The Book of Common Prayer 2019: A Review

By Robin G. Jordan

When the Anglican Church in North America’s Prayer Book and Liturgy Task Force began the work of preparing a prayer book for the province and released the final edition of its initial report, I concluded that the prayer book which the task force would eventually produce would not conform to the principles of doctrine and worship embodied in the Anglican Church’s historic formularies. The report was full of inaccurate and misleading statements. I was not the only critic of the report. The Rev. Gavin Dunbar described an earlier edition of the report as  “disappointing: both confused and confusing, polemical, and sometimes contradictory.” I further concluded that the book would not comprehend the diversity of doctrine and worship represented in the fledgling province. Rather it would bind the province in a doctrinal and liturgical straight jacket, permitting only one theological school of thought to flourish in the province while quietly suppressing the other theological schools of thought.

With the completion of The Book of Common Prayer 2019 this past April it was evident that the conclusions that I had drawn almost ten years ago were correct. One might describe the proposed prayer book 2019 as a modern adaptation of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer except that the book also shows the strong influence of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. The proposed book, however, is far more unreformed Catholic in its doctrine and practices than the 1928 and 1979 Prayer Books. The only thing missing from the book is the explicit sacrificial language of the Roman Missal and the invocation of the Virgin Mary and the saints.

I believe that an accurate description of The Book of Common Prayer 2019 would be “Anglo-Catholic traditionalist” with some concessions to the worship renewal movement of the past 30 odd years. None of these concessions conflicts with the unreformed Catholic doctrine to which the book gives expression in its rites and services.

It is quite clear from even a cursory examination of The Book of Common Prayer 2019 that the proposed book is intended to be a foundation stone of what former ACNA Archbishop Robert Duncan has described as a “new settlement.” (The revised catechism to be released at Provincial Assembly 2019 is the other foundation stone.) The references to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer in the proposed book are window dressing. As in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer the Thirty-Nine Articles have been relegated to the proposed book’s equivalent of the historical documents section of the 1979 Prayer Book. The title of this section has been changed but not its purpose. The proposed book in its doctrine and practices is a repudiation of the Elizabethan Settlement and the historical Anglican formularies that shaped the “Protestant, Reformed religion” of historic Anglicanism.

The Book of Common Prayer 2019 clearly favors traditional Anglo-Catholicism, not broader Catholic Revivalism. This is evident from the fact that the so-called Holy Eucharist: Renewed Ancient Text does not have an entrance rite, liturgy of the Word, prayers of the faithful, communion rite, and closing rite modeled on the corresponding rites of the ancient liturgies as well as from the structure and content of the other rites and services in the proposed prayer book 2019. The proposed book exalts the role of the bishop and the priest as a dispenser of sacramental grace.

In preparing The Book of Common Prayer 2019 the Prayer Book and Liturgy Task Force appears to have put the preferences of one segment of the Anglican Church in North America before the mission of the Church. Mission-minded, mission-shaped, or missional do not describe the proposed prayer book 2019. The proposed book is not attuned to the realities of the twenty-first century North American mission field. The services of the proposed book resemble the earlier trial services of the 1960s and 1970s of the Church of England and the Episcopal Church. These services did not meet the local church’s need for a modern liturgy in the mid-twentieth century. It is hard to see how the services of the proposed book, which resemble these services, are going to meet the local church’s need for a modern liturgy in the third decade of the twenty-first century.

The North American mission field has changed dramatically since the mid-twentieth century. It is much more culturally, linguistically, racially, ethnically, and spiritually diverse. Church attendance patterns have also changed greatly. The number of non-church going families and individuals increases every year. Families and individuals are using their free time on Sundays to pursue other activities besides attending a church. In communities that experiencing rapid population growth, new church plants can no longer count on this population growth for an influx of new attendees. The twenty-first century is the century of the “nones” and the “dones.” In preparing the proposed book, the Prayer Book and Liturgy Task Force appears to have been oblivious to these changes. They were not on the task force’s radar.

A bright red cover embossed with a Jerusalem cross, an attractive layout, and a readable type face do not compensate for The Book of Common Prayer 2019's shortcomings. What the Anglican Church in North America needs is not a “beautiful prayer book” but flexible, adaptable services that can be used in a variety of settings and which will help local churches to fulfill the Great Commission and will not hinder them.

ACNA’ers who are genuinely committed to spreading the gospel in Canada, Mexico, and the United States, making disciples, and enfolding them in new churches will not want to waste their money on The Book of Common Prayer 2019. It will not provide them with the worship resources that they will need to achieve these aims. There are much better worship resources for this purpose online.