In The Pastoral Use of the Prayer Book by the Rt. Rev. William Paret (1826-1911), the once bishop of Maryland tells his young clergy and postulants they should be asking themselves this question: “How am I going to act, what am I going to do in the service and pastoral work which are before me?”[1] His careful, reasoned answer, set forth throughout the rest of the charming and fascinating work, is for them to doggedly adhere to every jot and tittle of the Book of Common Prayer.
He writes, “The rubrics are the accumulation and careful record of the eighteen centuries of the Church’s experience. You will find careful obedience to them, yes, minute obedience, your truest liberty, and your best safety from your own fancies or willfulness…”[2] One imagines the bishop would be quite scandalized by the pastoral libertinism which defines far too much of the 21st century Anglican Way.
Our Actions Tell a Story
The bishop’s shock set aside, a good question for clergy and other leaders of the Anglican Way to ask themselves is not dissimilar from what is written above: “What story does the actions, focus, and eccentricities of my church’s services and pastoral work tell the members and guests of my parish?” This question came to the forefront of my own mind through several conversations with fellow clergy who had lost members of their flock to the Roman Catholic Church, but one could as easily consider the question from the perspective of a church losing members to a Baptist or Pentecostal group. My anecdotal experience finds the former to be more of an acute phenomenon than the latter but local context will dictate the strength of the forces pulling against a particular Anglican church.
Of course, the jurisdictions within the Anglican Way feature different books of common prayer and shifting customs, which can be manfully defended by all those involved, and the individual clergy who are allowed a great deal of lee-way in the administration of their parishes will be able to present arguments for why they do the things they do; however, those arguments, no matter how sincerely and deftly marshalled, are functionally irrelevant if the story a parish tells, in the powerful language of each and every liturgical and catechetical choice, is one of perceived inferiority to the Romanist or Baptist church down the street.
The cure for this malaise begins with ceasing to shoehorn those groups’ beliefs and practices into the Anglican Way. A bad habit which then necessitates massive amounts of conflicting apologetics constructed to the satisfaction of the clergyman and the confusion of the clarity-seeking congregant. For that layman, a gigantic strength of both the Romanist and Baptist/Non-Denominational systems lies in the massive confidence they project at an institutional level. That confidence speaks to regular people in a way which cuts through the deep arguments which occupy the time and minds of clergy. Priests who fail to aggressively challenge that unearned confidence at every opportunity push people into the arms of those vastly inferior systems for Christian discipleship and truly imperil souls. Laymen who fail to drink deeply from their own tradition, and then welcome clergy who actively teach against it, should not be surprised when the side which cannot figure out if it wants to win or lose just ends up losing.
Strange Capitulations
This strange capitulation can be seen in many ways, but it usually starts in churches which either ignore or side-step the rubrics clearly written in their prayer books to initiate either a “catholic” or “evangelical” revival. Take, for example, the very widespread decision in the late 20th century for parishes to ignore the five-hundred-year Anglican tradition of covering the unconsumed but consecrated bread and wine with a fair linen cloth. This simple, elegant bit of ceremonial showed the holy, set-apartness of the elements while discouraging oracular adoration and thus encouraged the congregation instead to “Take and Eat”—to adore Christ in their hearts, souls, and bodies as our Lord instituted and intended. A layman sees this rubric ignored and begins to question, “Why?”
A similar example can be seen in the actions of priests during the consecration of the elements. The manual acts that the priest is expected to dutifully enact are right next to the words he is required to say, and yet, it is basically accepted in most parishes that one set of words is binding and another is not. The catholic revivalist adds the elevation[3] of the bread and wine and other historically and doctrinally dissonant actions into the celebration, while the evangelical revivalist tends to make it up as he goes along. Everyone in the pews can see these choices and wonder, “Why?”[4]
One also sees this slow surrender in the evangelical revivalist churches which jettison the surplice (the white uniform of heaven) because it’s not seeker friendly or ditch the historic lectionary because topical sermons are more relevant (thus implying that the whole counsel of God is functionally irrelevant) or which spend the vast majority of their sacramental instruction ensuring no one thinks the holy mysteries are actually effectual. Life in the worst of these churches becomes a daily journey to find what piece of the Anglican Way can be cut off and offered up in the hopes that a new family will join the church despite seeing “Anglican” on the sign out front.
Is there any distinct value in the “Anglican Way”?
What story do all of these cumulative decisions tell the members and guests of a church? In the clear language of action and ceremony, it tells them there is a secret treasure trove of superior liturgical and pastoral theology not to be found in the boring, old prayer books and other formularies of the church in which they are attending. These other, better traditions are the space in which the clever pastor or board must go to correct the glaring deficiencies found in the actual, documented religion created by the Anglican martyrs who came before them and the generations of men and women who defended it and showed its lasting value. It really doesn’t matter how well the clergyman or lay leader explains these choices because they clearly send the message either that there is nothing distinctively valuable in the five-hundred-year reformed catholic history of the Anglican Way, or more seriously, that a person should run to one of the pure sources and stop living in a second-rate copy of the true church.
Is a layman’s decision based on these choices entirely rational? No, it is not. Is that fair? No, it is not. But war is not entirely rational nor is it fair, and it is the war between good and evil in which the church militant is called to serve. One can bemoan this fact or begin the hard work of evaluating liturgical and pastoral choices not on how they make us feel about our former traditions (an always difficult task for the convert), or what clergy or our friends or our family in other traditions will think about us, or even how they align with our own perfect theological opinions, but rather with the determined purpose of showing forth the distinctive value of the Anglican Way in this century and the next.
This process will be different for every parish,[5] and what follows below are merely suggestions from a priest and lifelong Anglican. Anglican churches in America are governed by bishops, standing committees, constitutions, and canons, and these points are not meant to disrupt decency and good order or foment revolution (an entirely un-Anglican idea).
Mere Suggestions
A good place to start is in catechesis. Too often, Anglican churches neglect this necessary practice and allow their congregations to be catechized by YouTube or their more evangelistic friends. But, even among parishes which do have regular catechesis, strange choices can be made for the material. I have known of an Anglican church to use the Roman Catholic Catechism for its course (essentially operating as a minor-league Roman Catholic Initiation for Adults). My suggestion would be Alexander Nowell’s Middle Catechism (sometimes called The Anglican Catechism of 1572). This work had a semi-formulary status in the reign of Elizabeth I and pairs well with the shorter catechism in the prayer book (mostly written by the same Alexander Nowell). Another good supplemental choice is James Ussher’s A Body of Divinity, which is also in question-and-answer format.
For clergy, think through every liturgical choice from the perspective of distinctively Anglican practice. For example, celebrating the Eucharist from the northside, eastside, or westside can be argued for days by men of good will, but one cannot argue that celebrating from the northside is not an Anglican distinctive which immediately sets apart those churches which follow the common five-hundred-year tradition.[6] Additionally, the use of a full surplice, tippet, and cope (over and against chasuble, fancy lace, or selvedge jeans) visually identifies a distinctive tradition to be investigated or defended. Boldly attack the cognitive dissonance of ignored rubrics and practices condemned in the very prayer book the congregants hold in their hands. Think long and hard about what it tells our laymen when we use personal devotionals and breviaries and office books rather than modeling the prayer book’s daily office for them. Further, if Richard Hooker had time to pray the daily office publicly and write The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, we can probably make time for it too.
For clergy and laymen, rediscover and reintroduce treasures like The Books of Homilies and the metrical psalter of Tate and Brady (once connected to many editions of the American Book of Common Prayer). Read the incredible new editions of Richard Hooker, William Whitaker, and John Davenant, and others being published and demand more of the great Anglican theologians be printed again. Put down the beads and shallow devotionals and pray or sing our fantastic Litany. In short, cultivate and encourage a church culture which looks more like the Anglican Way in her periods of vigorous strength and quiet confidence rather than in her periods of confusion and decline.
What lies in the balance is nothing less than the ecclesiastical future of America and the wider world our culture inevitably influences. Growing numbers of people are seeing the idols of our time fail to bring them the joy and peace they were promised. Let us pray that a confident and distinctively Anglican Way is ready to show them a trustworthy and well-worn path to our Lord and King.
Notes
- Paret, William, The Pastoral Use of the Prayer Book (Baltimore: The Maryland Diocesan Library, 1904), 9. ↑
- Ibid., 12. ↑
- The elevation of the bread and wine was not common in the first 1,000 years of the church and only gained widespread use in the 12th and 13th centuries to buttress the innovative doctrine of transubstantiation. This new practice was eliminated in the 1549 Book of Common Prayer, and so to reintroduce elevation is to ignore the fact that Anglicans have a longer history of not elevating the bread and wine than we do of elevating it (over and above the theological implications). One can very much believe in the Real Presence without aping Roman ceremony. ↑
- It is a sad fact that the 2019 Book of Common Prayer followed the 1979 Book of Common Prayer in not having these older, clearer directions, but the product of their absence can be seen in the disorder which followed: bizarro Cranmerian Tridentine Mass for some, “stage” wandering chaos for others. There is every good reason to look back to 1662 BCP for clarity. ↑
- An easy way to be distinctively Anglican is to use the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and follow the rubrics, but a rubrically disciplined 1928 BCP service falls into the same category, and in increasing numbers, the 2019 BCP is being adapted all over the country to be in conformity with the 1662 BCP. ↑
- The 1662 BCP rubrics demand northside celebration, the 2019 allows it, and the 1928 BCP’s direction for the priest to stand “reverently before the Holy table” was a means of allowing eastside celebration not to ban the northside position. ↑
