A New Prayer Book

The Book of Common Prayer is a majestic mainstay of the Anglican faith. It is, as G.K. Chesterton observed, "the masterpiece of Protestantism, the one magnet and talisman for people even outside the Anglican Church, as are the great Gothic cathedrals for people outside the Catholic Church." The Prayer Book has remained essentially unchanged for 300 years. Should it now be modernized?

In the eyes of many U.S. Episcopalians, revision of the Prayer Book has long been overdue. The ancient language is often baffling to modern ears. The role of religion in society has altered drastically since 17th century England, and man's relationship to God has refined and mellowed. Thus, climaxing a process of revision and trial use that has been under way since 1949, the U.S. Episcopal Church this week is releasing the first 50,000 copies of its Standing Liturgical Commission's proposed draft for a new Prayer Book. The 1,001-page volume will be presented in September to the church's 1976 General Convention. If it is then authorized to replace the 1928 Prayer Book--a modest revision of the 1662 book that is currently in official American use--the 1979 convention may adopt the first wholly new liturgy for U.S. Anglicans.

The biggest change is the draft's provision for alternative versions of the central rites of the church: the Holy Eucharist, Daily Morning and Evening Prayer, and the Burial of the Dead. The first version, called Rite One, remains fairly close to the 1928 Prayer Book, though in many instances the language has been simplified. Rite Two differs sharply in phrase and form from the old services. God is no longer addressed as "Thou" or "Thee" but familiarly as "You." In the Lord's Prayer, "And lead us not into temptation" is rendered flatly as "Save us from the time of trial." In the Nicene Creed, "Maker of ... all things visible and invisible" becomes "Maker of ... all things seen and unseen," a considerable existential and semantic change. In the Commendation part of the burial service, in both Rites, the phrase "at whose coming in glorious majesty to judge the world" is omitted, minimizing the implications of a Final Judgment.

The proposed draft provides for three separate marriage services. In the first and more traditional Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage, the minister's charge to the couple makes no mention of "the dreadful day of judgment." The second is a shorter, simplified civil service, and the third version is a free-form "order for marriage" that allows couples and priests virtually to write their own ceremonies in accordance with the canons of the church. No mention is made of the ancient admonition: "Those whom God hath joined together let no one put asunder."

The language is often the typically bland product of committees. And though the liturgical commission denies any doctrinal shift, the draft softens some of the gloomier theologizing of the Anglican past. "The 1928 version is overloaded with sin and penitence," says Canon Charles Guilbert, 67, custodian of the Standard Book of Common Prayer and secretary of the liturgical commission. "The old Communion didn't really accept forgiveness. We trust God. We trust that if we confess, he will forgive."

Opponents of the draft--notably the conservative, Nashville-based Society for the Preservation of the Book of Common Prayer, which claims 100,000 members--warn that adoption of the new rites will severely strain the tenuous bonds that unite conservative and liberal, High and Low Church factions. Man-in-the-pew reaction seems about evenly divided. Some outraged Episcopalians echo the Italian proverb: Traduttori, traditori (translators, traitors). Many worshipers share the more equable view of a woman in Berkeley's All Saints Chapel; "The order is more logical; there's less verbiage. It may not be so beautiful, but it's easier to understand." To which the revisionists might add the words of the English translator of the 1535 Bible, Miles Coverdale, who wrote in his dedication: "Though I could not do so well as I would, I thought it yet my duty to do my best."

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