The Book of Common Prayer of 1979: Some Thoughts

“All intelligent missionaries realize the importance of adapting their services to the people they desire to convert.” William Palmer Ladd, Prayer Book Interleaves (1942, 1943, 1957)

Dean Ladd wrote those words shortly before the United States entered World War II. Prayer Book Interleaves, a collection of his articles and lectures was published posthumously. He died in 1941. 80 years later Anglicans in North America have yet to grasp that simple concept.

After a rocky start the Episcopal Church USA was hitting its stride with the 1979 Book of Common Prayer when it shot itself in the foot with the consecration of an openly gay bishop. In confirming his election and consecrating Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire, the Episcopal Church did not consider the toll that it would take on dioceses and local churches. The Episcopal Church would damage its reputation in a number of communities with the consecration. 

While progressive Episcopalians hailed the consecration, conservative Episcopalian began the exodus that culminated in the formation of the second Anglican Church in North America. In a number of communities, the Episcopal Church became a pariah, shunned by the more conservative segment of the population.

What had been my own diocese, the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana, took a shellacking in the wake of the consecration. Several parishes experienced a major setback as a consequence. A new parish in Jefferson Parish lost so many parishioners that it was unable to keep its parish status. A thriving new work in East Baton Rouge Parish suffered such an abrupt decline in its worship attendance, it was forced to shut down. A second thriving work in St. Tammany Parish became a ghost of its former self as its worship attendance quickly evaporated. The consecration was one of the factors that weakened my former parish, resulting in it losing its parish status in 2007. 

It was not the 1979 Book of Common Prayer that caused the sudden decline in worship attendance. It was the Episcopal Church’s social agenda. The 1979 Prayer Book had been in use for over two decades. In the mid-1980s two small groups of disaffected Episcopalians in my former deanery had launched breakaway churches after Bishop James Brown reversed his policy against ordaining women. These two churches used the 1928 Prayer Book. They, however, were short-lived. They were not able to attract new members. 

Bishop Brown’s decision, while upsetting to some Episcopalians in the diocese, did not have the impact that the Gene Robinson consecration would have. The ordination of women was at the time accepted as a fait accompli in most of the Episcopal Church. Brown was one of the few remaining bishops who refused to ordain women. He would license them if they were resident in the diocese but had been ordained elsewhere.

The deacon at my mother’s church refused to let any of the girls in the congregation to become acolytes and servers, including my oldest niece and his own daughters. He saw acolytes and servers as the first rung on the ladder to the priesthood. We would transfer my niece’s membership to the new church plant in which I was involved, and which had no policy against female acolytes and servers. He and his wife would eventually separate and divorce. His wife would go on to become an Episcopal priest. He would leave the Episcopal Church over women’s ordination and became a priest in one of the Continuing Anglican Churches.

All the new churches that were planted in the Diocese of Louisiana between 1979 and 2003 used the contemporary language services of the 1979 Prayer Book. The flourishing new church plant that was launched in Marshall County in western Kentucky in 1980 and which I visited in the early 1980s also used the same services. It was a small but growing congregation with bright prospects. 

The events of 2003 would put a brake on its progress and would lead to the closure of a struggling Episcopal church in Graves County in 2006. The two churches were at one time yoked together with the priest who served the church in Graves County also serving the church in Marshall County. Changing demographics, a far from ideal location—a cul de sac that did not have direct access to a main artery, and the Episcopal Church’s social agenda, not the 1979 Prayer Book, were the primary factors behind its demise.

Despite the hullabaloo over the 2019 ACNA Prayer Book, the book is inferior in a number of the ways to the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. For use on the North American mission field, I would personally choose the 1979 Prayer Book over the 2019 ACNA Prayer Book. The 1979 Prayer Book has its shortcomings, but it is more adaptable than the 2019 ACNA Prayer Book. 

The 2019 ACNA Prayer Book has been described as a poor-quality knockoff of the 1979 Prayer Book and in some ways that is an accurate description of the book. It also lacks the flexibility of the 1979 Prayer Book. 

The compilers of the 1979 Prayer Book looked to the first five centuries of the Christian Church for models for its rites and services. The compilers of the 2019 ACNA Prayer Book looked to the late Medieval Church. They catered to the old style high churchmanship, which is found in the declining Anglo-Catholic dioceses of the Anglican Church in North America and is on its way out in the ACNA. The services are long, full of superfluous elements, and show a lack of liturgical acumen.

We are apt to forget that the 1979 Book of Common Prayer was the service book that attracted many evangelicals and charismatics to liturgical forms of worship and eventually to the Episcopal Church and the convergence churches. The latter used the 1979 Book of Common Prayer as their service book. It was the service book that awakened the interest of these evangelicals and charismatics in the liturgical church. It was not the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.

The only selling point that the 2019 ACNA Prayer Book has going for it is that it was produced by the Anglican Church in North America, but that does not say much for the book. It is not a good reason to purchase and use a service book that is not designed with the realities of the North American mission field in mind. It is designed for a world that does not exist except in the imaginations of its compilers. While some ACNA leaders promote the use of the book, their judgment must be questioned.

The drawbacks of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer can be corrected with appropriate supplemental material. The defects of the 2019 ACNA Prayer Book, however, require a new service book.

The 1979 Book of Common Prayer would benefit from a more flexible format for the Daily Offices like the one in the Anglican Church of Canada’s The Book of Alternative Services (1985). It would benefit from An Outline of the Faith, or Catechism, more agreeable to Scripture and the Articles of Religion. It would also benefit from some other changes.

While the 1979 Book of Common Prayer has been made a whipping boy and scapegoat for the faults of the Episcopal Church, it served the Episcopal Church well in its last period of church planting before the events of 2003. It also served the fledgling Anglican Church in North America well in its early years. I do not see the older service books or the 2019 ACNA Prayer Book serving the ACNA as well as the 1979 Prayer Book has. The only service book that I see serving the ACNA as well as the 1979 Prayer Book is Common Worship (2000). While ACNAers may wish to distance themselves from the Episcopal Church, they also need to consider what will work best for them on the North American mission field. The 2019 ACNA Prayer Book is not their best choice.