The Prayer Book Society published a fascinating piece on anti-Prayer Book sentiment from the late 1500s to mid-1600s—that roiling chapter of western church history marked by religious wars and rumors of wars. We can forget that the Prayer Book was a bone of contention between churchmen and what we might call the proto-Dissenters/Non-conformists. While there were what are now called “conforming Puritans,” plenty of Puritans (and Separatists) had no interest in such obedience. And, we should note, for several decades after the English Civil War, during the Protectorate, the Puritans (or at least a good many of them) got their wish: no prayer books, no bishops, no kings, and, infamously, no Christmas. All those things came roaring back in the Restoration. Those clergymen who objected to the return of these hallmarks of what we now call Anglicanism were eventually ejected.
Symbolic Contention: The Book of Common Prayer
This decades-long conflict—like many human conflicts, it should be noted—latched on to certain symbolic objects and practices, and one of those was the Book of Common Prayer. Drew Keane highlights John Hacket (then a priest) who, in 1660, reintroduced the Prayer Book to his parish by way of a funeral. He recited the Prayer Book funeral office by memory, without telling the congregation what he was doing. Not knowing the material’s source, his Puritan congregants loved it and expressed their hearty approval. It was then that Hacket dropped a hard truth: this all came from the much-hated, the very contemptible Book of Common Prayer. The partisans were fine as long as the book was absent. Theirs was an ignorant partisanship.
The Power of Liturgy: Revisiting Convictions
Keane then observes that, for many of the Puritan stripe,
Handling the book resembled handling rosary beads and the poor manner in which some parsons performed the services reminded many of the old massing priest, mumbling Latin that he hardly understood. Both the conformists and non-conformists wanted religion that hammered at hard hearts and comforted the heavy-laden, but the non-conformists were convinced that reading the Prayer Book could do neither. By memorizing the liturgy and animating it with conviction and rhetorical sensitivity, [Hacket] showed his skeptical but zealous flock that the Prayer Book, used well, could do precisely that. The book as such is incidental, what the Prayer Book aims to do is deploy the Word of God and write it on our hearts.
Personal Reflections: Lessons for Today
A hearty “Amen” to that conclusion at the end.
But I couldn’t avoid going down a few rabbit trails in my head, both of which, I admit, landed me on some of my favorite hobby horses.
The first has to do with reading Prayer Book services well. Some priests don’t apply themselves in this area, and the result is that plenty of people conclude that the BCP yields dryness, deathly somnolence, and distant/mechanical piety. Don’t do that. And, if you do, ask yourself why you’re behaving that way.
The second has to do with the bibliophobia of our current moment and the challenge that poses to traditional Anglicans. The Prayer Book is an essential ingredient for the Anglican regula—our shared/common rule of life. While there are phone apps and projector slides that provide the text of the liturgy, of course we’re going to use prayer books. And that poses an increasingly high hurdle for newcomers.
Navigating Modern Worship Culture
Who hasn’t run into evangelicals and even other Anglicans that find prayer books and hymnals not only weird or foreign but even daunting or objectionable? Maybe I am reading too much into reactions and interactions I have had in my own life, but I really do think the ubiquity of projector screens and jumbotrons has formed people in the church at a very fundamental level.
Projector screens are what piety looks like. They are the proper furnishing of normal, trustworthy Christian worship. Most Christians—especially in the evangelical world (globally, not just in the West)—have come to rely on this piece of technology for their assembled worship. This is what proper liturgy looks like to them. Interestingly, this means assembled worship “as normal” requires electricity. A power outage can snarl up divine service, which I find off-puttingly fragile. But that’s not how most other people see it. In fact, I’m sure that, for some raised in this context, any worship space that lacks a screen might prove disorienting.
Cultural Shifts and Perceptions
A lack of the projector screen is seen as weirdly fusty and even suspect. Hymnals—if a believer today even knows what those are anymore (!)—are an obsolete artifact of a time past, especially when an increasing number of people can no longer read music. They are “very formal,” much like traditional “church clothes.” Add to that a prayer book, too?!
Books everywhere! Nobody is making things up on the fly, and no one is reading from a giant Powerpoint slide. Instead, we’re repeating stuff someone translated, authored, or published centuries ago. We have to bend our heads down. We have to turn pages. And none of this arises from the creative genius or spontaneous impulses of the pastor or “worship leader.” Surprise, surprise—it doesn’t take long before someone complains, “It’s too Catholic.” Notice a familiar refrain?
Confronting Misconceptions: Anti-Romanism and Tradition
Part of this complaint means that anti-Romanism hasn’t died in the Protestant world, and it can still frequently come from a place of ignorant prejudice. The assumption is that Catholic (or medieval) equals dead religiosity, legalism, pharisaism, and, maybe if this person is theologically aware, gross doctrinal error. We can address ignorance, sure, and we can wish they’d use a more accurate descriptor for their complaints, but the wrong assumption that they are making is the same that the Puritans made against the Prayer Book several centuries ago: it is showy, empty, ignorant, spiritually-disengaged religiosity.
Moving Forward: Embracing Tradition
Now, what do we do about this? One is to accept and surrender. There’s a sort of evangelical Anglican that likes the ephemeral Big Box evangelical aesthetic as it is, so this is par for the course. The Prayer Book is an embarrassing encumbrance that must be sloughed off. I can think of no better response to this than a recent statement from Dr. Nathan Greeley: “Virtually everything in our culture is superficial, tasteless, faddish, self-serving, and irreverent. The church must be a contrast to such things, a refuge from such things, a counter-argument against such things.” I think that, for Anglicans at least, that’s going to require pushing back against the bibliophobia of our image-soaked culture.
Books tell us that words and the Word are important. They cannot be surreptitiously updated. Prayer Books require official approval, authority, and, for lack of a better word, due process. Even if replaced, older editions remain as witnesses for or against newer editions. You can trace history, development, distortions, and corrections. Ultimately, books mean permanence, and prayer books mean a willingness to be formed by something authoritative outside yourself that nevertheless makes all the difference in the world to that which is inside yourself and invisible to the naked human eye.
Practical Steps: Fostering Inclusivity
So how do we proceed from here? For one, provide “on-ramps” in the form of newcomers bulletins, frequent references to page numbers, and so forth. These are different liturgical dance steps, but they aren’t hard to learn, especially if we use older prayer books. The newer books require lots of hopping, seasonal alterations, and potential options that leave much in the control of the minister—in the 20th century, each cleric was made chief liturgist of his parish in ways he didn’t used to be in former chapters of Anglican history (this is not a good thing). The older, simpler Cranmerian books are more friendly to newbies than the newer revisions, even though contemporary folks like to crow about “thee’s,” “thou’s,” and “vouchsafe’s.”
For another, as an acquaintance of mine wisely surmised, “There’s a problem at the moment where Anglicans believe getting big box evangelicals to join is going to be the primary growth driver, therefore we need to make Anglicanism as accessible to those evangelicals as possible. It doesn’t deal with the root issues of American Evangelicalism that Anglicanism actually solves really well when done correctly.” We won’t be as anxious about all this if we give up on growing our parishes primarily via church transfers. That kind of growth will happen, but we do well to focus on newcomers to our area, the untethered or “under-churched,” children born and raised within the parish, and those who do not yet know the Lord Jesus.
Books aren’t so weird when you’re formed by them from the ground up. And the Prayer Book still forms holy saints. Proceed accordingly.
-The Rev. Barton Gingerich, 1/4/2024
St. Jude's Anglican Church
We are a parish of the Reformed Episcopal Church. We have been worshiping together in the greater Richmond area for over a decade. We’d love to have you join us for Christian worship in the rich Anglican tradition.
