Book Review: “A Companion to the Book of Common Prayer”

A Companion to the Book of Common Prayer. By Gerald Bray. Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 2023. 522 pp. $117 (hardcover), $46.88 (paper).

Prayer Book commentaries—close studies of the Book of Common Prayer that analyze it with regard to its language, liturgy, theology, history, etc.—were once fairly common as a genre.[1] Nowadays such works are rare, and older specimens are typically out of print. It is therefore worth remarking on when a new book of this kind is published, such as we find in Gerald Bray’s A Companion to the Book of Common Prayer, possibly the most in-depth treatment of the traditional 1662 Prayer Book to have been written in over a hundred years. Bray identifies what he considers to be a problem with the 1662 Prayer Book today, namely that it “has become frozen over time”:

It is embedded in the law of England and, short of disestablishment, that situation is unlikely to change. In other parts of the world, conditions are now so different that English usage is no longer appropriate or even possible. This is most obvious in the prayers for the Sovereign and the royal family, which abound in the prayer book but are inapplicable in non-Commonwealth countries, where there are now large numbers of Anglicans. There are also other archaisms that crop up here and there which puzzle the uninitiated and sometimes lead to curious anomalies. (xii)

The 1662 Book of Common Prayer: International Edition, published in 2021, was meant to address such issues, and Bray is aware of this. He praises the editors, Samuel Bray and Drew Keane, for showing that “modest and sensitive revision is possible” (xii) and mentions their work as an inspiration for his own book, which is meant to be “a modern guide to the 1662 book that will make it more accessible to our present generation in the way that the authors of The Tutorial Prayer Book did for theirs” (xiii). To be clear, though, his commentary is based on the original 1662 text, not the revision produced by Bray and Keane. His reasoning for choosing to focus on the original text is that “it makes no sense to study a modernised version of the 1662 text in detail, especially since the modernisations are not great enough to constitute a different language, but, at the same time, students must be alerted to archaic linguistic phenomena that may interfere with their understanding” (3)

Before commencing his actual commentary, Bray begins with a compact history of the Book of Common Prayer and its underlying sources, narrating the development of liturgical worship in the Old Testament, the early church, the medieval period, and finally culminating in the formation and evolution of the Book of Common Prayer during the English Reformation. This portion of the book is richly informative, particularly in its discussion of the discrete types of liturgical texts produced during the Middle Ages and the influence they came to have on the Book of Common Prayer. Turning to the Prayer Book itself, although Bray’s primary focus is the 1662 edition, he does not examine it in isolation. For every section of the Prayer Book, Bray shows how the text evolved from 1549 to 1552, then from 1552 to 1662, with changes indicated by having the relevant text bolded, grayed out, or in brackets. Furthermore, Bray often illustrates structural developments in particular Prayer Book rites by organizing their component parts in columns so the differences between each edition are easier to identify. Every rite is also broken down and analyzed, with Bray drawing out the theological significance and purpose of each part. These elements come together to make an exploration of the Prayer Book that is often interesting and insightful.

All of this being said, it must be noted that in analyzing a text such as the Prayer Book, the commentator’s theological predilections inevitably come into play. Bray is no exception, and it is frequently evident that his own inclinations are decidedly low-church, sometimes to the point of making theologically dubious assertions. Perhaps most egregiously, in commenting on the words of the Athanasian Creed stating that on Judgment Day all “shall give account for their own works, And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting, and they that have done evil, into everlasting fire,”[2] he claims that this “seems to be advocating a form of salvation by works” and that it “represents unfinished theological business that was not fully elucidated until Martin Luther proclaimed justification by faith alone” (190–91). Without casting aspersions on Luther or the doctrine of justification by faith, this is an audacious thing to say about an ecumenical creed that is affirmed by Article VIII of the Thirty-nine Articles as “thoroughly to be received and believed,” as it “may be proved by most certain warrants of holy Scripture.”[3] Other comments likely to raise eyebrows include the following: Christ was capable of sinning (189);[4] Christ saves us only by “his resurrection from the dead,” not by his “earthly life and death” (365); “the prayer book does not teach a doctrine of baptismal regeneration” (375), which is different from saying the Prayer Book does not require a doctrine of baptismal regeneration; non-alcoholic grape juice “can always be used” as an alternative to wine in the Eucharist (258); and “prayers for the dead are wrong” (290), without any qualification. In a particularly bizarre move, as part of his discussion of transubstantiation in relation to the service for Holy Communion, Bray maintains that it is “wrong,” a medieval novelty, to say that “the original goodness of creation had been marred by sin and the material world no longer reflected the Glory of God in the way that it should have done” (262). “The sixteenth-century Reformers,” he continues, “rejected this way of thinking. To them, nature was what God had made it and its character did not change” (262–63). It is a commonplace of orthodox Christian thought—not confined to the Church of Rome or any other denomination—that the Fall did indeed adversely affect nature, and it is not apparent what sources Bray has in mind to substantiate his claim.

To summarize, potential readers should be aware of such theological oddities if they intend to read this book. Nonetheless, there is much to be gained from Bray’s work, especially in how he sheds light on the sources underlying the Prayer Book and the specific ways in which it developed over time into the authorized English form we have today. Little to no comparable scholarly research on this subject aimed at a general audience is currently being published, so the good work Bray does here is much to be appreciated.

Notes

  1. See Drew Keane, “Top Ten Commentaries on the Book of Common Prayer,” The North American Anglican, 11 August 2021, https://northamanglican.com/top-ten-commentaries-on-the-book-of-common-prayer/.
  2. Samuel L. Bray and Drew N. Keane, eds., The 1662 Book of Common Prayer: International Edition (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic 2021), 30.
  3. Bray and Keane, 1662 Book of Common Prayer, 631.
  4. For a defense of Christ’s impeccability, see James Clark, “Christ’s Impeccability and the Doctrine of God [Commentary on Browne: Article XV (1)],” The North American Anglican, 22 August 2023, https://northamanglican.com/christs-impeccability-and-the-doctrine-of-god-commentary-on-browne-article-xv-1/.

James Clark

James Clark is the author of The Witness of Beauty and Other Essays, and the Book Review Editor at The North American Anglican. His writing has appeared in Cranmer Theological Journal, Journal of Classical Theology, and American Reformer, as well as other publications.


'Book Review: “A Companion to the Book of Common Prayer”' has 1 comment

  1. January 22, 2025 @ 2:48 pm Wes Morgan

    Thanks for this review, James! While I haven’t look at it yet, based on what you said, I like the layout scheme by comparing the 1662 to prior versions. It can be challenging to fully comprehend the differences in one setting. While I’d like to read the context, the claims noted here by Bray are puzzling and deeply concerning, regardless of one’s churchmanship. I’d hope he clarifies his statements.

    Reply


Would you like to share your thoughts?

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

(c) 2025 North American Anglican

×