The Center of Gravity in Cranmer’s Communion Liturgy
Where is the center of gravity in Cranmer’s Order for the Lord’s Supper (of 1552, Cranmer’s final version of the Communion liturgy) and to what extent does the 1928 American Prayer Book affect or move...
View ArticleA Liturgical Bait-and-Switch?
I have long considered myself something of a liturgy nerd. I remember as a young child comparing various sections of the Episcopal 1979 Prayer Book and wondering why we always prayed the Nicene Creed...
View ArticleResponse to Jefferies: 1662BCP a norm for ACNA?
On Beeson Divinity School’s Anglican podcast, Gerald McDermott recently interviewed Ben Jefferies, Secretary of the ACNA liturgical committee. McDermott and Jefferies discuss the ACNA’s 2019 Prayer...
View ArticleWhy I’m No Longer (as) Grumpy About BCP2019
Unless folks have been on an extended vacation from social media, regular readers of The North American Anglican will be aware that the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) has finally released...
View ArticleSeabury and the Scottish Liturgy
It will soon be the anniversary of the consecration of the first American bishop, 14 November, which prompts reflection on the effects of that momentous occasion. Samuel Seabury of Connecticut received...
View ArticleIn Praise of 1552: a High Church appreciation
The Book of Common Prayer 1552: it is the bête noire of Anglican liturgy. Frere famously declared that with it “English religion reached its low water mark.”[1] Dix damned it with the most horrible...
View ArticleThere Is No Traditionalist Liturgical Revival Happening—Yet
There is a very popular narrative you will hear among young Christians—that the millennial and zoomer generations have embarked on an effort to return the Christian Church to its former glory,...
View ArticleThe 1928 and Cranmer’s Shape
As I have noted previously, Cranmer’s Eucharistic liturgy of 1552 had a distinctive shape – Law-Gospel-Repentance-Supper-Thanksgiving – which was retained for most Anglican rites down to the middle of...
View ArticleThe Sanctus: Bigger on the Inside
O how sweetly the voices resound there when all the Holy Ones sing the praises of God saying: sanctus Thus we also praise the Lord on earth whom the holy angels praise in the highest saying: sanctus...
View ArticleLiturgy as Collective Memory and Tool
Growing up in the Church of England the Book of Common Prayer (“BCP”) was more of a tool and a reference point than anything else. By the time I came along, it was not the exclusive liturgy of the...
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