Rite II of the 1979 Prayer Book. Is it really orthodox?

Thousands in the USA, who claim to be biblically-based and orthodox in their Episcopal Faith , use the Rite II form of the “Holy Eucharist” from the 1979 Prayer Book weekly. They address the “You-God” in language which is supposed to be how people talk one with another. Further, the two supposed “orthodox” seminaries of the ECUSA use it and teach that it is an OK Rite. And most of these people who use and teach it have no personal experience of the use of a classic Anglican Book of Common Prayer (e.g., the edition of 1662, 1928 [USA] or 1962 [Canada]). Thus their Anglican perspective is rather limited in depth and width.

I invite all users of Rite II to consider what I write below.

I wish to suggest that these two propositions are true:

1. In and of itself, and by itself, and also within the covers of the 1979 Prayer Book & Formulary of the Episcopal Church of the USA, Rite II Eucharist exhibits serious dumbing-down together with doctrinal error.
2. Interpreted by and in the context of the classic American BCP of 1928, the Formulary of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the USA, Rite II Eucharist can be understood by charitable supposition as a modern, temporary experiment in liturgy and thereby judged as favorable for short-term use only.

What a word or a phrase or a sentence means depends to a large degree on context. “Eye” for example has a different meaning in these two statements: “The eye of the storm is compact” and “the human eye is a marvelous organ.”

What a specific service/Rite for Holy Communion means can be decided by a careful examination of what it contains and a judgment as it were, at face value, can be made in terms of how it is constructed in terms of its shape, its content, its emphases and its conclusions.

The same Rite can be set in a larger context – e.g. in the Prayer Book in which it appears and its relation therein to a Catechism and other Rites – and its meaning decided not only on its particular shape and content but also on its relation to other liturgy and doctrine.

In and of itself

On its own the Rite II material for the Holy Eucharist reveals that it is a production that could only have occurred after the 1960s and before the 1980s. This judgment is based on where the developing and changing mindset of liberal liturgists was in the second half of the twentieth century. Its general structure and the “shape” of the Eucharistic Prayer belong to a period when Gregory Dix’s, Shape of the Liturgy was in vogue and when the liberating impact of post Vatican II changes within the R C Church was strong. Also, it belongs to the beginnings of the acceptance of the feminist agenda by liturgists but is not yet at the stage seen in later Liturgy (e.g. Enriching our Worship from the 1990s with its advance feminism). Further, it belongs to the period of the first impact of the employment of the dynamic equivalency theory of translation of ancient texts, a theory which allows an ancient text to speak as if it were written today. Then, its use of ecumenical agreed texts from supposedly international bodies (e.g. ICEL) for the major canticles and translations of the Creeds points to the acceptance of an ecumenical form of dumbing-down of meaning to make them generally acceptable in the whole of the English-speaking world. [historical note; most of these agreed texts have been updated and changed, sometimes substantially, since the 1970s]

Anyone who goes through Rite II now, and who is aware of where liturgists have moved, can see why there is a universal agreement amongst liturgists that the texts are out of date and a new Rite or set of Rites, incorporating new insights and texts, is urgently required. (This is why the C of E abandoned its 1980 ASB in favor of its 2000 Common Worship and why the ECUSA is now urgently preparing a wholly new set of forms of worship to replace the ones from the twentieth century.)

So Rite II is out of date by the judgment of its creators.

As Rite II stands now in terms of doctrine it is imprecise. That is, because of its dumbed-down English and use of dynamic equivalency and the liberalism if its creators, it contains weakened doctrines of virtually every fundamental doctrine of the Faith, from the Trinity, through the Person and Work of Christ, to Salvation, Sin and Judgment. And recalling that it was put together by liberal theologians and liturgists, who wished to remove much of the clarity of Reformed Catholic doctrine in the 1662 BCP & 1928 BCP, such an observation makes good sense. [Note, the point being made here may be missed by those who are not very familiar with the classic content of BCP of 1662 and its North American editions.]

In the context of the whole of the 1979 Book

If the Rite II is interpreted alongside the Psalter, the Baptismal Service, the Catechism and Rite I, then its character as described above is the more clear. It is to be seen as an attempt to incorporate into the worship of God and the doctrines of the Christian Religion various insights and emphases that came to the fore in the 1960s and became afterwards part of the permanent “faith” of progressive liberals – e.g., pursuit of justice and peace, God’s kingdom is realizable in this world, the Church is the “community of those whose priority is peace and justice on earth,” God is more immanent than transcendent and so on. Thus (as the history of the ECUSA from 1960s to 2005 shows) the Church is committed to the incorporation of the rights of the divorced to be remarried in church, of the full use of contraception in pursuit of self-gratification, to the full rights of women, minorities and homosexual persons, to the calling of evil good and the affirmation that sin is holiness, and so on. Rite II Eucharist was until the 1990s the major means of the advancement of this total agenda in the ECUSA. Then Enriching our Worship took over for the advanced guard! Rite II never has been and cannot by its nature be the godly means and vehicle of the maturing of the faithful and their growth in godliness and true piety.

In the context of the BCP of 1928

If the PECUSA (which became the ECUSA after World War II) had retained its historic and inherited Formularies (BCP, Ordinal & Articles) and had not abandoned them as it did in 1976/79, and had it set forth a Book of Alternative Services (ASB or BAS) in 1979, and had that book been like what is now wrongly called the BCP of 1979, then (and only then) the content of the 1979 book could have been interpreted generously and charitably through the prism of the doctrine of the received Formularies of the Anglican Way. Hence suspicions of error and of dumbing-down could have been seen as experimental and open to correction later. In other words, Rite II as it now is, could have been interpreted within a very large context, and benefits of the doubt applied widely and kindly. Regrettably this possibility is near impossible since Rite II is a major part – let us note this carefully – a major part of the Formulary of the ECUSA, providing form and substance for what it believes, teaches and confesses! No wonder ECUSA is built upon sand and it is a constantly experiencing big cracks and falling apart because of its foundations.

Conclusion.

In that the ECUSA knowingly and deliberately set aside its received, classical and historic Formularies and created new ones (all inside the 1979 Prayer Book) then Rite II has to be seen (a) within the limited context of the 1979 book and (b) the liturgical and theological context out of which it came and which it served. Much of that context is the progressively liberal Episcopal Church itself.

As such, the greatest amount of charitable supposition and the giving of the benefit of the doubt is needed to make Rite II texts speak biblical theology and Anglican Reformed Catholic doctrine. And this judgment would apply even if the texts addressed the “Thou-God”!

The time has surely come for the would-be orthodox of ECUSA to ask for a Rite that is within the genuine shape, content and doctrine of the Anglican Eucharist and Order of Holy Communion. As a starter, a truly contemporary version of the Service in the BCP 1662, 1928 and 1962 (Canada) is needed for those who desire to address the LORD as “you”! Then the One Rite would be available it is traditional and in its contemporary form and there would be the basis for biblical and Anglican orthodoxy and from this for growth in maturity and membership.

September 23, 2005 petertoon@msn.com