beauty. God looks at the heart, not outward appearances. We may adorn our churches so that they fit our idea of beauty. However, such adornments mean nothing to God. What God desires is that we adorn ourselves with the true beauty of holiness, of righteous and godly lives. This is the principle behind the saying, “I desire not sacrifice but mercy.”

Another argument asserts that certain practices are desirable due to their great antiquity. They purportedly come from the first five centuries of Christianity. The ancientness of a practice, however, is not sufficient reason for using the practice. We read in the New Testament that in the apostles’ time undesirable practices (e.g., abstinence from marriage and certain foods, asceticism, and worship of angels) and false teachings abounded. After the Peace of Constantine, Christians began to worship in large public buildings and adopted the ceremonial of the Imperial Roman court in their worship. This included lengthy processions, the cry of “Kyrie eleison,” or “Lord have mercy,” and the copious use of incense. Saint Augustine in the third century complained that the proliferation of ceremonies in the Church of his time had made the state of his fellow Christians worse than that of the Jews, “and he counseled that such yoke and burden should be taken away, as time would serve quietly to do it.” A practice, while it may be of great antiquity, may be unedifying and contrary to God’s Word, doing nothing to promote holiness and godliness.

Church practices, like habits, are quick to develop, and as difficult to undo once they form. The origin of some practices may be accidental. Over 25 years ago I read the story of a woman who cut the ends off her pork roasts before she put them in the pan. One day her daughter asked her why she did that. She did not know. She had seen her mother do it and she had copied her mother. When the daughter next saw her grandmother, she asked her why she had cut the ends off her pork roasts. Her grandmother laughed. The explanation was simple enough. The roast was too large for her pan.



The original reason for introducing a certain practice may be forgotten. The practice will be passed down from one generation to the next and later generations will develop their own explanations for the practice, which usually is unrelated to how and why the practice was begun in the first place. A tradition will grow up around the practice, and will be passed down with it. In time the practice may acquire a theological rationale.

One reason that church practices once they are adopted are difficult to abolish is the tendency of people to grow very attached to practices of fairly recent origin. They will treat a practice that may be only a few years old as if it is hoary with age. They are often surprised to learn that the practice is not very old. An explanation for this phenomenon is that people need continuity and stability in their lives especially in our day and age when change and instability are givens. Consequently they will cling to anything that offers them a measure of continuity and stability.

Church practices may also provide a pattern and a rhythm to our daily lives. This was truer for past generations than for us today. We live in a time in which religion has become separated from daily life and has been compartmentalized. At the schools I attended in Great Britain as a boy the day always began and ended with prayer. At the public junior high school I attended here in the United States the day began with the raising of the American flag, the pledge of the allegiance, and prayer. Those days are now a thing of the past.

In his essay, “Of Ceremonies, Why Some Be Abolished, and Some Retained” Archbishop Cranmer wrote that he saw no harm in using the old “where the old may be well used,” that the old should not be faulted “only for their age” but should be revered “for their antiquity.” Cranmer’s words have been taken out of context and used to justify the use of practices that Cranmer himself would have never countenanced. The other principles that Cranmer set down in the essay have been deliberately ignored or overlooked. The principle that Cranmer applied to the old was not to reject the old solely on the basis of their age but to use the old where they were usable. It was not to adopt the old due to their antiquity without regard to other considerations. Unfortunately Cranmer’s words have been misconstrued to bear out doing just that.

A third argument is that if the English Reformation had not occurred, the English Church would have developed along the same lines as the Continental Catholic churches in doctrine and practice. Whether this argument is valid is highly debatable. This argument is the least likely to be heard today but it was used extensively in the nineteenth century to introduce into the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church practices that were unknown to the pre-Reformation English Church and were not in any way a part of its ancient and medieval past. For, example, the Ritualists in the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church introduced into their churches the use the tabernacle, a canopied niche or receptacle, for the reservation of the sacrament. They borrowed this practice from the nineteenth century Continental Catholic churches. In the pre-Reformation English Church flying pyxes and aumbries were used to reserve the sacrament, not tabernacles. As a result practices that were an authentic part of the Church of England’s pre-Reformation heritage were replaced by those of foreign churches. For, example, in place of the “Old English,” or Sarum, Use or the use of one of the other great English cathedrals, the Ritualists adopted the Roman Use seen in Continental Catholic churches. In the nineteenth century English and American parish churches were decked with Roman violet or purple in Advent and Lent in stead of Old English blue and Lenten array—sackcloth with black and oxblood ophreys. In the late nineteenth century Percy Dearmer and the Alcuin Club undertook the task of educating churchmen regarding the traditional usages proper to the Church of England and encouraging the revival of these usages.

A fourth argument that is likely to be heard today among those influenced by the Ancient-Future/Convergence movement is that certain practices represent a bringing together or convergence of disparate traditions that is claimed to be the work of the Holy Spirit. A major weakness of this argument is the practices themselves, which often express or promote doctrines that are contrary to God’s Word or cannot be found in Scripture or proved from Scripture. Anglicanism has always viewed the Scriptures as the test by which a doctrine or practice must be tried. If it fails that test, it is not of God. Those who put forward this argument take the un-Anglican position that the Bible is not God’s final word on matters of faith and practice and more recent principles and truths revealed by the Holy Spirit supercede what God has revealed in the Holy Scriptures. This position points to Roman Catholic and Neo-Pentecostal influences.

This notion has an interesting history. It is associated with the sixteenth century Anabaptists who asserted personal revelations from the Holy Spirit were more authoritative than Scripture and other sectarian groups, including the third-century Montanists. Islam is a gives authority to an additional source of revelation beside the Bible. Portions of the Quaran were at different times revealed by a being that identified himself as the angel Gabriel to the prophet Mohammed as he lay in a trance in a cave to which he had retired to meditate and pray. The entire Quaran was compiled from the recollections of the surviving members of Muhammed’s earliest followers of what he had told them had been revealed to him. For Muslims the revelation of the Quaran supercedes the revelation of the Bible, which Muslims maintain is filled with errors. Islam is essentialy a Christian heresy, which may explain implacable opposition to the Christian faith. In the sixteenth century the Council of Trent adopted as the doctrine of the Church of Rome that the Holy Spirit had inspired Church tradition as well as the Bible, that Church tradition was to be used to interpret Scripture and that the Church was the only valid interpreter of Church tradition. This doctrine made the teaching of the Church superior to the teaching of the Bible. In the early nineteenth century a being in the form of an angel of light who identified himself as Moroni revealed to John Smith the whereabouts of the Book of Mormon and the means of interpreting the book. The Book of Mormon had been engraved on plates of gold and hidden away at a secret location until the time it was to be unearthed and its contents made known to the world. Mormonism is another Christian heresy. In the twentieth century a number of Pentecostal, Charismatic Renewal, and Neo-Pentecostal leaders have claimed personal revelations from the Holy Spirit that supercede the revelation of the Bible. Some of these leaders have called down God’s curse on anyone who questions their teaching, much in the same way that the Council of Trent declared to be anathema—under God’s curse—those who did not subscribe to its doctrines. In the twenty-first century the Episcopal Church claims that its teachings relating to human sexuality and salvation are new revelations from the Holy Spirit. The Bible is dismissed as written by human beings, colored by human prejudice and consequently not authoritative in such matters.



A church practice must not be “repugnant to the word of God.” To be repugnant to God’s word a practice does not have to be specifically forbidden or prohibited by the Scriptures. But it must be in some way contradictory to Scripture or incompatible or inconsistent with it. For example, the Scriptures do not prohibit the blessing of homosexual liaisons or “gay marriage” but they do condemn homosexual practice, that is, sexual activity of any kind between members of the same sex and sexual activity of any kind between members of the opposite sex outside of marriage. In his teaching Jesus refers to such activity as pornia, which the Authorized Version renders as “fornication.” Jesus’ audiences, however, understood pornia to include sexual activity between members of the same sex. Since homosexual liaisons are sexual in nature and “gay marriage” presumes sexual activity, they are likewise proscribed. We cannot bless what God does not. Since the Bible solely views marriage in terms of a man and a woman and affirms such a union, we cannot develop and use ceremonies that express and promote teachings that are at variance with what the Bible teaches. Such ceremonies would indeed be repugnant to the word of God—would be in conflict with it, fighting against it.

A church practice must not be “dark or dumb”—that is meaningless, obscure or unintelligible. A practice must illuminate and not darken understanding. It should not confuse or muddle people. What it means and what use it serves must be understandable to everyone.

We should not teach that a practice, which was devised by man, was instituted by God, and place it on the level of Scripture. The New Testament describes a number of practices and makes reference to their use. These practices include anointing with oil, laying on hands, praying with uplifted hands, and speaking in tongues. In some instances Scripture permits such a practice or even commends it. But often it does not prescribe the practice. A number of passages may suggest that a practice is normative (e.g.. laying hands on someone while praying for him especially when setting him apart for a particular ministry). These practices are found in Scripture. They are allowable. But nowhere in Scripture does it actually say that they are divinely instituted. Unless a passage of Scripture tells us that God instituted a particular practice, we cannot claim divine institution for the practice even though it is described or mentioned in the Scripture.

Confirmation is not divinely instituted. Neither is episcopacy. Indeed, the only practice that is clearly of divine institution is the observance of the Lord’s Supper. Jesus instituted this practice at the Last Supper. Nowhere in Scripture do we read that God instituted the practice of baptism. What we do read is that Jesus’ disciples practiced baptism and Jesus himself submitted to baptism. The apostles also taught the necessity of baptism.



A church practice must not breed superstition. Practices that foster superstition and/or are exploited in any way for the material gain or other benefit of the unscrupulous should be abolished. A number of priests use with the 1928 Communion Service additions from the Anglican Missal. These additions are for a large part the devotions of the priest. They completely alter the theology of the Communion Service. An elaborate ceremonial invariably accompanies the Prayer Book texts and the Anglican Missal additions. Most of the additions, while they may be an aid to the devotions of the priest, do not edify the congregation or the occasional visitor to his church. These additions and the accompanying ceremonial often fall into the categories of being “dark and dumb” and “repugnant to the Word of God” and especially the category of breeding superstition. For example, the priest may make numerous signs of the cross over the water that is mixed with the wine and over the chalice of mixed wine and the paten of wafers. He may pronounce a blessing over the water. He may cense the table and the communion elements. He may bow at numerous points in the preparation of the bread and wine and the Prayer of Consecration. He may elevate the host after the Words of Institution. He may genuflect or fall to his knees at the end of the consecration and kiss the table. He may then show the host and the chalice to the congregation with the words “Behold the Lamb of God who was slain for your sins.” None of what he is doing is in the least bit edifying to the first time worship visitor. To the initiated, to those who have received instructions in the esoteric meaning of the priest’s words and actions, it may be understandable to a degree. But it is in no way edifying in the Scriptural sense. It does not build up the congregation in a faith grounded in the Scriptures. Rather it expresses and promotes unscriptural ideas. It also breeds superstition.

We do not read in the Gospels or Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians that Jesus mixed water with the wine, much less blessed the water before adding it to the wine. Jesus gave thanks over the bread and cup. He did not bless them. He blessed God. In the Old Testament and the New Testament we find no precedent for blessing inanimate objects—none whatsoever. We do, however, find solid precedent for blessing people. Even if the wine that Jesus used had been diluted, as was the custom of the day, the host would not have diluted it at the table. Whoever prepared the wine for the meal would have diluted it.

The custom of the day was also to give thanks to God over the bread and the cup of wine, which Jesus did as the host and a devote Jew. Where Jesus differed from custom was the words that he used after the thanksgivings over the bread and the cup. He may have laid his hand on the bread and the cup and taken the bread and the cup into his hands. But he certainly did not make multiple signs of the cross over them or bow or bob or bend the knee. To a devote Jew such behavior would have shown more than a tinge of idolatry, occultism, and witchcraft. The Jewish Bible—our Old Testament—forbade the worship of idols and the practice of magic and prohibited the Jewish people from consorting with those who worshiped graven images and practiced sorcery. A Christian steeped in the teaching of the Old Testament and the New Testament would have the same impression, as would the non-Christian who went to a neo-Pagan or Wiccan gathering earlier in the week. The latter would not be edified. He would in all likelihood draw the wrong conclusions about the Christian faith and the sacrament of Holy Communion. The former would conclude that the priest using such ceremonial was fostering superstition under the guise of Christianity. His conscience would be wounded and the New Testament warns us against wounded the conscience of our fellow Christians: In sinning against our brothers and sisters, we sin against Christ.

In future articles I plan to offer suggestions related to the specific application of these principles and to look at what practices are proper to the Protestant Reformed Anglican tradition, the reasons for their appropriateness, what practices are unsuitable, and why. I also intend to examine a number of additional principles that may be helpful in determining what practice may be used and those which should be avoided at all costs.