I've recently, since moving to America, started to become interested in our prayer books from around the anglican communion, I’m a 1662 man myself but I attend a ACNA church plant and a lot of our congregation are former TEC and they all love the 1928 BCP, I don’t own a 1979 one yet and I haven’t heard anything good about it. What do The American anglicans think of the two? The 1662 has pretty much been unused in most of the CofE over the last many years but it’s making a comeback slowly but surely, the prayer book society gives each new ordinand a copy as they start thei training.
The 1928 is widely seen as a 1662+. Essentially in the same tradition, just amplified with things like more collects for more various occasions of life. It also has things like the Family Prayers which are easier to do than a full-blown Evensong (and even they come from the British side of the pond; we just happened to have officially incorporated them into our BCP). That being said, I'm a 1662 man myself. I love the 1928, but ultimately it will get pinched between the antiquity of the 1662 and the progressivism of whatever the contemporary liturgy may happen to be. We should retroactively incorporate new/fun things from the 1928 and just make a one mega-amplified 1662. Holding on to the 1928 will probably not make sense in a 100-year timeframe.
I agree with this sentiment. Even in the most Anglo-Catholic reaches of the Continuum, revision is now occasionally discussed. Bp. Hewitt suggested a revision using the American Missal as a base. There's no traction yet but it will gain traction if the 'G4' can actually achieve unity and the old-guard that was present at St. Louis is all gone. There are still a few crusty relics of that period hanging around that seem to have an outsized voice in the business of the Continuing churches. To the OP: what I consider special about the 1662 is that it contains rites for use at sea. I was in the Navy for five long years (also known as 5 1/2 years, but the VA doesn't give credit for partial years of service). I had a little pocket edition that I could, quite literally, tuck into any of the lower pockets of my coveralls. I got a lot of use out of that book. I still have it sitting on the shelf over my desk and use it at times. When I pass, my wish is to be buried at sea using the 1662 BCP. That said, any of the classic prayer books should be put through an NKJV like update. Update the syntax, replace the archaisms. I hear a lot of guys, including one of my closest colleagues, argue that you just have to educate the congregation. But I think taking the time to explain some of the odd phrasings and dis-used words in the BCP is distracting and sometimes even unproductive.
I find this interesting as I had not heard about such a proposed revision of the 1928 BCP. Would you happen to know where one could learn more about this suggestion by Bp. Hewitt?
He mentioned it a few times in his book of a couple of years ago "The Dayspring From on High". The book is a hard read and badly needed an editor but, among the myriad reports and some of his random theological tomes, he discusses a few things that he hopes for going forward.
Thanks! I found the book (somewhat to my surprise) available on Kindle. I might get it and see what he says.
There is a small-ish entourage of American Anglicans who love the 1662 Prayer Book the most. Obviously they don't use it for legal and canonical reasons, but they prefer it over the perceived anglo-catholic intrusions of the 1928 book. Getting to know the 1928 is probably your best stop for learning the traditional difference between English and American Anglicanism. Unless you really enjoy comparative liturgical studies, getting a 1979 book is really not necessary. You can probably grab one for free from an ex-episcopalian if you want. I admit I'm biased, but the upcoming 2019 book is the best contemporary-style option out there.
There will probably be a lot of 1979 BCPs available for the taking when the dreaded new ECUSA is published.
The Forms of Prayer for Use at Sea and the longer beginning to Mattins and Evensong are the main omissions from the 1928 American Book. And the main reason why such hybridization as you mention is desirable. Such work could include both an NKJV and a Jacobean language edition, especially if the ACNA releases the 2019 BCP into the Public Domain (which the ECUSA historically did), thus providing us with some basis for a shared, conservative modernization of the text, as opposed to he rather gross excesses of the 1979 BCP, the ICEL translations, the WCC Faith and Order material, et cetera. Even then I have to confess I wish we could stick to the old language. There is severe context loss when we drop the second person pronouns from use (Thou is semantically different from You, and insofar as English is losing a functional knowledge of Thou, it results in more and more phrases from other languages becoming untranslatable, or rather with an enormous loss of semantic context).
Abp. Haverland himself recently stated that the ACC is about to print a new edition of the American Missal which will contain yet more Canons of the Mass than were previously in use. Common prayer you say? Ha, Ha, Ha.
Well, an absolute commonality is overrated. Consider just for a moment the huge diversity of liturgical rites that historically existed just in the West, Latin speaking Christendom. Then you add the diverse usages of the Byzantine rite, for a Byzantine increase in liturgical complexity, and then when you factor in the other Oriental rites even the current surviving churches possess an amazing diversity of authentic, ancient liturgical patrimony which is beautiful. But there are key elements which every rite has in common with every other rite. The pax, the sursum corda, the sanctus, some form of institution narrative (which can take the form of an elaborate epiklesis in the Assyrian church), the Lord’s Prayer, and also, a common opening and closing of the liturgies, for example, the Anglican presces, and the Usual Beginning of the Byzantine Rite, all of which are very similar by the way. So the idea of common prayer strikes me as being more of a call to reverent, liturgical worship according to tradition, as opposed to an absolute adherence to a single supreme prayer book, but the great Anglican BCP editions are valuable liturgical and cultural treasures which should be preserved, which is why I like the work of the Prayer Book Society.
My thought is that a parishioner should be able to visit another parish and, if they are familiar with the basic structure of a prayer book liturgy, realize where they are in the service - even if they don't understand the language of the celebration! That's not to say that every collect or prayer may be accounted for, but the person should have some sense of when the liturgy of the word is taking place and when the canon of the mass begins. Then, they should be able to tell when the consecration is taking place. Introducing a bunch of foreign rites that few, if any, know how to PROPERLY celebrate is liturgical fetishism. For many of these guys, the liturgy is a stage production rather than an encounter with God.
I agree, in part. I think the variance, where it is allowed, should be contained, in Anglican parishes, to the anaphora of the Holy Communion services, where the most amount of variety exists. Regarding non-English speaking churches in the Anglican communion, here I disagree, because historically Anglicanism has made concessions to the liturgical traditions of the lands in which it operates. For example, the first prayer book used by the Anglicans in Mexico is not a BCP-derivative, but an exquisite translation into English and Spanish of a simplified form of the Mozarabic liturgy (which is particularly nice in the case of Mexico, as historically some Mozarabic usages pertaining to marriage were preserved in Mexico while replaced with the standard Roman Rite in Spain, although Mexico never had the entire Mozarabic Rite, that rite being limited to Toledo and then a shrinking minority in Toledo long before the 16th century). Another good example would be the usage of the Church of South India, which would have been perfect if it hadn’t been for some innovations like versus populum; their blending of the Divine Liturgy of St. James, the preferred liturgy of the Malankara Orthodox, with the Anglican worship services, something the Scottish non-Jurors had earlier done to a lesser degree, was an example of Anglican-appropriate incorporation of national liturgical patrimony. In like manner, my understanding is the Anglicans in Portugal use some elements of the endangered Rite of Braga, and in the US, the Swedish congregations which joined the Protestant Episcopal Church starting in the 18th century preserved their Lutheran, Swedish language style of worship, and later this was translated into English. And still later, the Lutherans in America borrowed heavily from the BCP starting in the 1860s as they began to transition to English liturgy. However, where there is not a national or regional tradition of Christian worship to follow, here, I think the safe initial approach is usually to just translate the BCP verbatim. I feel like New Zealand rather overdid it in their effort to inculturate Maori material in their BCP edition, and indeed the NZ service book is one of my least favorite contemporary Anglican liturgies; it strikes me as weak syncretic contrivance. This is not to devalue Maori culture or to say it has nothing to contribute; rather, the NZ prayerbook to me, if I were a Maori, would embarrass me; its massive attempt at Polynesian inculturation just seems patronizing and condescending, and also potentially offensive to people who still adhere to the traditional Maori beliefs; a possible stumbling block which could have the counterproductive effect of discouraging conversion. Some might disagree on this point, and cite the early Church, but I would note the early church tended to focus on simply translating the liturgical materials of the Patriarchate which was evangelizing in a new land. Thus, the rite of Alexandria was translated into Coptic; the Ethiopian church for complex reasons wound up with an Antiochene liturgy with strong Alexandrian influences (and Antiochianization also happened to the Coptic church); likewise the Byzantine, West Syriac, and the old, disused Armenian and Georgian Rites are all derivatives of the liturgy of Antioch and Jerusalem. Conversely, the Latin speaking churches tended to use from antiquity the austere Roman Rite in Rome, the Gallican family of liturgies in Northern Italy, France and Spain, and hybrids of the two wherever the church expanded, which eventually became standardized by the Dominicans and later at Trent. And the North Africans used something similar, clues to which exist in the homilies of St. Augustine, but alas, since these became extinct after the Islamic conquest of the Maghreb, we cannot say with certainty what their liturgy, or that of the Nubian Orthodox or the Orthodox in what is now called Azerbaijan, looked like.
I don't understand. When I was growing up, at the age of 4-5 I apparently, according to teachers, read at a 5th grade level. I read the KJV to my grandmother and went to church with her where they used the 1928 BCP. I never had trouble reading/understanding it, or the KJV either. Numerous people say it is hard to read/understand so it must be, but I just don't understand.