American Prayer Books – their similarities and differences

Is Rite I really the same as the BCP of 1928?

In the U.S.A. and in the previous colonies, four prayer books, bearing the title, The Book of Common Prayer, have been in official use in churches which are in communion with the see of Canterbury.

In the colonial period the edition of the BCP was the English of 1662, a book that has been translated into 150 languages. This edition is still the official Prayer Book of the Church of England and of Anglican Churches in the British Commonwealth of nations. After independence, a new edition of the BCP, specifically related to the situation of an autonomous Church in a new country, was produced and authorized in 1789. In the preface the unity with the BCP of 1662 and with the Worship, Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England are clearly affirmed.

Minor editing was done of the 1789 BCP to produce the editions of 1892 and then of 1928. There is a very distinct and clear relation in content and style between these four editions of 1662, 1789, 1892 and 1928 and it is obvious they are editions of one book.

It was the intention of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the USA in the 1960s to produce another edition of the same book. However, as the project progressed and as a variety of factors and forces from outside and inside the Church made their impact, the original project of gentle, minimal editing, expanded into a major overhaul, and, this became a project of creating virtually a new book altogether. In other Churches of the Anglican family, similar work was going on, energized by such things as the reforms of Vatican II, the insights of the Liturgical Movement, the social and cultural revolution of the 1960s, the calls for peace and justice and the call for human rights. Yet other Churches decided to treat their new creations of services and prayers as alternatives to those of the BCP and to call their new books by such names as A Book of Alternative Services, or a Prayer Book for South Africa.

The Episcopal Church stood alone in the 1970s in calling its new prayer book,The Book of Common Prayer, when it was – by its purpose and content – very similar to the alternative prayer books in other parts of the world. Thus the Church of England had the BCP and the ASB (Alternative Service Book) while the Episcopal Church had only the one book, a book of varied services, and it chose to call this new type of book of 1976/9 by the ancient name of The BCP! Further, in adopting this new book, it declared that the previous BCP, the authentically Anglican BCP of 1928, should not any longer be in use and should cease to be the Formulary of the Episcopal Church. So adopting a new Prayer Book was also in the USA adopting a new Formulary, a new statement of what the Church believed, taught and confessed, and thus a new form of Anglicanism, set on the path of innovations as culture and society determined, was born.

So what are the chief differences between the authentic BCP of 1928 and the innovatory BCP of 1979, with its Rite I and Rite II parts?

1. The 1928 is consistent in language and style, using the traditional second person singular for both God and the human person – “thou art.” In contrast, Rite I uses the traditional second person singular, as 1928, and Rite II uses the modern form of the second singular; however, not sufficient material is in the Rite I form for this to become a consistent style and content for worship on all occasions. Significantly, Baptism is only possible in modern language.
2. The 1928 is consistent in doctrine, presenting patristic orthodoxy and a reformed Catholicism in all its services. In contrast, there is deliberate variety of doctrine in the 1979 book, ranging from reformed Catholicism to modern liberal Catholicism. Thus it presents no coherent system of worship and doctrine.
3. The 1928 has one form of each type of service and thus truly presents common prayer, with congregations in a province all using the same basic text/liturgy. Of course, the readings from the OT & NT and the Psalms change each morning and evening and for each Sunday the Gospel and Epistle change, but there is in principle one basic form of each liturgy. In contrast, the 1979 presents the Holy Eucharist in both the Rite I and Rite II forms and within each there is a choice of the main ingredient, the Eucharistic prayer. Thus what the 1979 presents is varied prayer, not common prayer.
4. The 1928 recognizes sin for what it is before God and thus places great emphasis on the need for recognizing human sinfulness, confessing one’s sins to God in a humble and penitent manner, turning from sin and looking to God for absolution and remission of sins. Further, the confession of sins before God is seen as a necessary part of the praise of Almighty God, for it is the recognition of his holiness, righteousness and mercy. In contrast, the 1979 places much less emphasis upon the sinfulness of sin and tends to see confession of sin as something to get done quickly so that the real part of worship – celebration – can begin.
5. The shape or structure of the service of Holy Communion in 1928 is what may be called the Anglican shape, or the reformed catholic structure, that which is found in the editions of the BCP from the sixteenth century through to the twentieth. In the 1979 the shape for Rite I and II is deliberately different for it claims to be based on the shape found in the liturgies of the Early Church of the third century, with the “passing of the peace” at the center. (In the 1928 the peace of the Lord is communicated by the Sacrament and then verbally with the Blessing at the end … “The Peace of God which passeth all understanding…”
6. The version of the Bible used in the Eucharistic Lectionary of 1928 is the KJV except for the Psalter where it is an updated version of the Coverdale translation. The translation of various canticles and of the Psalter in 1979 is dominated by the modern principle of dynamic equivalency and also of anti-sexism (so that “Blessed is the man…” becomes “Happy are they…”).
7. The content of the Eucharistic Lectionary in 1928 is ancient, going back through the Middle Ages to the late patristic era and its arrangement conveys particular biblical doctrines. The modern ECUSA Eucharistic Lectionary is based on modern ecumenical projects from the 1970s and 1980s.
8. The Calendar in 1928 represents that of reformed Catholicism whereas that in 1979 represents post-1960s ecumenical agreements. For example, in 1979 the whole period of 50 days from Easter Day until Pentecost Day (Whitsunday) is called Easter and the Sundays are numbered with Easter Day as Easter 1. In 1928 only Easter Day (and week) is Easter, with Sundays afterwards being named “Sundays after Easter” until the Feast of the Ascension, after which it is “the Sunday after the Ascension.”
9. The construction of Collects in the 1928 is uniform, following the pattern of the Latin Collects from the fifth century. In the 1979 book various changes are made not only in the content but also in the grammar. The most obvious and important is the change from the relative clause to the declarative clause – that is, from e.g., “O God, who knowest what we need before we ask,…” to “God, you know what we need before we ask,…” This grammatical change suggests a change in attitude and piety before God.
10. In the 1928 the services of ordination constitute a separate book, The Ordinal, bound for convenience with the BCP. In the 1979 the ordination services are made part of the Prayer Book as such and they are provided only in a modern language form.

In summary, the title of the 1928 BCP is a correct description of what is inside the covers, while the title of the 1979 is not so. It was act of piracy which took the title of one thing and made it the title of a different thing. It was an act of impiety which took away from Episcopalians a consistent form of prayer which has the purpose of guiding people into living a godly life as the congregation of Christ.

Peter Toon