The new TEC Book of Common Prayer: what do we know thus far?

Discussion in 'Liturgy, and Book of Common Prayer' started by Liturgyworks, Sep 2, 2019.

  1. Liturgyworks

    Liturgyworks Well-Known Member Anglican

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    As most of us are aware, the splendid new 2019 ACNA BCP has something of a nemesis in the works at TEC; after resolving not to replace the BCP based on the problems the introduction of the 1979 BCP caused, the Episcopal Church with its panache for self-destructive decision making changed its mind in 2016 (IIRC), and the first reports I saw concerning ideas for the new BCP looked rather dreadful. Indeed I expect the very unpleasant 2006 ELCA and 2009 PCUSA hymnals will look quite good in comparison (they are also replacing the hymnal as one might expect; I really am very cynical about new hymnals in the mainline churches given that most of them are headquartered in Nashville, practically next door to the companies which mass-produce praise and worship music; TEC is based in New York City but I still cannot fathom any reason for replacing the 1980 hymnal).

    Indeed it has been impossible to receive any news concerning the new Episcopalian BCP with equanimity. But in the spirit of bracing ourselves for that which is to come, I feel inclined to ask other members what they have heard regarding this latest liturgical misadventure.
     
  2. mediaque

    mediaque Active Member

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    Yes, I too have heard about a new BCP to come out. I was speaking to our Deacon not long ago and happened to mention the BCP and he said that indeed there was one coming, but according to him it's going to be a while before it comes out. So, that's all I've heard about it thusfar. How 'long' is a while?
    :: shrugs :: I've no idea.
     
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  3. Jeffg

    Jeffg Active Member

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  4. Liturgyworks

    Liturgyworks Well-Known Member Anglican

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    :cry:

    I hope not. To an extreme extent, I hope not. The ECUSA stupidly replacing their service book is bad enough; given the veritable potpourri of heresy in the 2006 ELCA hymnal or the 2009 PCUSA hymnal*, the thought ot the ECUSA “updating” their hymnal fills me with terror.

    The 2006 ELCA book is vile and disgusting. As recently as 2011 I visited an ELCA parish where the continued retention of the rather decent Lutheran Book of Worship** mitigated the unpleasant effect of an annoying Finnish pastor (who dared speculate, on Easter Sunday, about whether or not our Lord was married; this was the otherwise Danish parish in Solvang, California, by the way, which is a decent parish, but for a time they had a seriously annoying pastor who could not even speak the language, except to the extent permitted by the high degree of mutual intelligibility between Swedish, Danish and Norwegian, assuming he was a native Swedish speaker or could speak Swedish well, which I doubt given his accent lacking the characteristic sounds of the speakers of the three primary languages of the former Kalmar Union).***



    * The booklet published with the 2009 PCUSA hymnal to “prepare” congregations for it, and/or the preface; I could look it up but I have rather an upset stomach, has the temerity to assert that hymnals (and by mainline Protestant extension, service books) have roughly a 15 year lifespan and require periodic replacemen5, and that the hymns themselves require periodic culling and replacement. I felt as though I should write an article replying with characteristically Orthodox triumphalism that my church, not being headquartered in Nashville nor beholden to the commercial interests of the record companies, has not seen fit to replace our hymnals since they were first introduced in their present configuration approximately 1200 years ago, and that the average age of our hymns, not counting the Psalms and Biblical Canticles, is roughly 900 years, and it would be much older were it not for the frequent addition of canons, troparia and kontakia, or various Oriental equivalents thereof, to venerate newly glorified saints, as well as the recent proliferation in the number of Akathist hymns (there used to be only one, and it remains sufficiently popular so as to be referred to as The Akathist). On that note, it also made me appreciate to a greater extent than I had previously the merits of a capella exclusive psalmody as practiced by some Presbyterians, despite its inherent inconsistency with St. Paul’s directive concerning church music and indeed the Regulative Principle in general; here, traditional Anglicanism as one might well expect, gets things right.

    ** The LBW, or “Green Book” and Rite II of the 1979 BCP are what you might call “Kissing Cousins,” jointly developed to a large extent, but while the resulting work is mostly inferior to the very excellent 1959 Lutheran Service Book and Hymnal of the ALC, it does provide one very beneficial feature for Lutheran services, that being fully constituted anaphoras, a point which infuriated the LBW’s original instigators, the LCMS, prompting them to develop their own version, the “Blue Book”, but many LCMS parishes still use the 1941 Lutheran Hymnal (the “Red Book”), which is on a par with the 1940 Episcopalian hymnal, the 1964 Methodist hymnal and the aforesaid 1959 ALC Service Book and Hymnal in terms of musical quality, although as a service book, the 1941 “Red Book”, the “Blue Book” and indeed the otherwise very good 2006 Lutheran Service Book, suffer as far as their Eucharistic services are concerned from Martin Luther’s baffling opposition to the Roman Canon being interpreted as precluding any kimd of anaphora, even one drawn up along explicitly Lutheran lines.

    *** The mutual intelligibility of Danish and Norwegian is greatest; Swedish is slightly less mutually intelligible to Danish and Norwegian ears, and I would expect that Swedish as spoken in the former Grand Duchy is harder yet for Danes and Norwegians to comprehend. This intelligibility does not, it should be noted, extend to other Nordic languages such as Icelandic or Faroese, and obviously as most users are aware, Finnish is in a different language family, related to the languages of Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, and the Urals, and also if memory serves the language of the Lapplanders (Sami).
     
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  5. Shane R

    Shane R Well-Known Member

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    I recall prayer book revision being voted down at the last GC. Instead, the consensus seemed to be to offer yet more 'alternative services' to supplement the '79 BCP.
     
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  6. Liturgyworks

    Liturgyworks Well-Known Member Anglican

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    I recall them changing their minds in 2016. If they changed their minds again that would be a relief. Due to Stand Firm having closed, it has become harder to follow TEC news.
     
  7. Liturgyworks

    Liturgyworks Well-Known Member Anglican

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    https://www.episcopalnewsservice.or...plan-for-liturgical-and-prayer-book-revision/

    So the good news is that there will be no blasphemous 2030 BCP, with the 1979 BCP “memorialized” as reflecting the historic doctrine and liturgy of the Episcopal Church.

    Now for the bad news: What they are going to do, which is almost as bad, is create what sounds like an Episcopalian-Liberal-Heretical answer to Common Worship and the Canadian Alternative Service Book. So the 1979 BCP, with biting irony, will in this dark comedy of errors and malice that is the leadership of TEC, become akin to the 1662 BCP in the UK, or the 1962 Canadian Book, or rather, even worse off, in that it will be “memorialized” and doubtless there will be parishes that use it for some services, most likely Rite I, since next to a new Common Worship Rite II will be rather superfluous, but on the whole the worship of the Episcopal Church will degenerate further, and the relative stability the 1979 BCP facilitates in most parishes (it being a prayer book I can live with, although it is certainly not my favorite), will be forfeit.
     
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  8. Cooper

    Cooper Active Member Anglican

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    I hope there will not be any changes or revisions to the 1979 TEC BCP. At least not until I have been buried in my local cemetery for a few decades.

    :book:
     
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