Anglican Spirituality: Liturgy

By Robin G. Jordan

A liturgy may be defined as “a form or formulary according to which public religious worship, especially Christian worship, is conducted.” A formulary may be defined as “a collection of formulas or set forms, especially for use in religious ceremonies.” A formula may, in turn, be defined as “a set form of words for use in a ceremony or ritual.” These definitions are taken from two different sources and they provide us with an idea of what are the basic characteristics of a liturgy. It may be a set form or a collection of set forms. It may simply comprise a fixed pattern of worship or may include set prayers and other texts. We find all of these variations of liturgy in Anglican worship.

The Anglican Churches are not the only ecclesiastic tradition with a liturgy. Other ecclesiastic traditions that have a liturgy are the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Lutheran Churches, the Methodist Churches, the Presbyterian Churches, the Oriental Churches, the Reformed Churches, and the Roman Catholic Church.

Even the so-called non-liturgical churches have liturgies – a recurring pattern of worship with some variations that they use Sunday after Sunday. The non-denominational church where I sojourned for almost ten years uses the same basic pattern of worship every Sunday—worship set, sermon, and dismissal. A prayer is said at some point in this service and a collection is taken. A video buffer may be shown before the service or before the sermon and an invitation may be given after the sermon. A guest speaker may give a presentation. An invitation song or a closing song may be sung. The ordinance of Lord’s Supper may be observed. Baptisms, however, usually take place apart from the service, either immediately after the service or later in the day.

In most Anglican Churches the principal rites and services of its liturgy are assembled into two collections—The Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal—and published together under one cover. They may have one or more collections of alternative rites and services. They may also have a collection of occasional offices.

The Church of England’s Common Worship (2000) contains several collections of forms and is published under several covers. It is a far cry from The Book of Common Prayer of 1662, which remains the official Prayer Book of the Church of England. The Anglican Church of Australia has three collections of rites and services—The Book of Common Prayer (1662), An Australian Prayer Book (1978), and A Prayer Book for Australia (1999) and permits dioceses to produce their own liturgies such as the Diocese of Sydney’s Common Prayer: Resources for Gospel-Shaped Gatherings (2012).

The day of a single Prayer Book for an entire province is a thing of the past. The Anglican Church in North America’s College of Bishops faced up to this reality when they adopted a resolution recommending that the Governance Task Force draw up an amendment to the ACNA’s canons permitting the use of other Prayer Books beside the 2019 Proposed ACNA Prayer Book after the final authorization of that Prayer Book. Rather than comprehending the several theological schools of thought represented in that province, the proposed book caters to one school of thought—the Catholic Revivalists and those sympathetic to their views. Its doctrine and liturgical usages are not entirely acceptable to all of the schools of thought represented in the province.

While we might have, in the past, been able to say that one of the characteristics of Anglican spirituality was the use of the same Prayer Book in public worship and private devotions throughout a province, this claim is no longer valid. A more accurate observation of present day practice is the use of two or more service books which draw or adapt liturgical material from a common source but which may use this material differently. These books may share liturgical material but not doctrine or liturgical usages.

With so much liturgical material available in digital form, the day of “create your own liturgy” is not far off if is not already here. Common Worship (2000) has taken bold steps in that direction with New Patterns for Worship.

Some Anglicans lament the passing of the day when one Prayer Book served an entire province. However, the Anglican Churches have become so diverse in their doctrine and liturgical usages that one book can no longer serve an entire province. Even in that day different churches interpreted the book differently and used it differently. They made unauthorized changes to the book and added unauthorized liturgical material to it. Uniformity of doctrine and liturgical usage was an illusion.

This was particularly true in the American Church which, while it adopted a version of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, did not require clerical subscription to them. The result was a province that could not try a bishop for teaching doctrine that was contrary to the doctrine of the church because its bishops could not agree on what was the church’s doctrine.

What then can we say about Anglican spirituality where liturgy is concerned? A congregation may use a collection of set forms in its public worship. This collection may supplemented by texts from other sources. Individual members of the congregation may in their private devotions use one or more different collections of set forms. The prayers and other liturgical texts in these set forms may be accompanied by spontaneous, extemporary prayer. The lineage of these collections may be traced at least in part to the classical Anglican Prayer Book of 1662 and the earlier Prayer Books that preceded it—1549, 1552, 1559, 1604, and 1637.

Readers may have noted my reference to the Anglican Churches in this article. This is an acknowledgement of a modern-day reality.

Anglican Churches in the twenty-first century may be classified into three loose categories. The first category consists of those Anglican Churches that are in communion with the See of Canterbury and are in agreement with each other and the current occupant of that see on a range of issues.

The second category consists of those Anglican Churches that, while they are in communion with the See of Canterbury, are not in agreement with its current occupant on these issues, and are in a state of impaired communion with the Anglican Churches in the first category. The Anglican Churches in the second category may be affiliated with the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans and the Global Anglican Future Conference or the Global South Primates’ Council or all three organizations.

The third category consists of those Anglican Churches which are not in communion with the See of Canterbury but which may enjoy the recognition of the Anglican Churches in the second category. This category includes the Reformed Episcopal Church, the Free Church of England, the Anglican Orthodox Church, the various Continuing Anglican Churches, the Episcopal Missionary Church, and the Anglican Church in North America.

The Anglican Churches in the third category broke with the Church of England or one of its daughter churches in the nineteenth, twentieth, or twenty-first centuries or may have been formed during that time period. They identify themselves as Anglican in faith and order. They may or may not recognize each other. Some of them have entered into intercommunion agreements. Others permit clergy from one or more Anglican Churches in the third category to preach and administer the sacraments in their local churches. All of the Anglican Churches in these three categories share to varying degrees a common heritage.