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News and Ideas from around the Anglican World |
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September 2006
Digging into the riches of Anglican worship
Reviewed by Alex Newman
Discovering the BCP:
ABC Publishing & The
Prayer Book
In times such as these, with the Anglican church balanced in limbo like some long married couple in midlife crisis mode, one might expect that the latest volume of Discovering the Book of Common Prayer by Sue Careless would address some thorny issues.
Instead, a head-on discussion of the church’s troubles is avoided in favour of looking directly at the BCP – a 16th century Anglican manifesto that’s considered to be one of the major works of English literature – and how it can uphold our life in the Church.
Where Volume I covered the importance of the BCP for understanding prayer, this volume takes a look at the importance of the Church itself as both body and bride of Christ.
Extolling the virtues of corporate worship -- that God has promised to minister to us through the Church – Careless reminds us that the community is a strong witness to nonbelievers when it “acts out its desire and delight in God.” Going it alone, as St Paul wrote in his letter to the Hebrews, is not advisable.
And while we may be ashamed of the Church’s “failings here on earth or fearful when we see her maligned” we are still to “love her and help her… anticipating her glorious consummation, of which we will be a living part, if we are faithful to the end.”
Attendance is crucial, Careless continues, because nothing replaces the “flesh and blood congregation that administers the sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion…. God has promised to act within [the Church]. Christians cannot self-administer the sacraments in isolation…The sacraments are to be celebrated as communal encounters with God.”
From this fairly thorough discussion on the nature of Church, Careless segues into baptism, catechism and confirmation, and communion, each chapter focused on how these rites build the Church’s--and consequently the believer’s--life.
For example, in the chapter on baptism, she covers how baptism in Jesus’ name differs from baptism by John, and the importance of godparents taking an active spiritual role in a child’s life.
Each chapter is replete with information on the rites that mark the life of our church – some of which I had either never known – like the intimate meaning of the words “thee” and “thy” – or things I’d forgotten about, such as the way we should approach communion. As the BCP expresses it, “we are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table”--with these words evoking the same humility as that of the prodigal son or the Canaanite woman who first spoke them.
While the book does a thorough job of unpacking the rites that mark our church life, thereby helping the laity to better understand why we do what we do, it didn’t address some of my own nagging questions. At the top of my list would be: Is the BCP and its beautiful but arcane language relevant in a world that has lost its linguistic and religious moorings?
Like Shakespeare, the language of the BCP is too beautiful to ever be dead, and certainly the inherent truth in its words will never be dated. There’s something about the BCP’s “manfully fight under his banner, against sin, the world, and the devil” that’s missing in the flatter BAS. But is it only meaningful for a generation of baby boomers raised in a Christian milieu? Can the BCP bridge the gap of an unchurched generation?
Careless answers the question indirectly. “Life is often boring when we live at a superficial level, when we do not let it really challenge us. A relationship can be dull if we know almost nothing about the other person and make little effort to connect with him or her…Church can be boring if we do not know God in any depth…we need to nurture [the relationship]…. if we short-change God at home, we should not be surprised if he seems distant to us in church.”
In effect, it is not just the choice of liturgy that can fail us, but the means by which we support that liturgy with human hands and hearts. We Anglicans have something unique. As Randall Balmer documents in his 1989 book Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, “Episcopalians historically have been latitudinarian in their theology, but what distinguishes them is their worship, their shared liturgy as prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer.”
The final question is whether the BCP, with its catechism, confirmation, Eucharistic and baptismal rites can hold together a Communion that is threatening to break apart. By refusing to use the BCP as a platform on which to raise the public debate in our church, Careless avoids a head-on collision with those theological currents. But there’s more method to the “madness” than meets the eye -- if this carefully researched volume can encourage Anglicans to look anew at the foundations of our belief, rather than where we are now, then it’s already accomplished “more than we can ask or imagine.”
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Copyright The Anglican Planet © 2006 |