The Preface to the BAS (1985) of the Canadian Church clearly reveals that the architects of this book (based on the USA 1979 prayer book) believed they were working according to this supposed hallowed principle. We read that,
It is precisely the intimate relationship of gospel, liturgy and service that stands behind the theological principle, lex orandi: lex credendi,- i. e., the law of prayer is the law of belief. This principle, particularly treasured by Anglicans, means that theology as the statement of the Church belief is drawn from the liturgy, i.e., from the point at which the gospel and the challenge of Christian life meet in prayer. The development of theology is not a legislative process which is imposed on liturgy; liturgy is a reflective process in which theology may be discovered. The Church must be open to liturgical change in order to maintain sensitivity to the impact of the gospel on the world and to permit the continuous development of a living theology.
This is a remarkable paragraph based as much on ignorance as prejudice. Similar statements both spoken and written abound and their abundance testifies to the move away from the classic Anglican Way by those who, for the most part, now effectively order and run the worship of Anglicans. The same type of claims were made by those who created the BCP (1979) of the ECUSA, although at first they pretended that they were merely updating the Common Prayer Tradition and keeping its doctrinal framework.
Wrong way round?
First of all, the claim "it is precisely..." supposes that the writers have done careful historical research and can document their case. Such a possibility is doubtful. In fact if the Pope, and particularly Pope Pius XII, is any guide, then this expression is not a safe or sure guide. In his famous encyclical letter, Mediator Dei (1947), this Pope referred to the error and fallacious reasoning of those who claim that the sacred Liturgy is a kind of proving?ground for the truths to be held by faith. Such is not what the Church teaches and enjoins, he maintained. The entire Liturgy ought to have the Catholic Faith for its content, inasmuch as the Liturgy bears witness to the Faith of the Church.
He certainly recognized that on occasions the content of the Liturgy has been examined as one way (alongside others) of gaining insight into a controversial or doubtful truth. Yet the Pope concluded: "If one desires to differentiate and describe the relation between Faith and the sacred Liturgy in absolute and general terms, it is perfectly correct to say: Lex credendi legem statuat supplicandi (let the rule of belief determine the rule of prayer)." We note that this is precisely the opposite of the way lex orandi: lex credendi is used today.
In fact the origin of the expression, lex orandi: lex credendi, seems to have been with Prosper, a disciple of the great St Augustine of Hippo. He did not actually use it but another similar one, which is the fore?runner of it: lex supplicandi statuat legem credendi (let the rule of prayer determine the rule of faith). Prosper was involved in a controversy [known as the Pelagian controversy] concerning the grace of God offered in Christ and the freedom of man to accept or reject it. Being a disciple of Augustine, he held that our wills are in a bondage to sin and until God releases them and gives them the freedom to choose Christ and to believe on His name then we are not able to do so. In order to show that this doctrine of God's sovereign grace was truly the faith of the Church, he appealed to the contents of the prayers offered by Christians. He believed that these assumed that without God we can do nothing for our salvation.
Therefore he could confidently say, in this specific context, that the rule of prayer tells us what is the rule of faith. Of course he and his master, Augustine, did not stop there; they also turned to the Scripture to study its message and to the Creeds of the Church to learn what they declared. In fact for the early fathers of the Church the lex credendi was to be found first of all in the Holy Scriptures and to this the Liturgy was to witness and had to conform. If it conformed then it could be said in a strictly limited way that the law of prayer is the law of faith -- e.g. it confirmed Prosper's point that we are dependent upon God's grace in order to choose Christ. But such a law was not then, and cannot be now, of total or universal application in all circumstances.
Lex & the Common Prayer
Certainly since the sixteenth century, Anglicans have believed that in the Book of Common Prayer (in which historically were bound also the Ordinal and the Thirty?Nine Articles) is the lex credendi. For where you have the commitment to the authority of the Scriptures (the written Word of God), and a further commitment both to the catholic Creeds, and alongside the Creeds to the Thirty?Nine Articles, then you certainly have a lex credendi -- which is more developed if you add the doctrines of the Ordinal concerning the Threefold Ministry. However, the lex is not primarily to be found in the whole Book but specifically in the doctrinal truth of the Scriptures and the dogma of the Creeds as summarizing the truth of Scripture. Thus to claim with the BAS (1985) that the lex orandi: lex credendi is a principle particularly treasured by Anglicans is true but only in a limited way. Further, it is true only of the classic Common Prayer Tradition in which the Canadian BAS (1985) and the American BCP (1979) hardly partake.
--Peter Toon
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