Was the change of official Prayer Book in 1976/9 the sole or even the major cause of the massive change of religion that occurred in the Episcopal Church, USA in the latter part of the 20th century?
Let us investigate.
Most careful observers of the Episcopal Church would agree that the religion expressed in rites, ceremonies, doctrines, ethics, discipline and ethos of this Church in 2002 is very different from what it was 40 years ago in 1962. Those of a traditional and orthodox mind judge that the changes have been for the worse so that what was heresy in 1962 is now orthodoxy in 2002 and what was immorality in 1962 is now morality in 2002. In contrast, those who favour the new situation insist that changes were necessary to make the Episcopal Church reflect the religious experience of its members who had passed through the revolutionary 1960s and who include feminists and homosexual persons.
It may be recalled Prayer Book Revision began in earnest around 1967. Initially the idea was to update and revise the official Prayer Book of 1928 [itself a revision of the 1662, 1789 & 1892 editions of The Book of Common Prayer]; yet, as the project proceeded it became no longer that of gentle revision but a task to produce a new kind of Prayer Book, one that had within it a certain range of options. When it appeared it had Rite I [ the “Thou-God”] and Rite II [the “You-God”] services and a Psalter and various canticles that had been modified to accommodate feminist requests for inclusiveness. Further, new forms of words were used to express the doctrine of the Trinity and the Person of Christ. It was not “The Book of Common Prayer” as that had been understood since 1549; rather it was what was called in the Church of England, “The Alternative Services Book” and in Canada, “The Book of Alternative Services.”
In Canada and England “The Book of Common Prayer” remained intact and alongside it was the new Prayer Book. The latter was the product of provincial autonomy but only within the guidelines of the Lambeth Conferences of 1958 & 1968.
In contrast, the Episcopal Church expressed its autonomy as an independent Province of the Anglican Communion not only by engaging in liturgical reform like other Provinces, but also by deciding to call an experimental type of new inclusive prayer book by the ancient name of “The Book of Common Prayer.” This action also included the putting of the genuine Book of Common Prayer [latest edition, 1928] into the archives.
This exercise of autonomy in liturgical reform was an act of arrogance and defiance for it involved changing the very basis of the Standards & Formularies of the Province without consulting the rest of the Communion.
Of course what ECUSA did was lawful for, as an autonomous province, it had power to make its own laws; but, in terms of natural justice and the general canon law of the whole Anglican Communion of Churches what it did was a crime. Autonomy for Provinces was never intended to allow them to make changes in Faith and Order without the consent of the whole Communion.
What seems to have happened in the USA is that autonomous freedom was experienced with relish in engaging in liturgical reform, and, in the Zeitgeist of the 1960s it was difficult to put any brakes on this freedom and so it was exercised arrogantly. What should have been produced was a “Book of Alternative Services” to go alongside “The Book of Common Prayer, 1928”. In the end, “the Book of Alternative Services” was actually called “The Book of Common Prayer, 1979” and it was imposed in dioceses often by ruthless power.
Once this autonomous freedom had become part of the ethos of the Episcopal Church in the mid-1970s, and many of the older traditional membership were leaving [there was a very major loss in membership in the 1970 into the early 1980s], this same arrogant power was used in other ways, notably the ordination of women ahead of any legal provision and then the legalising it after the event. And the same type of thing has since happened with respect to the ordination of active homosexual persons and the blessing of same-sex couples [matters which George Carey now fears will tear the Communion apart]. The case of Bennison versus Moyer in the diocese of Pa in 2002 is yet another example of the use of this autonomous, arrogant power.
So back to the question.
Yes, the bringing in of the new Prayer Book was a defiant act of autonomy and arrogance and as such it set a pattern that has intensified and expanded in the ECUSA (and has been imitated more recently by other provinces).
The ECUSA will never go forward into an expression of genuine orthodoxy – despite great efforts by the American Anglican Council and the like -- unless and until there is genuine repentance for this arrogance before history, before the Anglican Way, before the Anglican Communion and pre-eminently before Almighty God the Judge of all of us. For ECUSA to repent means for all its membership and most especially its pastors to repent. Regrettably, too many (even in F in F N/A) who claim to be orthodox embrace this falsely named Book of Common Prayer as though it were a truly orthodox BCP and Ordinal.
Of course, there were other factors at work before the 1960s that paved the way for the revolutionary changes in the ECUSA; but, without the taste of autonomy and freedom in the late 1960s through liturgical reform these factors (e.g., the divorce culture) would not have been sufficiently powerful to effect dramatic changes.
September 17, 2002
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon
Minister of Christ Church, Biddulph Moor,
England & Vice-President and Emissary-at-Large
of The Prayer Book Society of America
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