(a discussion & prayer starter)
About forty years ago a long, rich, creative and dynamic tradition of addressing God the Father Almighty in prose and poetry, in speech and song, began to dry up. A mighty river became a meandering stream. A living being looked as though it had become a corpse.
Until the 1960s, there appeared a constant flow of prayer books to be used alongside The Book of Common Prayer, and specifically for use after “the third collect” of Morning and Evening Prayer, and on other occasions for public worship or meeting on church premises. These, like the new hymns that were continually been written and used, were in the same style of language as the historic Prayer Book and the King James Version (A.V.) of the Bible. In all these books of prayers and the hymn books there is a veritable treasury of piety, devotion, religion and doctrine, supplementing the more valuable & excellent treasury of Bible and Prayer Book. Here was [is & can be] a rich, dynamic tradition.
Why did such a mighty river cease to flow with vigor and contract to stream?
Because in the 1960s there were dramatic changes in the way in which the churches addressed God and translated the Bible. The “Thou-God” became the “You-God” to make the Deity more accessible to a new social order brought in by the raging and revolutionary 60s. And the traditional approach to the translation of ancient texts, what we may call the essentially literal “word for word” method, was replaced by the theory of dynamic equivalency, a “thought for thought” rendering of the original – based upon a missionary intent. So the second person singular ceased to be “thou” and became “you”; “brethren” became “brothers and sisters” and “the man” became “they” (see Psalm 1:1) and so on. Later “Father” became “Parent”!
Publishers ceased to publish books of prayers in the traditional style and looked for compositions in the new style. Likewise hymnbooks appeared where both traditional hymns had been updated and new hymns composed to fit into worship that is addressed to the “You-God”. Liturgical Commissions produced new liturgies and new prayer books incorporating the new ethos and principles. Thus recent hymnbooks do not contain any compositions in the traditional style unless they were produced before the twentieth century!
The use of the traditional way of worship and translation of texts was not so much banned as side-lined after the 1960s. Of course, the use of The Book of Common Prayer and the King James Version of the Bible and the hymns of Wesley & Watts & Newman and the existing books of prayers continued. However, this use continued with few if any injections of new vision, energy and creativity into what was now a contracted tradition. In fact, this long and hallowed tradition has constantly faced the danger since the 1960s of becoming as a fossil or a corpse because it has been starved of energy and life in the context where it is set.
Who is to blame for this policy of starvation? Obviously, there has been amongst most church leaders a deliberate attempt to bring everyone into the new ethos, style and language and this has been very successful. However, the traditional churchmen, who stay with the classic BCP, cannot escape blame for they have done little to keep alive the tradition of devotion and religion surrounding the use of the historic BCP. Many have been satisfied with their local 8.a.m. service and have not supported the writing and publishing (and then use) of new collects, prayers, litanies and hymnody. In other words, many traditionalists have been content to let the meandering stream remain just that, a stream. Or to change the metaphor, they have been content to appear as though they belonged to a people who were on the way out but were nevertheless hanging on to their habits as long as possible!
Keeping the classic tradition of worship, prayer, hymnody, piety and doctrine alive is more than managing to have a BCP service here and there as a small part of the local provision of services. It is keeping alive the dynamism, the creativity and the missionary dimensions of the classic tradition of English public prayer.
Prayer Book Societies, parishes using the classic BCP, and persons committed to the preservation of the Prayer Book Tradition as a dynamic & godly “river” of grace need to pray for revival in their midst that their whole orientation may be centrifugal as well as centripetal, missionary/evangelistic as well as self-edificatory! This will mean using the classic BCP on its own logic and according to its own nature, as a means of worship daily (MP & EP) and weekly (Litany & H C) and also as a form of ordering the godly life for the whole of the day, week, month and year.
As one way to this End, the writing and publishing of Collects, Prayers, Litanies, and Hymns in the style of the classic BCP and according to its doctrine needs to be encouraged – today not tomorrow!
[P.S. Those who are committed to the worship of the “You-God” need also to recognize that the godly development of their tradition depends upon the existence of a healthy and vibrant classic tradition, upon which they are dependent much more than many realize.]
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.),
Christ Church, Biddulph Moor & St Anne's, Brown Edge
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