(comments invited to me personally please: Peter@toon662.fsnet.co.uk)
Christianity does not and cannot exist in this world without a cultural skin. A Christian must live somewhere, eat food available there, dress himself using local materials and speak at least one specific language. Likewise, a local society of Christians as a church must speak to one another and to God in a specific language, sing/chant in a particular style, and meet in a building made from local products and by local hands.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us as a Jew speaking Aramaic and eating and dressing as did other male Jews.
When it is said that Christianity is not to be of this world, the meaning is that the Church in its practice of Christianity is not to share the ethos, spirit, morality and spirituality of the world that is fallen and contains evil. At the same time it is obvious that Christians must live, walk and eat on earth even though they belong to and head for heaven.
In its origins, as Christianity spread out from Galilee and Judea to East and West, the Church sought to please God and minister to the local people in the very places where it was planted. It sought to be in the world and for the world but not of the world. So the Church used a language that was understood by the local people and developed forms of worship which made use of [and transformed] existing styles of music, ceremonial and architecture. So regional and national differences were soon evident in the one Church of God throughout and outside the Roman Empire.
Of course, there was a general basic pattern shared by all the Churches – the daily reading from the Canon of Scripture, Daily Prayer (at least Morning and Evening), the adoption & following of the Christian Year, Eucharist on Sundays and special festivals, Baptism at Easter, and so on. Further, there was the acceptance of the basic Threefold Ministry of Bishop, Priest and Deacon.
Yet in the various regions, the structure and content of Daily Prayer, of the Eucharist and of Baptism/Confirmation were not identical – even as the structure and content of Ford cars are not identical in Europe and America.
The point being made is that each local church, whatever its size and influence, has a cultural form and expression, for Christianity has to be enfleshed in order to exist in this world. In the same manner, each individual Christian, though he seek not to be conformed to this world, has to live on this earth and make use of what is available to him for his existence. There is no escape from or hiding from the living context and so the church has to use its provision even as it sanctifies it.
Further, to be a faithful church in terms of worship and evangelization, the local society of Christians has to belong to and cultivate a living tradition [form, shape, style, content] which is the means by which they worship and serve together. Today, in the panorama of church life in America, we can see a great variety of traditions. The style of worship, preaching and fellowship amongst Southern Baptists is not the same as that amongst Northern Presbyterians or Mid-West Roman Catholics. No doubt it is possible to know God, to love and serve him in and through these various traditions, as long as the tradition is at its best and is the means to an end (the glory of God) and not an end in itself.
Now to consider the Anglican Way.
Up to the middle of the sixteenth century, the Church of England worshipped and served God by and through the Latin, Western tradition. During its Reformation, this same Church translated and adapted the Latin Daily Services to become Morning and Evening Prayer in English for all. So also the Mass was simplified and rendered into English, as were also the other basic services. And, very importantly, the whole Bible was translated into English. Thus the National Church of England crafted for herself in her own local language what became known as Common Prayer, one basic structure and content (with minimal variables) for all services to be used alongside the Bible by all in every parish, cathedral and chapel.
Thus we talk of the Anglican Common Prayer Tradition created in the 16th century out of the living use of the western, catholic, Latin tradition. English “Common Prayer” points to a whole jurisdiction [England] of the Church throughout the whole Christian Year engaged daily in set prayers and hymns with reading of the Scriptures and seeking to live in the light of what is believed, taught and confessed in the worship. Though not everyone can attend every service, yet each and every service is offered to God on behalf of all, so that there is a real Tradition in daily use existing for all.
The Anglican Common Prayer Tradition went overseas with the British Empire and with missionaries and so from being the special possession of one National Church it became the shared possession of many Provinces.
It is important to insist that the Common Prayer Tradition as a living Reality is not created by the individual who opens his Book of Common Prayer to pray, or by a congregation that uses the same Book for a Service of Holy Communion at 8.a.m. on Sunday. The Common Prayer Tradition is always moving through time attached to space; and local churches and individual persons join themselves to it – better immerse themselves in it – in the Spirit. This stated, it is also true to claim that if the National Church or Province seeks to remove it by synodical voting [as has happened in the ECUSA], then the responsibility falls upon major parishes/centers to keep this inherited Tradition alive and well, so that smaller churches and individuals here and there can know and feel that they do belong to an ancient and godly Tradition that is in living use both it in its own region and around the world.
The Common Prayer Tradition of the Anglican Way is a corporate Tradition (in that it is an expression and activity of one jurisdiction of the one Body of Christ and Household of God in one place) before it is a personal, individual tradition, even though each Christian within this Tradition has the vocation to live a godly life in conformity with the high calling of God expressed within this Tradition.
If it is the duty of Prayer Book Societies is to keep in print and available the basic editions of The Book of Common Prayer, and to encourage right understanding and use of them, it is churches having this text in living use who are to maintain and pass on the living Tradition as a form of godliness within the Church of God set in a world of evil and sin.
Appendix --- change of language
The Common Prayer of the ecclesia anglicana [Church of England] was changed from being prayer in Latin to being prayer in English in the sixteenth century. Further, this use of English in public prayer based on set texts had a major influence on the development of modern English prose. Yet the style of English used for Common Prayer in the Church possessed unique qualities from the beginning and these remained in place even as English as a public language developed. One such quality is the use of the second person singular (thou/thee/thy/thine) which is required for the literal translation of ancient texts in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, and thus for the addressing of the One God.
What has happened in the Anglican Communion of Churches in the rush to use what is called “contemporary language” since the 1960s is that instead of there being a faithful attempt to render the received Common Prayer into a modern form of standard English, there has been the adoption of an increasingly politically-correct form of modern English as part of a theory of translation known as dynamic equivalency. This has led to major changes in the content and meaning of the services and thus the creation of an alternative, but not yet a stable alternative, to the classic Common Prayer in “traditional language.” The Alternative often calls itself “Common Worship” but sometimes dares to claim it is “Common Prayer” even though it is by nature filled with many variables.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.),
Christ Church, Biddulph Moor & St Anne's, Brown Edge
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