Does the ACNA Need One Prayer Book?

By Robin G. Jordan

The Anglican Church in North America has already begun to hype the 2019 proposed ACNA prayer book. See  “The Book of Common Prayer 2019 Final Texts Released.”

This statement of Bishop Robert Duncan, Prayer Book and Liturgy Task Force Chairman, sent cold shivers down my spine, not from excitement but foreboding.

“The prayer book has taken the longest. It had to be done right and it will shape our life for years to come, generations to come. 

Here is how Bishop Duncan spins the Ancient-Future movement’s openness to unreformed Catholic doctrine and practices and the Anglican Reformers’ correction of the doctrine and practices of the Anglican Church in accordance with the Holy Scriptures.

The 2019 edition takes what was good from the modern liturgical renewal movement and also recovers what had been lost from the tradition.

Lost? The unreformed Catholic doctrine and practices that the English Reformers “cut away and clean rejected” on solid biblical grounds fostered error and superstition. Restoring them is no step forward. It is a step backward.

Like the Catechism, pieces of The Book of Common Prayer 2019 have already been translated and more translations are coming. Duncan admits he has already had calls from other provinces looking to the Liturgy Task Force for direction in developing their own revised prayer book.

Bishop Duncan said the same thing when the catechism was released. Just as then he fails to specify which provinces are eagerly calling him for direction in developing their own unreformed Catholic prayer book. He creates the false impression that what the Anglican Church in North America is doing is world-shaking, the wave of the future in global Anglicanism. It may be but not in a good way! As I have pointed to the readers of Anglicans Ablaze, one wing of the ACNA is seeking to export its brand of Anglicanism (if it can be called that) to the larger Anglican Church just like the Episcopal Church’s liberal wing.

At the same time one is prompted to view Duncan’s statement as more hype. With so many Anglican service books from which a province might choose if it wished to revise its own book, books that are far superior to the 2019 proposed ACNA prayer book, any province that took the proposed book as its model for a revised liturgy, I would be inclined to think is short on good judgment. It is typical for Duncan to seek to create the impression that the Anglican Church in North America is more important than it is.

As for the impact on the Anglican Church in North America, he believes the BCP 2019 will help to shape generations. After cultural revolution swept England in the 16th and 17th centuries, “the 1662 book was settling and stabilizing.” Duncan continued, “That very well may be the role that this prayer book has, and we have a hunch it’s going to be very useful and appropriate for the 21st century.”

More cold shivers of foreboding. Cultural revolution? Is Bishop Duncan equating the first two formative centuries of the reformed Anglican Church with the chaotic mass movement that Communist Party leader Mao Zedong launched it in the People's Republic of China 1966?

The English Reformation was a spiritual movement that restored the gospel to the Anglican Church. The Elizabethan Settlement established the shape of historic Anglicanism. What was at stake in the seventeenth century was not whether the Anglican Church should be Protestant but how Reformed it should be. Should it follow the path of Geneva or its own path? While the Anglican Church may have had  number of Arminian bishops at the time of the Restoration, it had a Reformed liturgy and a Reformed confession of faith. If there was any uncertainty about its identity, the Coronation Oath Act of 1688 cleared that up. It affirmed the Protestant and Reformed character of the Anglican Church.

As for equating the role of the 2019 proposed ACNA prayer book in this century with role of the 1662 Prayer Book at the Restoration, that is a real stretch. With some modifications the 1662 Prayer Book was essentially the reformed 1552 Prayer Book. It stood in continuity with that book and the Protestant, Reformed thinking that produced it. Any resemblance that 2019 proposed ACNA prayer book bears to 1662 Prayer Book is superficial. The Prayer Book and Liturgy Task Force cannibalized texts from the 1662 Prayer Book but they did not retain its doctrine or liturgical usages.

As for the usefulness and appropriateness of the proposed book in the twenty-first century that remains to be seen. Earlier today I posted an article drawing attention to the need for greater simplicity in our church services. The proposed book does not meet that requirement. It also lacks flexibility and adaptability—essentials on the North American mission field.

ACNA’ers who remain faithful to the Holy Scriptures and to historic Anglican beliefs and practices, those that are genuinely consistent with the historical Anglican formularies and the central Anglican theological tradition, do well to look beyond the hype and the spin. Like the ACNA’s catechism, the 2019 proposed ACNA prayer book is not a genuine expression of historic Anglicanism. In a round-about way Bishop Duncan admits that. The proposed book is not what Duncan would like ACNA’ers to believe it is.

As I have drawn to Anglican Ablaze readers’ attention in previous articles, the book has not been authorized by the Provincial Council to which the ACNA governance documents give the legislative authority in matters of doctrine and worship, not the College of Bishops. To be recognized as the official service book of the Anglican Church in North America and as a part of province’s doctrinal standard, the proposed book must be authorized by canon adopted by the Provincial Council and ratified by the Provincial Assembly.

The College of Bishops may be planning to ram such legislation through these two bodies at the upcoming Provincial Assembly. If that is the case, there needs to be a proviso in the legislation that it does not go into effect until a subsequent meeting of the Provincial Council approves the canon and a subsequent meeting of the Provincial Assembly ratifies it. The Provincial Council would be wise not to be hasty in authorizing the book. Indeed it might wish to give the book an extended trial use and make needed revisions before it considers authorizing the book. This is the established practice in a number of Anglican provinces.

Until the Provincial Council adopts and the Provincial Assembly ratifies such a canon the proposed book has no official standing in the Anglican Church in North America. Bishops may authorize its use within their jurisdiction as they may a number of other Anglican service books. They, however, do not have authority to require its use. Nor do they have the authority to penalize clergy and congregations that choose not to use it. To do so would be a violation of the ACNA’s governance documents and an abuse of episcopal authority.

I get the impression (and I admit that I may be wrong) that the College of Bishops is hoping that ACNA’ers will accept the proposed book solely based on its endorsement. This is consistent with the College of Bishop’s pattern of encroaching upon the authority of the Provincial Council and would set a dangerous precedent. It avoids the kind of public scrutiny that the proposed book might undergo if an authorization canon was submitted to the Provincial Council for its approval and to the Provincial Assembly for its ratification.

The 2019 prosed ACNA prayer book, however, should be subject to further scrutiny. It may have taken a long period of time to produce the proposed book but that is no guarantee that the book was “done right” as Bishop Duncan would have ACNA’ers believe.

ACNA’ers do well not to allow the excitement of the tenth anniversary of the province to cloud their judgment. The Anglican Church in North America has thrived without having one prayer book that is used throughout the province. One of the reasons it may be flourishing is due to that fact. The use of more than one prayer book enables the province to be more diverse in the ways that its congregations worship and to reach a wider segment of the North American unchurched population than it would if it was limited to one prayer book. Adopting a one prayer book that every congregation sooner or later must use may put the brake on its growth. It has certainly had that effect on the Continuum. The Episcopal Church adopted one prayer book and it is declining.

An Anglican province does not need one prayer book as long as the Holy Scriptures are its final authority in matters of faith and practice and the Thirty-Nine Articles and the 1662 Prayer Book form its doctrinal and worship standard. The Anglican Church of Australia has three prayer books and permits diocesan variations of these books.

The only reason that a province might want to adopt one prayer book in this century is that it wants to use that prayer book as its doctrinal standard or, in the case of the Anglican Church in North America, as a part of that standard, having abandoned the normative Anglican standards of doctrine and worship—the Bible (through its reliance upon tradition in the interpretation of Scripture), the historic Anglican formularies, and the Homilies (through its rejection of the authority of the Thirty-Nine Articles). The use of one prayer book certainly does not enhance its ability to fulfill the Great Commission.

Remember, we are living in the twenty-first century—the digital age. More and more churches are using multimedia projectors and screens. They are live-streaming their services on the Internet. They are using contemporary worship songs as well as traditional hymns. All kinds of musical instruments are used in their worship services. Prospective guests visit a church’s website before they ever attend one of its worship gatherings. What they see there will influence the next step that they take. Lengthy services and long unrelieved texts do not resonate with Baby Boomers as well as the younger generations. It is a whole different world from what it was fifty years ago, even ten years ago.

To reach the spiritual lost in this brave new world, we must think out of the box. Old ways of thinking are not going to serve us well. Our first thought should be how we can best fulfill the Great Commission in this century. Spreading the gospel and making disciples should be our number one priority. We should be leery of platitudes like “reaching North America with the transforming love of Jesus,” whatever that means. It is too easy for Anglicans to turn a blind eye to those who face an eternity without God and put a particular ecclesial praxis first. This is one of our greatest weaknesses. But if we wish to be faithful to our Lord, it is a weakness that with God’s help we must overcome.