The Unfinished Business of Prayer Book Revision, or, in Favor of A068

Ever since Committee 13 decided to send to the 79th General Convention of The Episcopal Church (TEC) a proposal for initiating the process of comprehensive revision of The Book of Common Prayer, I have been surprised by the many claims that this process is based upon feelings and not upon theology and liturgical scholarship. 

Most significantly, I am dismayed that so many priests apparently do not believe the feelings of baptized Christians as they engage the core of our worship materials in the BCP are.... unfit for consideration. 

But beyond that, though I hold tremendous love and affection for the 1979 Book of Common Prayer (79BCP), there are several places where I believe revision could create a stronger book, one that would more effectively enable us to pray together, in "common," as Episcopalians.

For this reason, I submit this brief reflection for your consideration. 

In 1997, it seemed likely that we were approaching revision of the 79BCP. Morehouse Press published the book Leaps and Boundaries: The Prayer Book in the 21st Century. The opening essay to that book was entitled "Unfinished Business in Prayer Book Revision," and was written by Marion Hatchett, liturgical scholar and author of the definitive commentary on the 1979 BCP.

This matters to me because ten years after that essay was published, I sat in a classroom at Sewanee, pursuing an STM in Anglican Studies. Liturgy professor at Sewanee Jim Turrell was on sabbatical and so Marion came out of retirement to teach senior liturgics for his last time before he entered into the glory of his God. When I open my notes on that first class of the semester, there were two subjects covered. First, we covered the rubrics. Then, we covered "Unfinished Business in Prayer Book Revision."

Marion was clear in that lecture, in a way that surprised me as a relative newcomer to TEC, that the framers of the 79BCP did not consider it a final and complete document. They knew they were leaving some aspects of the book to the next generation to be further revised. Top of the list, even then, were questions of inclusive language, the confusions surrounding confirmation, and the need for revision of language in new compositions like Eucharistic Prayer C. 

And though I would in no means compare the suggestions I am about to offer to the erudite work of Marion, my beloved teacher and friend. I think there are several pretty clear reasons for our church to enter into a new process of prayer book revision. 

Here they are, in no particular order,

• The '79 BCP reflects the fruits of Vatican II and the liturgical renewal movement. And yet, liturgical scholarship has developed since then. There is now an acknowledgement among liturgical scholars that the early church should not always get a trump card on liturgy and so more recent revisions have restored some prayers once considered "catholic" or "medieval" by the framers of the 1979 BCP. 
• The framing of confirmation in the 1979 BCP reflects a continued confusion about this sacrament in the life of our church. With baptism as full initiation, confirmation (as many have noted) is a sacrament in search of a home. Historically, Anglicanism resisted the Romanizing emphasis on confirmation. (For more on this, I would commend to you my doctoral paper on the development of Rites of Initiation in English Christianity, online here. 
• The 1979 BCP has a habit of unnecessarily adding masculine genders into our liturgy. For example, as I'm sure you know, the final response of the People in the Sursum Corda, in Latin, is "dignum et justum est." There is no masculine pronoun. And yet, we say, "It is right to give HIM thanks and praise." Even the current Roman Rite is better, "It is good and just." An unnecessary proliferation of masculine pronouns should be eliminated.
• In addition, both Scripture and tradition contain a variety of images of God, including feminine images. In my own parish, our midweek Eucharist often uses a "Song of St. Anselm," which includes the phrase, "in sickness you nurse us, and with pure milk you feed us." Ever since my wife gave birth to our daughter and I have witnessed the holy mystery of a mother nursing her child, this feminine and mothering image of Christ has become increasingly powerful. Our BCP is bereft without it. 
• Our church has changed its understanding of the sacrament of marriage. The language in our prayer book should reflect that change. It should now say "two people" which gives room for conservatives who believe those two people should be of the opposite sex and for progressives who believe the sex is not essential to the rite. This is not in any way a change that cuts off a conservative view. Rather, this is in the best tradition of the Elizabethan settlement. Just like the 1662 BCP used language that could be understood in both Catholic and Protestant tones, saying "two people" is a multi-valent approach that enables both progressives and conservatives to use the same book. 
• There have been far better, more poetic, and more accurate translations of the psalter produced since the mid 1970s. They should be consulted in the creation of a new psalter that better represents the beautiful lilt of Hebrew poetry and does not import English masculinity where they are absent in the Hebrew text. 
• Eucharistic Prayer C need serious attention in its form, structure, and prose. 
• Finally (and in my view, perhaps most importantly in the long-run), our current BCP is reflective of the liturgical and theological heritage of white, northern-europeans western Christianity. It is high time that we draw prayers from our indigenous members, Latino members, and other groups who pray differently and yet with eloquence and beauty. Those prayers should be translated into English so the minority communities can be a part of a new BCP.

I am sure others will come up with more places where there is room for revision in the 79BCP. I'm also sure there are others who will prove that the reasons I have noted above are unnecessary

or insufficient. 

This is precisely why it is time. It is time to engage a process of revision that is careful, one that engages in a study of what our liturgists have learned, what our members yearn for, and what our church needs at this moment. It will be a long process, one that likely will end sometime in the final decade of my own ordained ministry. But I do believe, with all my heart, that it is time to begin.

Don't be afraid, church. God's love will flow through us in this if we open our hearts and open our minds. 

And who knows? We might even find new forms and shapes of common prayer that will pour God's grace anew into our congregations and our hearts.