By Robin G. Jordan
Why go to the trouble of drawing attention to the shortcomings of The Book of Common Prayer 2019 when you aren’t an ACNA’er yourself?
The BCP 2019 with its doctrine and practices effectively slams the door of the Anglican Church in North America in the face of Anglicans like myself. It says in so many words that my kind is not welcome in the province. If I want to become a part of the ACNA, I must park my beliefs at the door.
If I was a liberal Episcopalian who might spread my liberal views in the ACNA, making it difficult for me to become a part of the ACNA might be understandable. But I am not.
I am an evangelical Anglican Christian who accepts and upholds the doctrinal foundation of the reformed Anglican Church—the teachings of the Bible and the principles of the historic Anglican formularies—and stands in the central Anglican theological tradition.
The Anglican Church in America was supposed to be an alternative province in North America for all conservative Anglicans and Episcopalians in the United States and Canada, not for those of a particular doctrinal or liturgical bent. It has not lived up to that promise. The fault clearly rests with its leaders.
Don’t you risk generating more support for the BCP 2019 from ACNA’ers who see your articles as attacks upon their denomination and themselves—“ACNA bashing” as one of your readers put it?
There is always the risk that when a writer draws attention to a problem, explores the problem in depth, and offers solutions that some readers will take his articles the wrong way. The articles will provoke a defensive reaction. This reaction may in turn color their judgment. Individuals will, after they become a part of an institution, seek to protect the institution rather than recognize the existence, nature, extent, and severity of problems.
But saying nothing accomplishes nothing. In the words of the sixteenth century English proverb, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Or as John Heywood’s 1546 glossary of English proverbs puts it, “Nothing ventured, nothing had - if you don't speak, you don't advance.” The French have a similar proverb from the early fourteenth century, "Qui onques rien n'enprist riens n'achieva." – “He who never undertook anything never achieved anything.
While the leaders and members of the organization may be spared discomfort and embarrassment, the problem will persist. Problems that are left unaddressed do not disappear. They grow worse. They also become more intractable.
Isn’t your reaction to the BCP 2019 a common reaction to prayer book revision?
People have different reactions to a proposed service book. They may have a favorable reaction to the proposed book. They will welcome the book for a variety of reasons. Some people don’t think about doctrine that the book embodies or the practices which it encourages. What matters the most to them is that it is “our book.” They will be using a book that their province produced and not the book that another province published. I believe that the Prayer Book and Liturgy Task Force and the College of Bishops are counting on this reaction from most ACNA’ers for acceptance of the BCP 2019.
Other people will welcome the proposed book because the book reflects their doctrinal and worship views. It is their kind of prayer book. For example, the BCP 2019 incorporates material from the Anglican Missal as well as ancient liturgies. It can be interpreted as teaching the Catholic doctrines of the real, substantive presence of Christ in the eucharistic elements and of eucharistic sacrifice. It takes the Catholic position that confirmation, absolution, ordination, marriage, and the anointing of the sick with blessed oils are sacraments.
People may have an adverse reaction to a proposed service book. They will reject the proposed book for a variety of reasons. Some people have a strong attachment to the prayer book that are using. The Episcopal Church underestimated the strength of this attachment when it replaced the 1928 Prayer Book with the 1979 Prayer Book and did not permit the continued use of the 1928 Prayer Book. A number of traditionalist Episcopal clergy and congregations split off from the Episcopal Church over the new prayer book. The Anglican Church of Canada and the Church of England learned from the Episcopal Church’s mistake and authorized books of alternatives services that could be used along with the 1962 Canadian Prayer Book and the 1662 Prayer Book. They did not make these books of alternative services the doctrinal and worship standard of the province but retained the historic Anglican formularies as their doctrinal and worship standard.
Other people simply do not like change. To them the proposed book represents change. In the twenty-first century change is a constant. The pace of change has been far more rapid than in any previous century. We have entered the digital age. Things become obsolete in the blink of an eye. I am writing this article on a laptop that needs a serious upgrade. Those who do not like change will cling to anything that offers them an illusion of stability. This may explain why a number of evangelicals and charismatics are drawn to things of the past—to unreformed Catholic doctrine and practices. But in today’s world as has always been the case, only one thing, one person, is changeless and unchanging—Jesus Christ.
A number of people recognize that the proposed service book has serious defects. In the case of the BCP 2019, for example, it fails to meet the doctrinal and worship standard of the historic Anglican formularies. It contains doctrine and practices that were not “lost” from the Anglican tradition but deliberate excised from that tradition because they were not agreeable to Scripture. Their incorporation into the proposed book represents an unwarranted departure from historic Anglicanism. On top of these defects the BCP 2019 lacks the essential qualities of simplicity, flexibility, and adaptability which are needed in a service book to be used on the North American mission feild. It makes no provision for alternative services of the Word for use in place of Morning and Evening Prayer and Holy Communion in circumstances where such alternative services are needed. These shortcomings are consequential enough to warrant withholding of the authorization of the book, particularly as a doctrinal and worship standard for the province.
Haven’t a lot of people put a lot of time and effort into preparing the BCP 2019?
A lot of time and effort were put into the 1928 Proposed English Prayer Book. Parliament rejected the proposed book twice. Why? The proposed book changed the doctrine and the practices of the Church of England. While the proposed book contained a number of rites and services from the 1662 Prayer Book, it also contained a number of alterations and additions that changed the Church of England’s doctrine and practices. If it had been approved by Parliament, it would have replaced the 1662 Prayer Book and consequently would have become a part of the Church’s standard of doctrine and worship. The proposed book would have also changed the Protestant, Reformed, and Evangelical character of the Church of England.
The involvement of a large number of people in the preparation of a service book is no guarantee that the rites and services of the book will be agreeable to reformed Anglican Church’s doctrinal foundation—the teachings of the Bible and the principles of the historic Anglican formularies. Nor is the length of time is taken to prepare it.
The process of revision that produced the 1928 Prayer Book began in 1913. The 1928 book, as E. Clowe Chorley points to our attention in The New American Prayer Book: Its History and Contents, introduced a number of radical changes in the American Prayer Book. It would move the Protestant Episcopal Church in a more Catholic and liberal direction.
The process of revision that produced the 1979 Prayer Book took several decades. Associated Parishes founded in 1946 would play an important role in its development as would the Liturgical Movement that became a significant influence in the Episcopal Church in the wake of the 1958 Lambeth Conference and the 1959 Second Vatican Council. This process included several trial service books.
In comparison with the length of time that went into the preparation of these service books and the service books of a number of other Anglican provinces, the process that produced the BCP 2019 has been a relatively short one despite what Bishop Robert Duncan claims.
I am prompted to ask, “Why the great haste?” The only reasonable explanation that I can come up with is that Duncan and others in the Council of Bishops, having rejected the normative standard of doctrine and worship of the Anglican Church—its historic formularies—are in hurry to replace them with To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism and The Book of Common Prayer 2019 as the province’s doctrinal and worship standard—a standard that is unreformed Catholic and consequently in step with the direction that they are taking the province.
Among the outcomes of Parliament’s rejection of the 1928 Proposed English Prayer Book was that the 1662 Book of Common Prayer would remain a part of the Church of England’s authorized standard of doctrine and worship. A number of bishops would permit the use of the proposed book in their dioceses. Rather than adopt a new prayer book, the Church of England would adopt two books of alternative services—The Alternative Service Book 1980 and twenty years later Common Worship (2000).
While an imperfect solution Parliament’s rejection of the 1928 Proposed English Prayer Book, the bishops’ authorization of limited use of the proposed book, and the subsequent adoption of two books of alternative services offer a way forward. The BCP 2019 should definitely not be adopted as the official prayer book of the Anglican Church in North America because of its numerous defects. However, individual bishops should be authorized to permit its use in their dioceses with the proviso that no member of the ACNA clergy and no ACNA congregation should be required to use it. Dioceses and other networks of churches should be permitted to develop their own service books provided that they conform to the doctrinal and worship standard of the historic Anglican formularies, or to use service books from other Anglican provinces or variations of these service books provided that they also conform to this doctrinal and worship standard.
As I drew to the attention of Anglican Ablaze readers in “Does the ACNA Need One Prayer Book?” the province has flourished using several different prayer books over the past ten years. A number of Anglican provinces authorize the use of more than one service book. While having a single prayer book has been the practice of the Continuing Anglican jurisdictions and the Episcopal Church, this practice has not benefited these ecclesial bodies. They are all in a state of decline. The adoption of the same practice has a strong likelihood of putting the brake on the growth of the Anglican Church in North America
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