Peter Toon’s Last Days

Even before I started seminary studies, it was clear that Peter Toon was one of the leading (if not THE leading) liturgical theologians in the Anglican church of the late 20th century. At seminary, I learned that all his many works are available for free download at the New Scriptorium website.

Toon died in 2009. But last month the blogger at Wannabe Anglican reported on a sermon about Toon at Pusey House, Oxford. The guest preacher was Fr. Tony Noble, who administered last rites to Toon. At the time, Noble was the rector of what was then the most Anglo-Catholic parish in the Diocese of San Diego — All Saints San Diego — which was where many of the local A-C priests did their curacy.

Toon was a theologically conservative evangelical, so not an Anglo-Catholic by any means. For him, the 1662 was the pinnacle of the BCP — which is why he was the first to do a modern language version of this, the all-time bestselling prayer book. For Toon and others,  the American (or English) 1928 would be a little too Anglo-Catholic.

Noble begins his story as follows:

I first met Peter Toon about 12 years ago, when I was Rector of All Saints, San Diego. I knew of him as an evangelical scholar, writer & defender of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

It was a Saturday night & my phone rang. The voice said, “Is that Fr Noble?”. I replied, Yes. “I understand that you use Rite 1 with catholic additions.........how close to the Prayer Book are your Services?”, he asked. I said that the 8 am Mass was mostly from the Prayer Book.

Next morning Peter & his wife, Vita, attended the 8 am Mass. he introduced himself & I felt quite honoured that such a notable evangelical had attended my church. They continued to attend faithfully every Sunday. Thus began a pastoral relationship which became a friendship.

In addition to the insight into this influential theologian and his final days, it also touches on the nuances of the differing liturgical preferences with Anglicanism. These nuances of preferences (or beliefs) go beyond the more familiar dimensions, which are usually thought of modern vs. traditional theology, and contemporary vs.  Elizabethan language. In some ways, they were the disputes over the BCP (and liturgy and worship) that were the main tension in the Anglican church for the first 400 years of the BCP, before the tumult of the last 50 years.

Websites for Anglican hymnody

Oremus was an invaluable resource for comparing Anglican hymnals around the world, but last year they gave up because they were being hassled to death over supposed copyright concerns. (I have considerable knowledge of copyright and fair use, and they seemed to be very much on the side of being legal).

Over the last decade, Hymnary has gotten much much better, with good funding, a college and paid staff behind it. (It didn’t hurt that the federal government gave them a big grant to scan 2,000 hymnals from a college library.) It lists the hymn titles and tunes for all the American hymnals, as well as key Church of England hymnals of the past 150 years.

It has various layers of complexity: the searching by hymn, by hymnal, by tune and the ability to download CSV files of some of the data. I can't claim to be an expert on it yet, but would like to post a tutorial once I understand it better. However, I have consistently felt that (as in Oremus) when I pull up a hymn text, I have no assurance that the text I'm seeing matches the specific pew hymnal (in terms of verses and wording changes) in front of me.

During my field research for my next church music paper, I heard about some other resources that seem very useful.

The Episcopal Church’s Church Publishing Inc. has a website RiteSeries, which includes RiteBrain for liturgy and RiteSong for hymns.  In many ways, CPH is emulating what Concordia Publishing House (CPH.org) does for the larger (Missouri synod) Lutheran denomination. However, RiteSeries only includes the most recent full hymnal (Hymnal 1982) and its supplements (Wonder Love & Praise), as well as the 1979 prayer book (and supplements such as Lesser Feasts and Fasts), and omits mention of liturgies that have been officially deprecated for the past 35 years. This is unlike CPH, which emphasizes its 2006 worship book (hymnal+prayer book) but still sells its 1982 and 1941 books, and even offers some resources for the older books.

Still, in this era of putting all the music (or at least lyrics) in the service booklet, both Hymnal 1940 and Book of Common Praise 2017 need resources like this. Hymnary has page images for much of Hymnal 1940, so that's a start.

Finally, my research interview yesterday with a long time choir member in Houston — who grew up with the 1928 prayer book and 1940 hymnal and never left — she pointed out SmallChurchMusic.com. It has MP3 files for Hymnal 1940, Hymnal 1982 and The English Hymnal. It also lists the 2006 LCMS hymnal and the 1990 Presbyterian hymnal, and several Methodist hymnals. For each tune, there are multiple MP3 files that list how many verses and what keys they are in. It also provides its own PDF of a score, its own standard lyrics (not specific to a hymnal), and links to pages on TheCyberHymnal and Hymnary for the hymn.

Like so many out there, I appreciate the work these individuals (or not-for-profits) are doing to make these resources available for those of us who still value hymns and hymn-singing in America.

Fr. Robert Taft (1932-2018) on the liturgy

Fr. Robert Francis Taft, S.J., died Friday in Weston, Mass., where he had retired in 2011 after 46 years at the Oriental Institute of Rome. Born in Rhode Island, he was best known as a Roman Catholic scholar of Eastern liturgies and was in fact a priest in Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, an Eastern Rite church in communion with Rome. The Pray Tell blog posted an obituary by John F. Baldovin, S.J., a friend and colleague who stayed in touch with Fr Taft after his retirement.

Fr. Taft was a highly knowledgeable, influential and opinionated contributor to the postwar ecumenical movement that called itself “Liturgical Reform”. While for the Roman church this specifically meant bringing the liturgy into the vernacular, the broader movement sought to bring new evidence, insights and opinions to change the liturgy in the direction the reformers believed best. Over the past 70 year, this movement that impacted almost the entire swath of liturgical Western Christianity.

I knew of Taft’s work from his definitive 1986 book The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West, which is on the future reading list of my ecumenical liturgy reading group. As a student of liturgy — rather than a scholar making original contributions — today I can only scratch the surface of assessing his contribution.

(For those that wonder why I spend so much time on liturgy in a music blog, please bear with me).

Pray Tell also posted the 1985 speech Fr. Taft gave upon receiving an award for his liturgical studies. From this 8,800 word speech, I will (cherry) pick some on how this priest and scholar found that a proper liturgy is important for congregational worship:

…what the Vatican II reforms initiated was a return of the liturgy to the people. … But the only way it can remain popular is if we leave it alone. … What ordinary people in ordinary parishes need is familiarity, sameness, the stability of a ritual tradition that can be achieved only be repetition, and that will not tolerate change every time the pastor reads a new article. The only way people are going to perceive liturgy as their own, and therefore participate in it, is when they know what is going to happen next.
…
So let me enunciate a liturgical principle: ritual – or call it order of worship, if you belong to a tradition that dislikes the word ritual – a certain stability in the déroulement of worship, far from precluding spontaneity and congregational participation, is its condition sine qua non, as is indeed true of any social event. Italian crowds spontaneously shout “brava” to divas at the opera – but not in the middle of an aria – because the conventions of civility dictate that there is a time and place for everything.
…
Like medieval cathedrals, liturgies were created not as monuments to human creativity, but as acts of worship. The object of worship is not self-expression, not even self-fulfillment, but God. “he must increase, I must decrease,” John the Baptist said of Jesus (Jn 3:30) and that is an excellent principle for liturgical ministers. Anyway, experience shows that most spontaneity is spontaneous only the first time around. Thereafter it always sounds the same. Furthermore, most people are not especially creative in any other aspect of the existence, and there is no reason to think that they will be when it comes to liturgy. They can, however, be drawn to participate in a common heritage far nobler and richer than the creation of anyone of us individually. What we need is not further to reinvent the wheel, not to reshape our liturgy every time we read a new article, but just to take what we have and use it very well.
…
In other words, liturgy is a common tradition, and ideal of prayer to which I must rise, and not some private game that I am free to reduce to the level of my own banality. And when the rite has something I do not understand, especially if it is something that Christians in almost every tradition, East and West, have been doing for about a millennium, then perhaps my initial instinct should be to suspect some deficiency in my own understanding, before immediately proceeding to excise whatever it is that has had the affrontery to escape the limits of my intelligence.

Requiescat in pace.

How many ways can we say Gloria Patri?

This semester, I've been doing sung morning and evening prayer on campus. One of the interesting challenges is that sometimes we sing from different hymnals or liturgies in a single service, and thus we sing two (or even three) different Gloria Patri. (Similar changes have been made in the Gloria in Excelsis, but that’s a topic for another time).

The Latin version is nearly 15 centuries old:

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto:
Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

New Advent says it was universal throughout christendom by the 17th century. For example, Shepherd (1950: 9) says about the Gloria Patri after the psalms:

Gloria Patri (see commentary, p. 8). The use of this doxology has been traditional in the Church from the earliest times, and is intended to give to the Psalms a Christian reference and intention. 

Blunt (1889: 186) dates it even earlier

Clement of Alexandria, who wrote before the end of the second century, refers to the use of this hymn under this form, …“giving glory to the one Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,” and a hymn of about the same date is printed by Dr. Bouth, in which there is an evident trace of the same custom :… “Praise we the Father and Son, and Holy Spirit of God." It is also referred to even earlier by Justin Martyr. 

The 14th and 15th century manuscripts of the Sarum Missal (Legg, 1916: 23) list this text as

chorus. Gloria patri et filio et spiritui sancto.
clerici. Et laus et honor potestas et imperium.
chorus. Sicut erat in principio et nuncet semper et in secula seculorum amen.

400 years of the Book of Common Prayer

In the Daily Office, Cranmer’s original 1549 Booke of Common Praier uses this translation:

Glory be to the father, and to the sonne, and to the holye ghost. As it was in the begynning, is now, and ever shal be, world without ende. Amen.

Except for spelling, we see that in the CoE prayer books through 1662, as well as the (unapproved) 1928 Book of Common Prayer. It’s also in the American prayer books from 1789 to 1928 as

Minister. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
Answer. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

And then came Vatican II.

Vatican II/ICET/ICEL

After Vatican II, the Roman Catholic Church began a systematic translation of the liturgy into English (and other local languages). As Hatchett (1988: 132) notes in his summary of Anglican liturgy revisions since the 1950s

Various provinces have participated in ecumenical groups developing common translations of texts (International Consultation on English Texts, or its equivalent for other languages) and have adopted common lectionaries, based on either the post­ Vatican II Roman lectionary or that developed by the Joint Liturgical Group.

In the 1972 and 1975 proposed texts from the International Consultation on English Texts (published in Prayers We Have in Common), the Gloria Patri was rendered as

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as in the beginning, so now, and for ever. Amen.

However, this did not reflect what had already been used in the 1971 Roman Catholic Liturgy of the Hours:

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.

This is, of course, also what ended up in the 1979 American prayer book.

Over the years, I was probably not the only one who was confused that both the Rite I (traditional) and Rite II (modern) liturgies have used the same GP. On the one hand, it made sense for simplifying the task of a priest celebrating both Rite I and Rite II in the same parish (a common issue in the 1980s and 1990s). However, it also meant that this part of Rite I is consistently different from the previous 400 years of English language liturgy — even though most of the rest of Rite I is intended to be similar to the historic liturgy.

One of the sources of confusion is that Rite I services can use the 1928 Book of Common Prayer Daily Office canticles (and psalms), as in Hymnal 1940 (and now the Book of Common Praise 2017) — as well as any earlier American, English (or other) resources. So in singing the Daily Office, it matters whether we copy a canticle from H40, BCP17, or the Rite I part of H82.

21st Century Corrections

The Roman Catholic church accounts for more than one third of American Christians. After its 2008 English language correction to its liturgy of the mass  — the Roman Missal (3rd ed.) implemented in 2011 — around 2010 the American Catholic bishops started a related update of its Liturgy of the Hours. However, this new liturgy has not been officially approved, and I was unable to identify its plans for the Gloria Patri.

However, more directly relevant for American Anglicans, the ACNA has released drafts of Texts for Common Prayer, the liturgy its is scheduled to approve in June 2019. In the liturgy of the Daily Office — Morning and Evening Prayer — the new Gloria Patri is rendered as

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

In other words, we are almost full circle. The Gloria Patri of 1549-1928 is back, with one change: consistent with late 20th century contemporary language, “Ghost” has been banished and replaced everywhere with “Spirit.” Under the circumstances, it seems like the most compatible revision of the historic liturgy.

With only about 100,000 members, the ACNA might seem lonely make its change on its own. However, it’s merely emulating the (gently modernized) language used by the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, with its two most recent liturgy books: Lutheran Worship (1982) and Lutheran Service Book (2006). While the LCMS is smaller than the more liberal ECLA, it is still larger than the Episcopal Church and ACNA combined.

Is this liturgical change by the ACNA the first step toward ecumenical cooperation with the most liturgically conservative of the largest Protestant denominations?

References

• Blunt, John Henry, The Annotated Book of Common Prayer, rev. ed., London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1889.
• Hatchett, Marion J., “Prayer Books,” in Stephen Sykes and John Booty, The Study of Anglicanism (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1988), 121-133.
• Legg, J. Wickham, ed. The Sarum Missal. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1916.
• Prayers We Have in Common: Agreed Liturgical Texts Prepared by the International Consultation on English Texts, enlarged and revised ed., Philadelphia, Fortress, 1972.
• Prayers We Have in Common: Agreed Liturgical Texts Prepared by the International Consultation on English Texts, 2nd rev. ed., Philadelphia, Fortress, 1975.
• Shepherd, Massey Hamilton, Jr., The Oxford American Prayer Book Commentary. New York: Oxford University Press, 1950

Continuing Anglican Liturgy in Atlanta

Liturgy was at the center of this month’s Jt. Synod of four major Continuing Anglican jurisdictions — the ACA, ACC, APA and DHC. My own experience suggested both the potential and challenges of integrating this “G-4” in terms of practice, if not ecclesiology.

The heart of the Jt. Synod was the intercommunion agreement signed by the G-4 bishops, followed by a joint mass. But long before Atlanta, Continuing Anglicans have been defined by the Congress of St. Louis, their use of the 1928 BCP and rejection of the 1979 prayer book, one the late Peter Toon termed a “Book of Alternative Services.”

G-4 jurisdictions represented at this month’s Joint Synod both agreed to intercommunion, and also repeatedly worshipped together One of the things I enjoy most about'

Joint Worship at the Joint Synod

The culmination of the Jt. Synod was the “Solemn High Mass for Christian Unity” on Friday October 6. However, it was proceeded by twice daily services from October 2-5, with each day beginning with a Morning Prayer and Mass, and ending with an Evening Prayer. The worship took place in one of the hotel ballrooms, with an altar set up on a raised platform. The earlier services had a capacity of around 250 people, while for the high mass, the capacity was more like 750 (I guessed about 400-500 were in attendance).

Evening Prayer, Wednesday October 4

Fighting jet lag after the trip from California, I was unaware of the Wednesday MP, but attended the Wednesday EP, Thursday MP & Mass and joined the opening hymn of the Thursday EP. The jurisdictions took turn leading these services — the last three being led by the APA, the ACA, and the DHC. (I have uploaded scans of these service booklets for posterity).

Insights into Congregational Practice

There are often variations in the congregational practices of any liturgical church between parishes. These are generally smoothed out over time, as people get used to the culture and other norms of their home parish. Thus, joint worship with no dominant constituency highlights some of the differences in practice — and, I would argue, some of the challenges faced by newcomers to traditional Anglican worship.

We were told to bring our prayer books — but for the Daily Office a slight majority of us were reciting the familiar prayers from memory. (I would guess for communion it was over 80%). Prayer books were not needed for the closing High Mass, which had a detailed nine-page as well as a ten-page musical insert.

The greatest confusion was over standing, sitting and kneeling. There were times when the congregation was split among all three. As in other churches, the degree of kneeling was greatest on key prayers — such as on the confession. Also — as in many storefront churches — I suspect that the kneeling (on the hotel carpet) was less than might have happened if there were pews and kneelers. Still, for the psalm at the Wednesday EP, many of us remained standing until we noticed that so many others were sitting.

Another interesting variation was the congregational response bracketing the reading of the Gospel, which (fortunately for those of us who go to ACNA or FIFNA events), includes the same “Glory be to thee, O Lord” beforehand and “Praise be to thee, O Christ” afterward. The rubric in the 28 BCP (p. 70) says

Then, all the People standing, the Minister appointed shall read the Gospel, first saying, The Holy Gospel is written in the — Chapter of —, beginning at the — Verse.

Communion at the October 5 morning service.

Some in the congregation started the “Glory be” before the introduction was completed — suggesting at their parishes the deacon omits the chapter and verse — and perhaps even the author of the Gospel.

While the congregation was consistent in making than the threefold sign of the cross before the Gospel, there was also significant variation in the bowing and crossing at other times during the service. Lacking a communion rail, the Eucharist was (of necessity) administered standing up, although some clergy (or seminarians) knelt on the carpet — either to receive the elements or because (at least in the final service) they were being administered by the princes of the church.

Variations in the Liturgy

The worship reflected many common variations among 28 BCP parishes. Perhaps the most theologically significant is the Gloria, which in the service — as in the BCP — was recited after the Eucharist. In Rite I (of the 79 prayer book), the Gloria is said near the beginning, immediately after the Kyrie; this is also the practice of our parish (and many other California 28 BCP parishes).

Another variation is in the Prayer of Humble Access and post-communion prayer, which the 28 BCP commands to be said by the priest, but are congregational prayers in the 1979 prayer book. Many 28 parishes have adopted the latter practice — which I believe to be an improvement — and this is also what we did at the Thursday morning mass. I am guessing this practice must be common, because the booklet for Friday’s mass says “Celebrant Only” after the Prayer of Humble Access.

After carefully following the prayer book, the High Mass included two non-prayer book additions that seem common at Anglo-Catholic parishes. One was the threefold prayer “Lord I am not worthy” that references the centurion’s statement of faith in Matthew 8:8. While the prayer is a standard element of the Roman rite (Domine, non sum dignus), and also included in early 20th century “Anglo-Papalist” practice in England, it does not appear anywhere in the 28 BCP.

The High Mass also included the Last Gospel (John 1:1-14) of the Roman rite, but read in King James English rather than the Latin of the Tridentine Mass.

Finally, most of the services I attended did not use an altar bell, but it wasn’t clear whether it’s because they didn’t have one, they didn’t have an acolyte ready to ring it, or they didn’t believe it was an appropriate practice.  Although common in today’s Anglo-Catholic parishes, it’s nowhere mentioned in the BCP, but rather a medieval Roman practice codified in the Tridentine Mass and largely abandoned after Vatican II. (As a musician, I happen to like the sound — and also missed it because because at our parish the second bell helps signal when we should cross ourselves).

Unity in Ecclesiology and Worship

The G-4 are working towards a common hierarchy, one they hope will eventually include other groups as well. The Continuing churches are united by a common liturgy, even more so than the Anglicans going back to Cranmer’s day, but the reality is that today there are numerous deviations from the nearly 90-year-old American BCP. It seems as though most of these differences could be handled (for now) by supplemental rubrics.

In doing so, I think it would also good to write down and disseminate congregational practices such as standing, kneeling, crossing, ringing and genuflecting. Over the long haul, I'm hoping that parishes will indicate these into the seat booklets, particularly since word process and web pages can easily include unicode symbols (e.g. ✠, ✣) that are instantly recognizable and self-explanatory. Certainly agreeing on a supplemental document would be a better way to kick off a joint committee on liturgy than to start with the more complex (and contentious) issue of a prayer book revision.

We believe as we sing

Although they have broken from the Episcopal Church, many AMiA and ACNA churches continue to be guided by the liturgical “reforms” of the Episcopal Church, including the theology that led up the 1979 prayer book.

In his article on the theology of worship in the standard textbook on Anglicanism, Prof. Louis Weil of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific states

Anglicanism gives force to the ancient adage, Lex orandi legem statuat credendi, ‘the law of prayer establishes the law of faith. (Weil, 1998: 61).

From this, he emphasizes the ongoing need to update the liturgy to keep it relevant (emphasis added):

[T]he Prayer Book plays a dynamic role in shaping a new liturgical mentality in which the odd [sic] truths are seen afresh. Such a transition never takes place easily, because there seems to be a natural conservatism in worshippers in regards to the rituals through which faith has been articulated. … [C]hange must come so that we may be faithful to the gospel as it speaks to the real world in which we live.  [66]

Singing is Liturgy

In their modest revision to Rite II of that prayer book, the ACNA rejected the most glaring doctrinal errors of the words of that prayer book. But as lex orandi makes clear, the experience of liturgy is not just words.

It seems as though (outside the REC and Continuing churches), there are many 21st century Anglican clergy who consider themselves theologically orthodox, and yet choose (or allow their music minister to choose) the most contemporary form of worship music, up to and including songs off the top 40 list of the Contemporary Christian Music radio station.

By any definition, congregational singing during the service is part of the liturgy and the liturgical experience. (At many evangelical churches, it is the only part that in which the congregation participates). And thus the nature of how we worship is not just the words we sing — the explicit hymn doctrine — but how we sing them.

Of course, today we instruments that didn’t exist in 1st century. The invention or improvement of instruments didn’t stop with the perfection of the pipe organ in the baroque period or even the invention of the fortepiano in the 18th century.

But the idea that we must constantly update how we sing and other aspects of worship means — by the principles of lex orandi — that we must constantly update what we as Anglican believe. The latter means that we are thus rejecting the idea of Anglicanism as being a Protestant manifestation of the historic, undivided church, in continuity with Christian beliefs throughout the millennia.

I am hoping that most readers of this blog would find the latter a step too far. I can’t claim that this principle means banishing all CCM from the nave, but at least it should cause the clerical and lay leadership of an orthodox parish to think about what it says to the culture — and the congregation — to choose such music for the weekly worship.

References

Weil, Louis, “The Gospel in Liturgy”, in Booty, John E., Stephen Sykes, and Jonathan Knight, eds., The Study of Anglicanism. Rev. Ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998, pp. 55-83.

Luke, John and Zechariah

June 24 is the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, in the Anglican, Lutheran and Roman Catholic calendars of saints’ days. Because the Annunciation takes place when Elizabeth’s pregnancy is six months along, the Western church traditionally dates John’s birth six months before Jesus.

This week, Issues Etc. reran an hour-long show on this feast day — a 2016 interview with Pastor David Peterson, an LCMS pastor from Ft. Wayne, Indiana. Although the Anglican and Lutheran liturgies are different, most of the points are applicable to Anglican liturgy as well.

There are many elements of the life of John — and Jesus — that are only told in the first two chapters of Luke. This includes three key canticles of the traditional liturgy: the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), Benedictus (1:68-79) and Nunc Dimittis (2:29-32) — respectively the songs of Mary, Zechariah and Simeon.

The Benedictus, of course, is what Zechariah says at the ceremony that names (and circumcises) John. While the 1549 BCP is derived from the Coverdale (and Tyndale) translations, the same similarities can be seen in more modern spelling in the 1662 and KJV

Benedictus (BCP 1662)

Luke 1:68-79 (KJV)

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel: for he hath visited and redeemed his people; And he hath raised up a mighty salvation for us: in the house of his servant David; As he spoke by the mouth of his holy Prophets: which have been since the world began; That we should be saved from our enemies: and from the hand of all that hate us; To perform the mercy promised to our fore-fathers: and to remember his holy covenant; To perform the oath which he sware to our forefather Abraham: that he would give us; That we being delivered out of the hands of our enemies: might serve him without fear; In holiness and righteousness before him: all the days of our life. And thou, child, shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; To give knowledge of salvation unto his people: for the remission of their sins, Through the tender mercy of our God: whereby the Day-spring from on high hath visited us; To give light to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death: to guide our feet into the way of peace. Glory be to the Father and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is now: and ever shall be, world without end. Amen

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David; As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began: That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; The oath which he sware to our father Abraham, That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life. And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins, Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us, To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

As the the New Advent encyclopedia states

The whole canticle naturally falls into two parts. The first (verses 68-75) is a song of thanksgiving for the realization of the Messianic hopes of the Jewish nation; but to such realization is given a characteristically Christian tone. As of old, in the family of David, there was power to defend the nation against their enemies, now again that of which they had been so long deprived, and for which they had been yearning, was to be restored to them, but in a higher and spiritual sense. …

The second part of the canticle is an address by Zachary to his own son, who was to take so important a part in the scheme of the Redemption; for he was to be a prophet, and to preach the remission of sins before the coming or the Orient, or Dawn, from on high.

According to the New Advent encyclopedia, it was Benedict who added this canticle to the morning office (lauds) in the 6th century. In Cranmer’s original 1549 BCP, the Benedictus was the only canticle available after the second lesson of Matins. The 1552 BCP — Cranmer’s final prayer book before his execution— gives a choice of the Benedictus or the Jubilate Deo (from Psalm 100); this pattern continues into the 1559 and 1662 BCP, as well as the US prayer books from 1789 to 1928. (The 1979 prayer book, as is its wont, gives a choice of 21 canticles after either reading).

As a choirboy (prior to H82 and the 1979 prayer book), we sang morning prayer every other Sunday, and the words of the Jubilate Deo are etched in my brain; for the Jubilate Tune 645, the F-major chant by William Russell (1777-1813) seems the most familiar. It’s rare nowadays that I see a sung morning prayer, but if I were to pick a sung Benedictus, it would be #634, the G major chant by James Turle (1802-1882).

The podcast made one additional point. Zechariah (like his wife) is from the priestly line of Aaron. When Zechariah meets Gabriel in the temple, he lost his ability to speak for doubting the angel. According to Pastor Peterson, this means that he cannot finish the service, which would have concluded with the Benediction of Aaron (which is also called the Priestly Blessing) from Numbers 6:24-27:

The Lord bless thee, and keep thee:
The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.
And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them.

As Pr. Peterson reminded me — from my Missouri Synod days — this benediction is the closing prayer of the LCMS Holy Communion service. A quick check of my bookcase shows this benediction closes the Divine Service both in the 1941 and 2006 LCMS hymnals, as well as the 1978 LCA hymnal. In American Anglican liturgy, this benediction can be found in the Rite I Evening Prayer in the 1979 prayer book — but it is dropped in the ACNA draft liturgy (which most often follows Rite II in form and wording).

Cultural universals in liturgical worship

The last three Sundays, I've worshipped in Spain, at home in California and Australia. The juxtaposition has given me additional insights into liturgical variations (and similarities) between cultures, and thus the degree to which churches should (or at least have) adapt their worship to the local culture.

When comparing two services, there are several possible variables: language, the order of service, what is said, the role of music and how those leading the service (and those in the pews) actually worship.

Language matters, but within the Western liturgical churches there is still a common heritage to the medieval Latin service. For example, both my wife and I have found strong affinity to service in Germany’s Roman Catholic church — we have a similar childhood and adult experience with high church Episcopalian (and now Anglican) worship, but I speak some German and she doesn’t. When I first visited Cologne cathedral in 1980, the service felt very familiar as the service followed what I'd known as a kid. My wife — who attended a small town mass with friends two years ago while I was traveling on business — says that the service she attended what quite recognizable from our childhood services.

But language isn’t everything. I've heard some claim that a Christian from the early church would recognize our 21st century services. That seems a bit much, but I certainly think an Italian from the early Middle Ages would recognize an Anglo-Catholic service more than an Englishman from Elizabethan England would recognize a nondenom praise band service.

This morning in Spain, despite not speaking the language, I recognized the order of lessons (Isaiah, Romans, Matthew) that would have been used at a US Catholic church or by Protestants under the Revised Common Lectionary year A. I also recognized the Lord’s Prayer and prayers of the people, and the Alleluia was the same one I’ve sung for decades (albeit with the syllables broken differently).

What was most different was that instead of hymns, the singing consisted of a series of chants by the cantor, with the congregation singing an antiphon after each phrase. The cantor tried to teach the congregation the antiphons, and I found (despite the language) I was able to sing along when the words matched the handout.

However, in a (IMHO foolish) attempt to save money or the planet, the handout only covered what was different for the season of Advent. There were several antiphons that were not handed out — perhaps they were familiar to regular worshippers — but the net effect was to exclude visitors from participation in the worship.

I had hoped from the handout we would sing (in Catalan) perhaps the most universal Advent hymn

Veniu, veniu, oh Emmanuel,
sou l'esperança d'Israel
que en trist exili ací tothora
redempció de vós implora.
Exulta! Exulta! Israel,
a tu vindrà l'Emmnanuel.

Veniu, esclat del nostre hivern,
Oh Saviesa de l'Etern!
De vostra llum el món fretura
per retrobar-vos dalt l'altura.
Exulta! Exulta! Israel,
a tu vindrà l'Emmnanuel.

Veniu, oh Rei Omnipotent,
d'antics oracles compliment.
Veniu, refeu nostra flaquesa,
Déu eternal, font de bonesa.
Exulta! Exulta! Israel,
a tu vindrà l'Emmanuel.

but apparently that was for an earlier Sunday.

In Australia, I attended two communion services: one fro the 1995 Australian prayer book at an Anglo-Catholic parish, and the other using the 1662 BCP at an evangelical one. Not surprisingly, the former used the ICEL translation of the Sanctus (“…God of power and might”) and other parts of the ordinary; the latter had the Elizabethan words, even if in an unfamiliar order. So the latter was nominally more similar to Anglo-Catholic worship from Rite I or the 1928 BCP.

But if you ignored the words and watched what people did, the liturgical practice was just the opposite. At the Anglo-Catholic (modern language) church, nearly everyone made the sign of the cross and most kneeled at the familiar parts of the service. At the evangelical (traditional language) church, there were no kneelers and no sign of the cross; it also had a sermon more than 30 minutes long (versus 12 minutes at my home parish).

Still, it seems as though there is a distinct subset of the Western church today that retains the liturgy and practices of the pre-Reformation church. For these Christians, worshipping in another denomination with similar liturgical style (e.g. at a baptism, wedding or in a mixed marriage) will be comfortable, as will a chaplain’s service at a college, in a hospital or the military.

The issue of East and West seems more insurmountable. My Orthodox (ex-Episcopalian) friend claims there are many similarities, but in my one visit to his (Greek) church they were hard to find. Many of the non-ethnic Orthodox parishes in the U.S. use familiar words (where applicable) and so at such churches there might be more recognizable similarities.

Still, there seem fewer opportunities for common ground. In the 13th century, the emperor Michael Paeologus — founder of the last dynasty of the Byzantine Empire — tried to reunify the Eastern church with Rome barely 200 years after the Great Schism. However, the laity (and some clergy) of the Greek church sabotaged his efforts because they didn’t want to give up their distinct worship style in the name of unity with Rome — even though it ultimately meant surrendering the empire to the Ottoman invaders.

Thus we must constantly pray for healing the divisions in Christ’s church, even if such healing (like the second coming) may not happen in our lifetimes.

Saints and heroes of the Reformation

For Lutherans, this is a particularly poignant day in the church calendar. Today is Reformation Day — the 499th anniversary of Martin Luther posting (or at least circulating) his 95 Theses.

At the same time, tomorrow is the feast of All Saints — a celebration we inherited from the undivided Western (i.e. Roman Catholic) church. Non-liturgical Christians — often referred to as those who worship in the “Evangelical”† style — generally have a strong suspicion of anything Catholic.

I have argued that traditional Lutherans and Anglicans are the most moderate of the Protestant denominations, because we harken back to the undivided Church, and didn’t re-acquire the sin of iconoclasm. Unlike extreme Calvinists and other Radical Reformers, we did not throw out the baby with the bathwater over our differences with Rome.

Thus our daughter Katy (a cradle Anglo-Catholic) and my niece Erin (a cradle Roman Catholic) have had mixed feelings attending Christian universities with an decidedly Evangelical† bent. From a social-cultural standpoint, they enjoy being surrounded by (at least nominal) Christians. But when it comes to the required chapel service, what they attend only vaguely resembles the historic liturgy that they grew up with.

Thus my daughter was ecstatic this morning when her mandatory college chapel acknowledged these two key dates on the liturgical calendar:

I was so excited when I heard the organ playing when I walked in and then we sang 2 hymns …For all the Saints and Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing  …And then there was a postlude without singing - A Mighty Fortress is Our God. … It was just great. It was even slightly liturgical. §

If the Evangelical† worship can teach us to be sensitive to new members and non-believers, perhaps we liturgical Christians can bear witness to the historic liturgy, liturgical calendar and liturgical music.

† Note: here I use “Evangelical” in a cultural/liturgical sense, rather than to refer to those (Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant) Christians who seek to spread the Good News of our Risen Lord.

§ While unexpected, these three hymns are officially sanctioned at her Baptist university, as all are included in the 1975 Baptist Hymnal

When Common Prayer Was Common

Earlier this month, we went to a 28 BCP congregation with our teen. My wife and I had been there a couple of times (it’s a long drive) but our daughter had not. I was amazed at how much she knew of the liturgy and service music: the original (vs. modified) Nicene Creed, the General Confession (vs. Confession Lite), the Scottish Gloria, the Merbecke Angus Dei and Sanctus. (None of us knew the Kyrie).

She has almost no exposure to the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. She spent all of preschool in Rite I, and then in the next nine years split time between Lutheran, 28 BCP (perhaps three years) and then Rite I; for the last few years (until recently) she has been worshiping with the ACNA trial use liturgy. On the other hand, it was very familiar for my wife and I, who spent almost all of our first four decades (i.e the 20th century) with the 28 BCP and then Rite I.

To me, our experience was a powerful reminder of the brilliance of Cranmer’s vision: the Book of Common Prayer is a book of common prayer. At one point in history, you could walk into a church anywhere in the country (or perhaps the world) and fully participate in the service. The prayers you learned as a kid would be the ones you would say until you breath your last breath. Among creedal Protestants, the Anglican faith was more defined by common worship than a common confession because (as known to 5th century Christians) Lex orandi, Lex credendi.

Of course, this also applies to hymns and service music. Yes, churches need a variety of forms and setting — I'm now a fan of the penitential vs. ordinary time approach to service music — but continuity and familiarity are underappreciated virtues.

Books of Alternative Services Rather Than Common Prayer

The brilliance of Thomas Cranmer was to provide a new prayer book in the vernacular that both linked back to the Latin Sarum (i.e. Salisbury) Rite and standardized the liturgy across the entire church. From the 16th century until the latter half of the 20th century, this was the norm for the CoE and Anglicans worldwide.

In America,  the 1979 prayer book marked a break for ECUSA from a Book of Common Prayer to what Peter Toon correctly noted was an Alternative Services Book. It provides multiple services and multiple variants, and also started the process of ongoing prayer book revision. The 2015 TEC convention vowed to start a new round of prayer book revision, in part to offer a new “gender neutral” version of the 1928 BCP marriage rite for high church LGBT parishioners.

We would love to say that Mother England has avoided these liturgical and doctrinal errors, but they haven’t. Planning a future trip to London, I found that “prayer book” services listed on the CoE church locator website were a small fraction of those local parishes.

With liturgy — as with bible translations — the 21st century model seems to be that revision is an ongoing process of modernizing the language — and the theology — rather than maintaining continuity with previous generations.

Traditional Language and Process

It’s hard to tell what the ACNA will end up doing. It opted for a single unified prayer book — rather than variant services — but following the 1978 Rite II model of a radical break from Elizabethan English. (To be fair, this is exactly the model promoted by Toon himself). It’s hard to tell if this will be a one-time or ongoing process: the disadvantage of having a standing (rather than temporary) committee on liturgy or music is that they will feel a need to do (i.e. change) something.

Among ACNA member bodies, the Reformed Episcopal Church has had relatively infrequent revisions of its prayer book — in 1873 (when it broke from ECUSA), 1963 and 2003. My impression is that the latter is recommended but not universal among REC churches.

For those that left ECUSA in between REC and ACNA — i.e. those Continuing Anglicans who quit ECUSA over the 1979 prayer book — they have been defined by their use of the 1928 BCP. In retrospect, their 1977 concerns about theological and liturgical revision have proven remarkably prescient.

Despite their severe fragmentation, these Schism I jurisdictions share a single unchanging prayer book (However, their prayer book differs from 1928 in that the lectionary was revised in 1945). This is probably the only pocket of liturgical unity in all of North American Anglicanism, continuing to live out Cranmer’s vision.

Still, having a book doesn’t define a process: It is a good prayer book, but what will the process be if there is something that must be updated? How will these churches reject recent heresies of the post-Biblical church?

In the end, I was struck by how dramatically easy it was for our family to worship using the standardized rite. Our daughter had never set foot in either in this church or a church of its province (ACC); the 28 BCP parish we previously attended was APCK. In terms of liturgy or theology, there is more variance within the TEC (or ACNA) than there is between the various jurisdictions of the continuing church.

So this raises (once again) the obvious question: if it’s the same faith, same worship and same prayer book, why are there dozens of Continuing jurisdictions in the US — other than 30-year-old grievances and a desire to propagate (or retain) purple shirts?

Liturgical choices for new parishes

In visiting various Schism I and Schism II parishes this year, I have gotten a clearer idea of what the various alternatives are for those planting new Anglican churches. For today’s Anglo-Catholic church planting session at ICCA 2015, I thought I’d write down these alternatives for prospective church planters.

Some important choices are front and center, such as which diocese (or province) to affiliate with, stances on key theological issues (e.g. women’s ordination) and calling your first rector (vicar); these are beyond the scope of today’s effort. Instead, let me lay out a few less obvious ones, particularly those that apply to new Anglo-Catholic leaning parishes.

1. Physical Infrastructure

New churches have to make basic choices related to the physical infrastructure:

• Permanent or weekly setup. The proverbial school gym is available in any community, but requires weekly setup; an existing church will already be setup, but not available at prime time on Sunday morning (unless you find an abandoned church). Later on, parishes can have permanent setup on Sunday morning if they can afford to build or rent their own dedicated facilities.
• Altar and linens. Is there an existing altar setup or do you bring your own? Do you have colors to cover all the seasons? Do the color shades match your vestments?
• Kneeling. Will your service include kneeling — either for every prayer (ala 28 BCP) or at key points (confession, thanksgiving, before communion). If so, will there be permanent kneelers or temporary prayer cushions? (There’s the related issue of pews or chairs, but in my experience this is decided once you choose the site).
• Public address. Do you want to amplify the spoken liturgy? If so, is there a public address system (e.g. at a school or church) for the clergy or lay readers – with wireless mics – or do you bring your own?
• Musical infrastructure. Is there a mechanical piano, traditional organ, or electronic piano or organ? How does this tie into the PA? Does its placement allow conducting of (or by) the choir?
• Liturgy distribution. Prayer book, service booklet, or weekly printed order of service?
• Music distribution. Similarly is there a printed hymnal, hymns printed in the weekly bulletin, or projected on a screen? (By 2020, I expect some churches will be using real-time transmission to smartphones and tablets).

This does not count the infrastructure for the other six days per week: where do the rector (vicar) and parish staff hang out when there’s no worship service?

2. Liturgical Choices

The other key choices relate to worship and liturgy:

• Preferred Bible translation. The churches I visit tend towards ESV or RSV, but there may be some KJV, ASV, NIV, NRSV or other translations being used instead. (The CoE has listed 7 translations as being suitable). Are there printed books in the pews? (A good sign) Are they used? Do you need the Apocrypha — if so, it’s not available for the NIV or NKJV.
• Prayer Book. For US readers, I’m assuming the choices are the 1928 Book of Common Prayer or Rite I of the 1979 prayer book (the latter so flawed it prompted Schism I); to these two I’d add the 2003 REC prayer book which combines elements of the 1662 and US prayer books†. Some may consider the 1662 CoE BCP or — at the other extreme — the recent ACNA trial use liturgy, and some parishes will use a mixture of services.
• Alternate Variants of Key Prayers. In some liturgies, there are choices to include or omit passages, such as the General Confession vs. Confession Lite. Some congregations insist on reciting “we believe” in the Nicene Creed while others adhere to centuries of tradition and shared theological understanding.
• Lectionary. ACNA does not yet have its own lectionary, so the most likely choices seem to be Cranmer’s one-year lectionary (as embodied in 1549, 1552, 1559, 1662, 1896 and 1928 BCP), or the three year lectionary of the 1979 prayer book or the RCL.
• Hymnal. For US Anglicans, the choices seem to be Hymnal 1940, Hymnal 1982 or none. (I have seen parishes that use third party hymnals such as the Celebration Hymnal). The Anglo-Catholic parishes (with 1928 or Rite I) choose H40, while the parishes that split Rite I/Rite II (50/50, 60/40 or 40/60) parishes go with H82, and the rock band churches don’t need one at all.  To date, there is no service music exactly aligned to the ACNA liturgy, although in principle the changes for the contemporary H82 service music should be minor.
• Chanting (Service Music). Holy Communion potentially includes sung versions of the Kyrie (English or Latin) or Trisagion, Gloria, Psalm, Nicene Creed, Sanctus/Benedictus, Lord’s Prayer and Agnus Dei (not counting the Sursum Corda and other responsorial sentences). Which ones will be spoken, which ones chanted — and for those, what setting do you use? H40 has four (later eight) settings of the Kyrie+Gloria+Sanctus+Agnus Dei while H82 has four for Rite I and many more for Rite II. However, more important than matching the hymnal is having a familiar and stable set of choices (probably no more than 3 different liturgies in 12 months).

Of course, these have implications for the paid and volunteer staffing: priest(s), deacon(s), acolyte(s), lay readers, musicians, and others involved in the liturgy. My experience has been it’s virtually impossible to put on a traditional high mass (sung service) without a pianist or organist. (The Substitute Organ Service is designed for vacation relief and is not cost-effective for weekly use).

Defining Your Vision

When I spoke to veteran Anglo-Catholic church planter Fr. Chris Culpepper, he says he wish he had this list when he started his first parish in January 2008. IMHO, any church founder (lay, clerical) needs to decide personally which of these choices are essential, which are desirable and which are open. For example, in my own mind — and many that whose counsel I respect — the availability and use of kneeling is essential for creating a church that is contemplative, reverent and prayerful.

Once you have your own list, the planting team needs to bring their ideas together to discuss their corresponding hopes and vision. It is impossible to move forward unless this team can come to a common position on the nature of the church they are planting — and not only agree, but fully support the vision rather seek to undermine it or re-open key choices.

In talking with church planters, this part of an articulated vision going forward as the church grows and evolves. (That’s not to say that such choices are the entire vision, only key practicalities of defining what sort of church is being planted — and what will be needed to implement that church.)

At the same time, there is an important constituency not at the table: the future members who make the parish a success. WW II Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple (1881-1944) said: “The Church is the only institution that exists primarily for the benefit of those who are not its members.” The vision should allow for flexibility, modification and extension to meet the needs and desires of the future members. For example, a H40 parish will use hymns from H82 (such as Amazing Grace or  Bread of Life) and many 28BCP or Rite I parishes offer a modern language service.

Conclusion

I don’t know that these are all the questions, but this list seems to cover most of the alternatives facing the teams that are launching a new parish from scratch.

The case of new TEC exiles is slightly different. In my travels, it appears that congregations that have lost their building tend to carry over #2 from their TEC days, while making new choices for #1 based on their budget (and sometimes an attempt to re-create what they once had).

† Note: corrected per feedback from Rev. Daniel Sparks.

Worship music at the Anglo-Catholic congress

Updated after attending the services.

At the Forward in Faith sponsored International Catholic Congress of Anglicans in Ft. Worth this week, there will be four choral evensong services (Monday-Thursday) and four noontime communions (Tuesday-Friday), all held at nearby St. Andrew’s.

The liturgy for these services have been posted. Not surprisingly, none use the new ACNA liturgy or Rite II. However, despite the participation of key 1928 BCP clergy and laity — and the use of the 1928 BCP at St. Andrew’s — all eight services use Rite I from the 1979 ECUSA prayer book.

Evensong

For the evensong, the opening and closing hymns are traditional, while the anthems are more modern. The service music uses the Hymn #601 responses; however, the remaining service music emphasizes work by Chris Hoyt, the conference music director and the music director at REC’s Dallas cathedral (that uses the 1928 BCP).

Day	Processional Hymn	Anthem	Closing Hymn	Service Music
Mon	Come thou almighty King (H40: 271)	Palestrina: Veni Creator Spiritus	Come down, O love divine (H40: 376)	Psalm, Magnificat, Nunc dimittis: Hoyt
Tue	Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven (H40: 282)	Townend: How Deep the Father's Love for Us	Dear Lord and Father of mankind (H40: 435)	Psalm: J.W. Meachan adapted by Hoyt; Magnificat: Hoyt; Bendedic: Ouseley
Wed	Come ye sinners poor and needy†	Perry: How shall they hear the word of God?	How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord (H40: 564)	Psalm, Magnificat: Hoyt; Bendedic: Ouseley
Thu	Guide me, O thou great Jehovah (H40: 434)	Deep River	O day of rest and gladness (H40: 474)	Psalm, Magnificat, Nunc dimittis: Hoyt

† From Southern Hymnal (1835), set to tune Restoration with a 2015 arrangement.

It was pretty straightforward to find the “Benedic, anima mea” by English composer Frederick Ouseley (1825-1889) — it’s Hymn #677 in H40. With some digging, I was able to find reference to Jerome Webster Meachen (b. 1930), onetime organist of St. John’s (Waterbury, CT) — but did not find any reference in the four most relevant 20th century hymnals (TEH, H40, H82, NEH).

After Monday’s (lengthy) visit to the 16th century, the evensong anthems the rest of the week take on a decidedly contemporary slant:

• “How deep” dates to 1995, but Stuart Townend is best known for his 2001 CCM smash hit “In Christ Alone” (#11 in the most recent ranking of church-performed CCM)
• The text for “How shall they hear” by Michael Perry (1942-1996) and tune by Christopher Hoyt were published in 1982 by Hope Publishing
• “Deep River” uses a 1948 arrangement of this Negro spiritual by Roy Ringwald (1910-1995)

Holy Communion

The hymn selection for the mid-day holy communion is more eclectic, with some very familiar hymns from H40 and some brand new ones. Interestingly, three of the four anthem composers — Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924), Herbert Howells (1892-1983) and Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) were English composers active during the same period, while Harold Friedell (1905-1958) was an American 13 years younger than Howells.

Day	Processional	Gradual	Anthem	Offer-tory Hymn	Closing Hymn	Psalm
Tue	For all the saints (H40: 126)	Come all Christians, be committed (2015)	Stanford: Ye Choirs of New Jersualem	O love, how deep (H82: 449)†	I bind unto myself today (H40: 268)	Jerome Webster Meachen
Wed	The Church's one foundation (H40: 396)	Come labor on (2014)	Howells: Like as the Hart	Thy hand, O God (TEH: 545)	I love thy kingdom, Lord (H40: 388)	Chris Hoyt
Thu	Glorious things of thee are spoken (H40: 385)	Humbly I adore thee (H40: 204)	Friedell: Draw Us in the Spirit's Tether	Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness (H40: 210)	Alleluia! Sing to Jesus! (H40: 347)	Chris Hoyt
Fri	Not by the wisdom of this world (Hoyt, 2012)	Faith of our fathers, taught of old (NEH: 479)	Vaughan Williams: Antiphon	Rise up, O men of God! (H40: 535)	Lift high the cross (H82: 473)	Robert Knox Kennedy

† The tune used was not the familiar Deus Quorum Militium (H40: 344; H82: 448), nor Eisenach (TEH: 459; NEH: 425) nor Cornwall (NEH: 424)

The (uncredited) service music (Kyrie, Gloria, Nicene Creed, Sursum Corda, Sanctus+Benedictus, Lord’s Prayer) is the same for all four days, and appears to correspond to John Merbecke’s 16th century setting (the first ever English language setting).

Update: I left out the 16th century communion hymns (sung by the choir):

• Tuesday: Palestrina: Ego Sum Panis Vivus
• Wednesday: Palestrina: Sicut cervus
• Thursday: Tallis: Verily, Verily, I Say unto You
• Friday: Byrd: Haec dies

Also, before I got to Ft Worth I did not have the morning prayer book which each day included a daily office hymn

• Tuesday: Thy Hand, O God, Hast Guided (NEH: 485)
• Wednesday: Awake, My Soul, and With The Sun (H40: 151)
• Thursday: New Every Morning (H40: 155)
• Friday: Father, We Praise The, Now the Night Is Over (H40: 157 2nd)

Volume II of ACNA liturgy now online

On Wednesday, the ACNA website published the initial chapters of Volume II of its Texts for Common Prayer, available for free download at the ACNA website. These include services for Baptism, Confirmation and Renewal of the Baptismal Vows.

Like a software company, the ACNA is using version numbers and is now publishing a “Change Log” so the public can track the new liturgy versions as they are released.

Change Log
Volume I

• 11-16-13 Version 1.1 released. This release corrects typos found in the original.

• 10-17-13 Version 1.0 released.

Holy Eucharist

• 11-16-13 Version 1.1 released. This release corrects typos found in the original.

• 10-17-13 Version 1.0 released.

Morning and Evening Prayer

• 11-16-13 Version 1.1 released. This release corrects typos found in the original.

• 10-17-13 Version 1.0 released.

The Ordinal

• 11-16-13 Version 1.1 released. This release corrects typos found in the original.

• 10-17-13 Version 1.0 released.

Volume II

• 7-8-15 Version 1.0 released.

Baptism

• 7-8-15 Version 1.0 released.

Confirmation

• 7-8-15 Version 1.0 released.

Reaffirmation

• 7-8-15 Version 1.0 released.

I am guessing that (like the NIV) they won’t be making the old version available, but (hopefully) unlike the NIV the revisions won’t contain major theological changes.

The Liturgy and Common Worship Task Force presented a report at last month’s ACNA Provincial Council in Vancouver. (Since the retirement of Bp. Bill Thompson, the TF is chaired by Bp. Bob Duncan, former ACNA primate). The task force has five subcommittees:

1. Calendar, Collects and Lectionaries is developing a 3-year Sunday lectionary based on Common Lectionary (not RCL) as well as a daily office lectionary and a (reduced) list of saints days.
2. Episcopal Office is working on services for the consecration of church and for “celebration of new ministry.”
3. Psalter and Music is producing a new Psalter and an online resource “that would offer hymnody, praise songs, and traditional anthems related to the lectionary of every Sunday and season of the Christian year” as well as service music. It also states explicitly: “There is no plan to produce a hymnal.”
4. Offices of the Hours and Occasional Rites plans services for noontime and compline prayer services.
5. Pastoral Offices is working on marriage and baptism services.

The report also says it hopes to finish all “working texts” by 2017 so it can begin to incorporate feedback from the trial use (so keeps those cards and letters coming!)

The sign of the eternal cross

From a March 11 blog posting by Nashotah seminarian Cameron MacMillan:

Nine services per week in an Anglo-Catholic chapel yields more signings of the cross than Carter had liver pills.
…
We know that by the second century, Christians were marking themselves and other objects with the sign of the cross. The gesture was a consecratory sign of blessing, and was often made my persons on their foreheads. Perhaps among the early Fathers, Tertullian is best known for his words on the signum crucis:

“With every departure, in the beginning and end of all activities, from getting dressed to putting on shoes, in the bath, at table, in lighting the lamps, when we go to bed, when we sit down, in each of our actions, we mark our foreheads with the sign of the cross.”

Tertullian, writing in the early 200s, speaks of the gesture as if it is something that’s been going on for quite some time. So, whatever we think of the sign, we know its use originated very early on in the life of the Christian Church.

Furthermore, St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage in the early third century, saw the sign of the cross to be supported by the biblical action of God’s people being marked in special ways as the faithful, those with whom God had covenanted and would be obedient and trusting of the Lord’s protection

In my travels, I have noticed that different Anglo-Catholic parishes make the sign at different times, although we appear broadly similar to each other, and similar to (but less frequent) than Roman Catholic practice. Occasionally I’ll find another Protestant church (usually Lutheran) where the sign is made at least once during the service, usually when invoking the Trinity at the closing benediction.

Meanwhile, my Orthodox friends are quick to point out that we Westerners do our crossing backwards. They also specify that only three (or two) fingers should be used when making the sign.

Still, I am reassured by the (broad) unity of practice among liturgical Christians today — and, more importantly, the continuity of practice back to the earliest days of the Church, linking us to the early Christians.

When thinking about making liturgical choices, I sometimes use a thought experiment. Suppose a Christian from the 200s or 500s or 1000s or 1500s was transported to the 2000s? Would he or she recognize what we are doing today? As MacMillan and others note, clearly our Christian ancestors would recognize the sign of the cross — an enduring acknowledgement of the eternal redemption purchased by our savior on the cross.

The sacred and the mundane

My family was recently visiting a (Catholic) medieval gothic cathedral in Europe, when it turned out it was time for the weekly organ concert. I stopped to listen, and was pleased to see (from the program afterwards) that the final two pieces were, in fact, by J.S. Bach. The organ was obviously the finest in town and for miles around.

Alas, less than 10% of the audience was under 40. That's probably true for most churches in Europe — and many I’ve seen in the U.S., too.

Still, it reminds me of a time — less than a generation ago — where church music was something unique. In the medium-sized church (ca. 200 ASA) in the medium-sized town (perhaps 80,000) where we worshipped, the best organist in town was at our church. I’d hazard to say that 4 of the 5 best organists in town were at our church. And the church where I grew up in a big city, the organist (and choir director) had one of the best music jobs in town.

We also had the best organ in town. It was nothing compared to the organ we visited (which apparently still has pipes from the 16th to 18th centuries), but it was obviously better than any organ that anyone had at home.

Today, children and young adults don’t listen to organ music or even classical music in general. Most churches play CCM because they believe that’s what people want, and it’s certainly plausible to conclude that few people are breaking down the door demanding organ music.

The problem is, the praise band is not set apart from the world — it is not only in the world, but (except for the J-word) it’s more or less of the world. Not only is the sound comparable to what you’d hear on the radio or in a bar, but (with one exception) the praise bands I’ve heard aren’t as good (even as the band in the corner dive bar.)

So instead of church music that is the awe-inspiring, sacred, set apart from the world — such as the Messiah or a great organ concert — what we have today is the profane of the ordinary life of the world (to use Durkheim’s formulation). And this profane (i.e. ordinary) music is rather mundane.

I’m not sure I have an answer here, but this seems like yet another reason why many of my most Anglican friends are — as the Episcopal and Anglican denominations teeter around them — skipping Catholicism and heading straight to the Orthodox faith. The liturgy is not my cup of tea, but (like the theology) has retained a millennial-old emphasis of being set apart, of being organized around the holy mysteries, rather than adapting and bending to the contemporary culture.

Credo: We do NOT believe

As seems to have been mandated (or at least strongly encouraged) by the ACNA, our parish has been using the proposed ACNA liturgy since Advent 1 of this liturgical year. On the one hand, it kills all the traditional language of the 1662/1789/1892/1928 prayer books; on the other hand, in terms of theology and form, it is more faithful to them than was the contemporary language of the 1979 ECUSA prayer book.

I Believe

Even after two months, there’s one thing I’ve been unable to accept: the plural form of the Nicene Creed. The 1549 liturgy was created from the creed of the Sarum rite, which begins:

Credo in unum Deum, Patrem Omnipotentem, factorem cœli et terra, visibilium omnium et invisibilium.

Et in unum Dominum Jesum Christum, Filium Dei unigenitum, et ex Patre natum ante omnia sæcula: Deum de Deo, Lumen de Lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero, Genitum non factum, consubstantialem Patri, per quem omnia facta sunt.

In fact, the word “creed” comes from the credo that begins it. Credo is the latin word for “I believe.”

The Cranmer translation of the liturgy set the standard for all other English-language Protestant liturgical worship. It was not just the Methodist church when it split off from the Church of England, but it also was used for the English-language liturgy of the Presbyterian church (coming from Geneva) and the Lutheran church (coming from Germany and Scandinavia).

If you attended any American Protestant worship through the mid-1970s, you would hear Cranmer’s words (with the 1789 ECUSA modernized spellings):

I believe in one God,
the Father Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
and of all things visible and invisible;

And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only begotten Son of God,
begotten of his Father before all worlds,
God of God, Light of Light,
very God of very God,
begotten, not made,
being of one substance with the Father;
by whom all things were made;

This is the text (for example) in the 1941 The Lutheran Hymnal, used by the Missouri Synod until their 1982 hymnal. (Being slightly anti-Papist, the Lutherans did change “one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church” to “one Holy Christian and Apostolic Church.”)

We Believe

The use of “we believe" came to ECUSA in the 1970s with the 1979 prayer book via the ICET. As Hatchett (1980: 29) writes in his 670 page commentary on that book:

For rites in contemporary language the last revision of the Prayers We Have in Common: Agreed Liturgical Texts Prepared by the International Consultation on English Texts [ICET] is used for common texts, with a few exceptions. … The word “men” has been deleted from a phrase in the Nicene Creed.

In discussing the Nicene Creed later on (p. 334), he writes:

The ICET translation, which left the inclusion of the filioque clause optional, has been adopted for this Book. The plural form is restored, true to the document of the council and fitting for use in the Eucharist as a proclamation of the faith of the Church.

While rejecting many of the theological changes of Rite II, the ACNA task force embraced this philosophy with the first word of their creed. As the ACNA FAQ explains

Nicene Creed: Why, in the Nicene Creed, are we saying "We believe" rather than "I believe?"

The original Greek text used "We Believe" because this Creed reflects the belief of the whole Church as a united body, as contrasted with the Apostles' Creed which is a personal profession of faith used at baptism. The translation we are using for the Creed is that used by The Church of England in "Common Worship," an adaptation of 1662 BCP.

The citation of Common Worship is slightly misleading. In Order One, the CoE uses “we believe” but Order Two of the latest CoE liturgy retains the Cranmerian credo.

Ecumenical Disharmony

That the ACNA used a CoE modernization rather than inventing its own is somewhat reassuring. However, its decision on "we believe" is still in disharmony with the ACNA's most likely ecumenical partners.

For much of the past century, the CoE and Anglicans more broadly have been trying to repair the Tudor rift with Rome. However, in their new liturgy, adopted in 2008 and put into effect in 2011, the Order of Mass dropped the “We believe” in favor of the “I believe.”

In the US, the ACNA has been courting the Orthodox church for the past five years, inviting Metropolitan Jonah to address the 2009 convention, and a delegation of Orthodox clergy last fall to Nashotah House. The various American branches of Orthodoxy still use “I”.

Then there is the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. Of the liturgical churches among US Protestant denominations, it is one of the largest — in fact, the largest of the traditionalist denominations (with only the UMC, ELCA and PCUSA mainline Protestants being larger). In fact, with 2.3 million members it has more than the 2.0 million of TEC (vs. 100,000-140,00 for the ACNA).

Maybe that’s why the ACNA has actively courted the LCMS as a liturgical partner, with a series of “dialog” meetings that led to a 2012 joint communique.

While the Orthodox (being Orthodox) stick to traditional language, the RCC demonstrates it is possible to do contemporary language while keep the credo in the creed.

Why Others Do Not Believe

After joining with the ICET pluralism with a 1970 decision of the ICEL, the RCC consciously reverted to the singular with their 2011 liturgical revision.

In anticipation of that shift, Rev. James V. Schall, then a Jesuit priest and Georgetown professor wrote a July 2011 essay explaining the RCC theology behind the change:

In the Denziger collection of Church documents, however, all the ancient creeds, except the Apostles’ Creed, begin, following the Greek, in the first-person plural: Credimus – “we believe.” From its earliest appearance in the Church, the “I believe” version is for liturgical use. Those present affirm their own personal belief.

Why the English translation currently in use from the 1960s changed to “we believe” is open to speculation. Obviously, if it was good enough at Nicea, it ought to be good enough in Kansas City. When the Church Fathers at Nicea and Constantinople said “we believe” or “we affirm,” however, they were speaking definitively in the name of the tradition. They affirmed authoritatively what the Church held, what is to be believed as true. At Mass, the individual parishioner is not so speaking with authority. He is articulating his personal acceptance and knowledge of what is held. He is not defining it, but he does understand it.
…
The problem with the formula “we believe” is that the one who recites it may not in fact be affirming what is in the Creed. Instead of saying “I believe” as a public expression of what he holds, he means rather, “We believe” — that is, this is what this organization holds, though not necessarily what I hold myself. The unity of belief is broken.

I recommend the entire article for reading.

The Orthodox church is certainly not a fan of the RCC position on the creed — in particular three words added by Rome the 11th century that helped prompt the Great Schism. And the “we” form — gone in the West by the 5th century — lasted longer in the East.

That said, an official statement of the Orthodox Church in America, comments on the evolution of the creed after it was finalized in 381:

This whole Symbol of Faith was ultimately adopted throughout the entire Church. It was put into the first person form “I believe” and used for the formal and official confession of faith made by a person (or his sponsor-godparent) at his baptism. It is also used as the formal statement of faith by a non-Orthodox Christian entering the communion of the Orthodox Church. In the same way the creed became part of the life of Orthodox Christians and an essential element of the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church at which each person formally and officially accepts and renews his baptism and membership in the Church. Thus, the Symbol of Faith is the only part of the liturgy (repeated in another form just before Holy Communion) which is in the first person. All other songs and prayers of the liturgy are plural, beginning with “we”. Only the credal statement begins with “I.” This, as we shall see, is because faith is first personal, and only then corporate and communal.

As best I understand, the LCMS position is the same as the Catholic and Orthodox. When (during my Lutheran period) I asked my LCMS pastor why the creed we recited was "I" and not "we," he answered simply: “because I don’t know what is in your heart — only what is in my heart.”

Conclusions

When the ACNA created its liturgy task force, it was pre-ordained that they would create a single modern language service: their “Guiding Principles” of 2009 made that clear, calling for “a modern language adaptation of the Rite I.” It claimed the primacy of Scripture and the creeds — but which creeds?

Verbally, I heard statements that the task force was trying to avoid the theological errors of the 1979 prayer book, but the word “theology” only appears twice in the Guiding Principles.

With the discussion of “What is Anglican worship?” several of the principles would suggest a desire to hew to first millennial church practice:

Although profoundly influenced, over several generations and in diverse directions, by the Continental 16th-century Reformation, the Church of England claims a direct !continuity of faith, governance and practice from before the arrival of St. Augustine of Canterbury in 597 to the present.
…
The central identifying marks of the Anglican version of Reformed Catholicism were and remain:
a. The primacy and sufficiency of Scripture
b. Credal orthodoxy
c. Justification by grace alone through faith alone
d. Patristic Heritage, including the 3-fold ministry of bishops, presbyters, and deacons.
e. Historic liturgy in continuity with ancient catholic tradition, but “purged” of late Medieval aberrations.

That the creeds entered the liturgy of the one true and (pre-Schism) undivided church with “credo” — first person singular — would seem to point to keeping the only form that Anglicans used for 400 years. Instead, the ACNA seems to favor the congregational feel of the “we,” while ignoring the theological change this represents.

Theological and ecumenical continuity would support support “I” while emotion supports ”we.” This key decision provides a window into the future character of the Evangelical Church in North America and its founder, the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan.

References

Common Worship, London: Church House Publishing, 2000

Hatchett, Marion J., Commentary on the American prayer book, New York : Seabury Press, 1980

International Consultation on English Texts, Prayers We Have in Common: Agreed Liturgical Texts, 2nd revised edition, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975.