ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES: The 1928 American Prayer Book Is NOT the 1662 Book of Common Prayer

By Robin G. Jordan

The 1928 American Prayer Book differs from the classic Anglican Prayer Book, The Book of Common Prayer of 1662, in a number of ways. A number of these differences are significant. They show that the doctrine and liturgical usages of the 1928 American Prayer Book and the classic Anglican Prayer Book are not the same. They belie the claim that the 1928 book is the American edition of the 1662 book, an erroneous view that the Prayer Book Society USA has championed for a number of years.

It is noteworthy that none of the Prayer Book commentators in the first half of the twentieth century—E. Clowe Chorley (1929), W. K. Lowther Clarke (1932), Edward Lambe Parsons and Bayard Hale Jones (1937), and Massey Hamilton Shepherd, Jr. (1950) make such a claim. In their works they draw attention to the substantial differences between the two books.

The 1928 American Prayer Book was compiled at a time when Anglo-Catholicism and Broad Church latitudinarianism were the dominant influences in the American Episcopal Church. As a consequence the 1928 book reflects these influences. The 1928 revision was far-reaching and even radical in the changes that it introduced in the American Prayer Book.

The 1662 Book of Common Prayer was compiled two years after the restoration of the Stuart dynasty after an interregnum of almost 20 years. During the Commonwealth Period the Church of England was without bishops and a Prayer Book. Upon ascending the throne Charles II would take steps to restore the episcopate and the Book of Common Prayer.

The Restoration bishops were Laudian High Churchmen. While they made a number of minor alterations and additions to the Book of Common Prayer, they were for a large part content to leave the Prayer Book substantially as it was during the reign of Charles I. The revised book that they submitted to Convocation, Parliament, and the King was remarkably moderate in tone. It is essentially the 1552 Prayer Book.

The Prayerbook and Common Liturgy Taskforce of the Anglican Church in North America are the latest group to equate the 1928 American Prayer Book with the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. One is prompted to ask what does the taskforce gain from confusing the distinction between the two books.

The 1662 Book of Common Prayer enjoys wide recognition alongside the Thirty-Nine Articles and the 1661 Ordinal as the doctrinal standard of Anglicanism. The 1928 American Prayer Book was a formulary of the American Episcopal Church for a space of 50 odd years. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer is the most widely used Prayer Book in the Anglican Communion and has been translated into a number of languages and dialects. The 1928 American Prayer Book only has exercised an influence in the more Anglo-Catholic of the Anglican provinces. The object of equating the two books with each other appears intended to counter possible objections to the use of the 1928 American Prayer Book in place of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and to impute the authority of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer to the 1928 American Prayer Book.

Whatever liturgists may have thought of the 1928 American Prayer Book in the first part of the twentieth century, it has never gained the standing of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer in the Anglican Communion. The 1928 American Prayer Book is also a “High Church” liturgy. It not only adopts features of the semi-reformed 1549 Prayer Book but also features of the pre-Reformation medieval service books, including Prayers for the Dead, the Minor and Major Oblations, and Unction of the Sick. The fanatical attachment of traditionalist Anglo-Catholics to the 1928 American Prayer Book and its associated missals clearly shows that it is a party book.

This makes the use of the 1928 American Prayer Book by a small remnant of self-identified “Low Churchmen” in the Continuing Anglican Churches even more surprising. While the 1928 American Prayer Book retains the language of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and shares a number of its texts, its doctrine is far removed from that of the more Reformed 1662 Book of Common Prayer and comprises a repudiation of the Thirty-Nine Articles. Indeed if the Thirty-Nine Articles were applied as a doctrinal standard for interpreting the 1928 American Prayer Book a number of its features would have to be stripped from it as contrary or repugnant to God’s word.

Bear in mind that at the time the 1928 American Prayer Book was adopted, there was a movement afoot in the American Episcopal Church to remove the Articles from the back of the Prayer Book. A resolution authorizing their removal had passed the 1925 General Convention, the General Convention at which the 1928 revision was first approved. Clergy subscription to the American revision of the Thirty-Nine Articles was not required when it was adopted in 1801. It was a dead letter from the outset.

In this 350th year of the Book of Common Prayer we are not celebrating the 1928 American Prayer Book but the quintessential Prayer Book—The Book of Common Prayer of 1662. It is time Americans became better acquainted with this venerable formulary of the Anglican Church, its doctrine, and its liturgical practices.

It is the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, not the 1928 American Prayer Book, which The Jerusalem Declaration upholds as
“a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer, to be translated and locally adapted for each culture.” It is the 1662 Prayer Book, not the 1928 American Prayer Book, which the GAFCON Theological Resource Group in Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today recognizes as “the standard liturgical resource of Anglicans” since 1662.

While acknowledging a number of developments in the twentieth century, which challenged the traditional place of the 1662 Prayer Book, the GAFCON Theological Resource Group states:

The 1662 Book of Common Prayer remains a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer, because the principles it embodies are fundamentally theological and biblical. The liturgies of this book enable all who participate to think in true and biblical ways about God and about their life and his people.

The GAFCON Theological Resource Group goes on to state:

We should not expect uniformity of liturgy across the Anglican Communion, but we should look for a common theological bais. Our commitment to the principles underlying the liturgy of the Prayer Book should produce forms of corporate worship which may be diverse, but which still bear a family resemblance. The 1662 Prayer Book provides a standard by which other liturgies may be tested and measured.

The GAFCON Theological Resource Group further states:

One key principle of revision is that new liturgies must be seen to be in continuity with the Book of Common Prayer….

A second key principle of revision should be that of mutual accountability within the Anglican Communion. The further removed a proposed liturgy may be from the 1662 Prayer Book, the more important it is that it should be subject to widespread evaluation throughout the Communion.

In light of the Anglican Church in North America’s repeated claims of spearheading the restoration of biblical Anglicanism in North America, one would have expected its equivalent of a liturgical commission, the Prayerbook and Common Liturgy Taskforce, to be compiling liturgies for use in the ACNA that are modern English versions of the services of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. But the two reports of the taskforce that has issued and the ordinal that it has produced shows that this is not the case. In the reports and the ordinal’s preface the taskforce has sought to justify not using the services of the 1662 Prayer Book at all.

It is worthy of note that Archbishop Robert Duncan in his charge to the taskforce does not urge them to compile a Prayer Book that conforms to the teaching of the Bible. Rather he directs them to produce a book that is so appealing people will want to use it. In the nineteenth century the Ritualists exploited the Victorian penchant for pageantry and “sensuous” worship to revive medieval practices in disregard of Scripture and to reintroduce medieval doctrine into the Church with these practices. Archbishop Duncan has given the taskforce carte blanche to do much the same thing.

Archbishop Duncan appears to have no problems with the taskforce’s unbiblical doctrine. Neither apparently does the rest of the College of Bishops since it endorsed the “theological lens” that it developed to guide its preparation of an Ordinal and a Prayer Book for use in the ACNA and authorized the Ordinal that it subsequently prepared. Both the “theological lens” and the Ordinal take the position that the Scriptures are not the Word of God but contain the Word of God—a liberal view of the Scriptures. They also give great weight to tradition to the point that it overrules Scripture—a decidedly Anglo-Catholic proclivity.

A marvelous way of celebrating 350 years of the classical Anglican Prayer Book would be to produce a real North American edition of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer with modern versions of the services as well as Tudor English ones, in addition to alternative state prayers. Nevertheless I am not anticipating the Anglican Church in North America is going to celebrate 350 years of the 1662 Prayer Book in this manner. The Anglican Church in North America is too busy trying to model its liturgy upon that of the Episcopal Church from which it broke away.

A replica of the cutty stool that Jenny Geddes is alleged to have thrown at the dean of St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, at the first public use of the 1637 Scottish Prayer Book, the infamous "Laudian Liturgy." The act is reputed to have sparked the riot which led to the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which included the English Civil War. As Jenny Geddes hurled the stool, she is reported to have yelled:

"De'il gie you colic, the wame o’ ye, fause thief; daur ye say Mass in my lug?" meaning "Devil cause you severe pains in your abdomen, false thief: dare you say the Mass in my ear?".

The sculpture is a recent addition to the memorial to Jenny Geddes in St. Giles Cathedral.