Notable and Quotable (II)

Posted by Kendall Harmon

We make a leap now of just a hundred years. From 1689 we pass to 1789, and find ourselves in the city of Philadelphia, at a convention assembled for the purpose of framing a constitution and setting forth a liturgy for a body of Christians destined to be known as the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. During the interval between the issue of the Declaration of Independence and the Ratification of the Constitution of the United States, the people in this country who had been brought up in the communion of the Church of England found themselves ecclesiastically in a very delicate position indeed. As colonists they had been canonically under the spiritual jurisdiction of the Bishop of London, a somewhat remote diocesan. But with this Episcopal bond broken and no new one formed, they seemed to be in a peculiar sense adrift. It does not fall to me to narrate the steps that led to the final establishment of the episcopacy upon a sure foundation, nor yet to trace the process through which the Church’s legislative system came gradually to its completion. Our interest is a liturgical one, and our subject matter the evolution of the Prayer Book. I say nothing, therefore, of other matters that were debated in the Convention of 1789, but shall propose instead that we confine ourselves to what was said and done about the Prayer Book. In order, however, fully to appreciate the situation we must go back a little. In a half-formal and half­informal fashion there had come into existence, four years before this Convention of 1789 assembled, an American Liturgy now known by the name of The Proposed Book. It had been compiled on the basis of the English Prayer Book by a Committee of three eminent clergymen, Dr. White of Pennsylvania, Dr. William Smith of Maryland, and Dr. Wharton of Delaware. Precisely what measure of acceptance this book enjoyed, or to what extent it came actually into use, are difficult, perhaps hopeless questions.

--William Reed Huntington, A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Liturgy, Music, Worship

8 Comments
Posted July 31, 2009 at 6:30 am [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. David Wilson wrote:

Interestingly the Prayerbook of 1785 was rejected in part because of a few aberrations from orthodoxy (latitudinarianism) but was also the basis of the first REC prayer.

July 31, 9:44 am | [comment link]
2. cmsigler wrote:

And in the end, ECUSA, nee PECUSA, adopted the 1979 BCP, and the REC adopted the 2003 BCP, which has as its basis the 1662 BCP.  So, which ended up being an orthodox Anglican church?

History sometimes seems a confusing teacher.

Clemmitt

July 31, 12:07 pm | [comment link]
3. David Wilson wrote:

Clemmitt
You will get no argument from me on that score.  As a clergyman in ACNA as soon as ACNA dumps the 1979 BCP the better.  A new Prayerbook based on 1662 is something I look forward to eagerly

July 31, 12:14 pm | [comment link]
4. Eugene wrote:

I do not understand the rush to draw up a new prayer book.  The priests leaving TEC used the 1979 book for years and now all of a sudden reject it.  The ACNA has important theological decisions to make before adopting a new prayerbook. e.g. Will the church be Anglo-Catholic or Evangelical?  Will women be allowed to be ordained or not?  etc. etc.

The idea of going back to 1662 as a model is strange!  Why not use Common Worship of CoE?

July 31, 12:33 pm | [comment link]
5. David Wilson wrote:

When I was a TEC priest use of the 1979 BCP was proscribed by General Convention.  I had no choice but to use it.  I would have been in violation of my ordination vows and the canons to do otherwise.  In my view, whether or not the ACNA continues to allow diocese to ordain women or not or whether a particular parish worships as Anglo-Catholic or evangelical is immaterial to the need for the ACNA to have a prayerbook of its own.

July 31, 12:41 pm | [comment link]
6. montanan wrote:

Our ACNA church is using the Kenyan prayer book for Eucharist - it’s wonderful.  I think other provincial prayer books deserve looking at in the interim.

#2 - wasn’t TEC, formerly ECUSA, formerly PECUSA actually christened as The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society - or do I have my ecclesial panties all in a bunch?

July 31, 12:42 pm | [comment link]
7. David Wilson wrote:

The DFMS title came to PECUSA in 1835 about fifty years after its founding.

July 31, 12:44 pm | [comment link]
8. Sarah1 wrote:

RE: “Will the church be Anglo-Catholic or Evangelical?”

They’ll be both.  You know . . . the way TEC claimed it was.  So that’s already been decided.

RE: “Will women be allowed to be ordained or not?”

You’re behind—that’s already been decided. 

Yep—I think the Prayer Book and other matters will take some attention—now that the things that Eugene said needed to be decided were decided long ago.

July 31, 9:15 pm | [comment link]
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