Final ACNA Book of Common Prayer online

I've been meaning to report that the final Book of Common Prayer 2019 — and a brand new website and URL (bcp2019.anglicanchurch.net) — are now online. Unlike the earlier task force website (“Texts for Common Prayer”) and resources of the past seven years, this is a polished, professional website — actually much more attractive than the main ACNA website. This new push is in anticipation of next month’s national Assembly, where attendees will head home with the new prayer book.

The website includes an 812 page downloadable (unlocked) PDF version of the full prayer book. Its navigation tabs include

• BCP Text: to download the full PDF, or a PDF or Word copy of one of the 12 major sections of the prayer book.
• Purchase: direct purchase of either the $17 pew book or the $30 imitation leather “deluxe” edition.
• History: a reprint of the preface signed by the first two ACNA archbishops, Bob Duncan and Foley Beach.
• Resources: bulletin inserts for Years A,B,C and the Holy Days which remain constant across all three years; also some residual explanatory materials from the task force days.

Both the inserts and the prayer book itself make it clear that for nearly all purposes, the preferred ACNA readings are now the BCP2019 (“New Coverdale”) for psalms and the ESV for everything else.

Share and Share Alike

The ACNA has aggressively moved into the 21st century with the copyright policy for both its liturgy and its new psalter:

With the exception of the New Coverdale Psalter, the content of the Book of Common Prayer (2019) is not under copyright, and all not-for-profit reproduction of the content by churches and non-profit organizations is permitted. The New Coverdale Psalter is copyright © 2019 by the Anglican Church in North America, but this is not intended to discourage the use and duplication of the text by churches for purposes of worship. 

The right to print the Book of Common Prayer (2019) has been granted exclusively to Anglican Liturgy Press, an imprint of Anglican House Media Ministry, Inc. Any for-profit publication requests must be addressed to Anglican House Media Ministry www.anglicanhousemedia.org

As someone who’s taught IP law for almost 20 years, this dual business model — free online, exclusive rights for dead tree versions — is the only practical approach for the 21st century. While hymnals and (many) hymns are tightly restricted by 3rd party copyrights, liturgy material needs to be shared (not monetized): this is one genie that’s not going back into the bottle.

This approach is in marked contrast to the policies that restrict online sharing  policies of the Church of England and United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and even to the reluctant openness of The Episcopal Church when tech-savvy members sought to put the 1979 prayer book online decades ago. It appears that the Anglican Church of Canada also “gets” it.

Companion Online Resource: Lergeme.com

In contrast to the 1662, 1928 or 1979 prayer books — or the Revised Common Lectionary — there are limited online resources for the BCP2019 beyond the official ACNA website.

What is available is Lergeme.com, which provides the Morning and Evening Prayer updated daily, as well as the fixed offices (such as midday and compline). In a separate, extremely useful feature — modeled on a similar feature at CommonPrayer.org — the Lergeme site provides a calendar that allows a reader to bring up the variable Daily Office and Eucharist readings for any given day.

The site does not use the the BCP2019 psalter. While it allows for alternate Bible translations, beyond the default ESV there are only a handful of modern translations (Good News, The Message, NASB). I can’t get the “About” feature to work on any of my three browsers, so right now I also can’t figure out who to credit with its creation.

As an initial website, it’s a very good starting point. The most useful addition would be a podcast or website of recorded services, for those who regularly practice the Daily Office.

About the Book of Common Prayer 2019

The website and the first five pages of the printed (or PDF) prayer book contain a 2,278 word preface about the context of the new liturgy. After tracing the history of Anglican liturgy from the 2nd to the 17th centuries, the final 370 words of the BCP2019 preface discusses the past 40 years:

The liturgical movement of the 20th century and ecumenical rapproachment in the second half of that century had an immense impact on the Prayer Book tradition. The Book of Common Prayer 1979 in the United States and various Prayer Books that appeared in Anglican Provinces from South America to Kenya to South East Asia to New Zealand were often more revolutionary than evolutionary in character. Eucharistic prayers in particular were influenced by the re-discovery of patristic texts unknown at the Reformation, and often bore little resemblance to what had for centuries been the Anglican norm. Baptismal theology, especially in North America, was affected by radical revisions to the received Christian understanding, and came perilously close to proclaiming a gospel of individual affirmation rather than of personal transformation and sanctification.

At the beginning of the 21st century, global reassessment of the Book of Common Prayer of 1662 as “the standard for doctrine, discipline and worship” shapes the present volume, now presented on the bedrock of its predecessors. Among the timeless treasures offered in this Prayer Book is the Coverdale Psalter of 1535 (employed with every Prayer Book from the mid-16th to the mid-20th centuries), renewed for contemporary use through efforts that included the labors of 20th century Anglicans T.S. Eliot and C.S. Lewis, and brought to final form here. The Book of Common Prayer (2019) is indisputably true to Cranmer’s originating vision of a form of prayers and praises that is thoroughly Biblical, catholic in the manner of the early centuries, highly participatory in delivery, peculiarly Anglican and English in its roots, culturally adaptive and missional in a most remarkable way, utterly accessible to the people and whose repetitions intended to form the faithful catechetically and to give them doxological voice.

The Book of Common Prayer 2019 is the product of the new era of reform and restoration that has created the Anglican Church in North America. The Jerusalem Declaration of 2008 located itself within the historic confines of what is authentically the Christian Faith and the Anglican patrimony, and sought to restore their fullness and beauty. The Book of Common Prayer 2019 is offered to the same end.