The New Continuing Anglican Churchman

You can follow me at my new blog here....

http://newcontinuinganglican.blogspot.com/

Consummatum Est

1943 Lectionary

I just finished reading "The American Lectionary" by Bayard H. Jones (1944). This book is a rationale for the 1943 American Book of Common Prayer lectionary. Jones, who was a professor at the St. Luke School of Theology, University of the South, was part of the committee responsible for developing the new lectionary. I'd been wanting to read it for a while since I have spent and continue to spend a good portion of my life using the 1943 lectionary! As far as reading the Bible, there is no better tool for the systematic studying and praying of the Scriptures than the Anglican model of Daily Offices and Holy Communion, and it is organized in a brilliant and systematic way in the 1943 Episcopal lectionary.

The most important aspect of the new lectionary is that it is thematic and entirely on the Church Year. The original 1928 lectionary (weekday lectionary) aimed to simply get readers through as much of the Bible as possible in a year, and was based on the Church Year only in certain seasons (such as Advent). Put another way, the old lectionary tended to follow the civil year whereas the newer one the ecclesiastical year. The old schema had a number of limitations and problems. Many of the lections were too long; Psalms that had an obvious connection with the morning often ended up being read in the evening; the civil scheme was constantly interrupted by movable Holy Days; many passages of Scripture were needlessly repeated at the expense of others; and more. The newer lectionary sought to remedy all of that, and to provide more flexibility and variation. I came away from reading the book with a new appreciation for the thought and time that went into developing our lectionary, which is vastly superior to just about everything else out there - particularly the old Roman breviary. And it can certainly hold its own with the lectionaries of today in terms of comprehensiveness.

But the most interesting part about the book was on page 151, where the author states that one of the purposes of the additional readings for Morning and Evening Prayer on Sundays is that they be used as alternatives for the liturgical lectionary's Epistles and Gospels to provide a variation, particularly for weekday celebrations of the Holy Eucharist! In other words, it was a "proto-three-year lectionary." This is what churches and parishes that use the 1928 Book of Common Prayer and lectionary should do today. In the APA we are allowed to use the RCL. I don't know how many of our parishes do it (I imagine it is very few). But using the additional readings from Morning and Evening Prayer is I think a much better way to go if one senses he must use a three-year lectionary. The reason is because all of the readings relate to the same theme and to the collect for the day. This also solves a built in problem with continuing churches - namely that since most of our parishes celebrate only Holy Communion on Sundays the people do not get to hear many important passages of Scripture because they are not part of the liturgical lectionary. They are in the lectionary, no doubt, only they are in Sunday Morning or Evening Prayer, which many clergy seem to want to stamp out of parish life. (especially on Sundays) If these additional Epistles and Gospels were allowed to be used as alternates to the liturgical lectionary, then more of the Scriptures would be covered, but the unity and integrity of the 1928 Prayer Book and lectionary, and all that goes with it, would be preserved intact.

30th Anniversary of St. Francis

This coming Sunday is the 30th Anniversary of the parish I serve, St. Francis in Blacksburg, VA. Pictured to the left is a photo from our first service held at a parishioner's home (who still attends and is very active). In the photo is (very young looking) Fr. Harry Scott and Bp. William Rutherfoord. The folk at St. Francis came out of Christ Episcopal Church which is right down the street from us. Interestingly, Fr. Scott's old parish in nearby Christiansburg, VA (St. Peter's ACC) is right down the street from the Episcopal parish that they came out of as well. In many ways St. Francis reflects so much what went right and also so much of what went wrong in the "continuing Anglican" church.

Over the years our parish has had its ups and downs. The founders of our parish were very wise in immediately securing a decent building in a good location. But from the start they had trouble attracting a full time priest. In those days I guess there were not many to choose from. We had supply clergy for a couple of years until we got the Revd Stephen Head - a Nashotah grad and former Episcopal priest. He did not last very long - I believe he was here just two years or so. The parish was served for many years by the Revd Dr. James I. "Bud" Robertson, the famous Civil War historian. He was ordained a deacon in the ACC here at St. Francis and served as "deacon-in-charge" at different periods in time, and, when we had full time clergy, as an assisting deacon. Other clergy over the years when we were an ACC parish included such faithful and dedicated men as: Fr. Stephen Wallstadt (later of St. Mary's ACC fame), Canon Wallce Shields, Fr. Bill Crites, and Fr. Dennis Sossi. These men all served in different capacities. Besides these men the parish was assisted by dedicated priests, deacons, postulants, and lay readers at various times in its history, including a friend of mine when I was in seminary, Will Cohen. The longest serving of these men and rectors/priests-in-charge was Canon Wallace Shields who served as rector for about 10 years. Eventually the constant turnover of clergy - both before and after Canon Shields - made the parish hemorrhage people and money. At one point the parish voted to transfer into the APA and become a mission parish of All Saints' Anglican Church in Charlottesville, VA. For a few years the parish was faithfully served by two priests of the APA, the Rev'd Dr. Lawrence Adams and the Rev'd Dr. Clarence "Chip" Sills. Now, since August 2008, they have me. I hope to be here for a long, long, long time.

Today, 30 years into its history, we have just over 30 members. Only half attend regularly, the others not attending because they live out of town. Our ASA, though is about 26, and rising. This reflects our dedicated college students as well as folk who attend regularly but who hold membership elsewhere. We have new members (we received six a few weeks ago), and everything is on the up and up. Do I wish we were bigger? Yes. Do I wish we could grow faster? Yes. But what I will and what God wills are two different things. Our official membership levels - and we were never a large, wealthy parish - reflects, I think, the fact that we did not have full time leadership for so long. A parish without full time clerical leadership will go south, because little will get done, and visitors and families will not want to commit to a place where no one knows who will be there the next week. Most successful continuing parishes, and parishes of other traditions, seem to have full time leadership in place for a long time. It establishes continuity.

I remain hopeful about our future, and am excited to be working on building this church at this time in my life. And this 30 year anniversary we remember and are thankful for all of the dedicated clergy who served the parish, and for the extremely dedicated and loyal membership who ARE the parish, and who kept it afloat all these years.

"The Lost Art of Catechesis"

Every time I read an article from Christianity Today that has to do with Anglicanism it makes me cringe. These are always sent to me by other, well-meaning folk, and even though I know I will probably not care for it I try to make to sure and read them. One of the latest two that I received is called the "Lost Art of Catechesis", co-written by Dr. Gary Parrett, a professor at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, and the renowned English theologian J.I. Packer. The general thrust of the article is fine - we need more catechesis... pastors teaching their flocks. That is all fine and true. But the thing that puzzled me about the article is that while singing the praises of Luther's Larger Catechism and the Westminster Catechism it makes no reference to the Book of Common Prayer catechism! It is a strange omission, especially since one of the authors is an Anglican priest.

The 1928 Prayer Book catechism and Offices of Instruction, which expands the catechism and puts it into a liturgical format, are wonderful concise resources for discipleship and spiritual growth. I use them in preparing young people and adults for confirmation. The Prayer Book envisions these offices being lead by a minister, which is exactly what the authors of this article say ministers need to be doing. The only reason I can think of that he would exclude the Prayer Book catechism is because it avoids the glaring theological errors contained in other Reformation catechisms, which errors Packer has been committed to for many years now. That is probably why he rarely writes on the Prayer Book, or discusses its offices in his works. He does from time to time comment on the Articles of Religion, and gives them a curious Calvinistic spin, but the Articles are not (and never were) part of the Prayer Book, and so do not fall under the Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi rule. The Book of Common Prayer, of which the catechism is a part, commits the English Church to a truly reformed Catholicism, and in my estimation that is just too much for Dr. Packer and company.

Science and Religion

I have been enjoying reading the book Quarks, Chaos, and Christianity: Questions to Science and Religion by John Polkinghorne. Before being ordained an Anglican priest, he was for many years a professor of mathematical physics at Cambridge. The general thrust of his work is that science (specifically physics) and religion are looking for the same truth, and often go about it in similar and complementary ways. In this book he clarifies what science and religion can and cannot tell us, what the scientific method involves, what types of questions science asks (what we can do) vs. what type of questions religion asks (what we should do), and more. It is a very accessible and well-written book - quite readable, but it definitely raises some interesting questions, and brings together several fields such as theology, physics, biology, and philosophy. I want to read all of his books now.

Having hardly any background in science in general, and none in theoretical physics and things like that, I find all of this stuff fascinating. A background in philosophy can help a theologian in a conversation with a scientist (or philosopher of science), but knowing something about quarks, chaos theory, big bang theory, and the like is helpful. At the end of the book he talks about why he believes certain scientific theories - such as biological evolution, and the big bang... because they make sense of data and many aspects of human experience. But he also says the same thing about religion and belief in God. To Polkinghorne, the religious man who has no need for science is as bad as the scientific man who has no need for religion. They are complimentary fields, and they both seek the same thing: truth.

Palm Sunday and the Power of Music

We had a great Palm Sunday service at St. Francis today. One of the things that made it special was the music and special reading of the passion from St. Matthew. On the special Sundays and services interspersed throughout the year, there are additional readings and devotions appropriate to the season. Today it was the blessing of palms, and the Palm Sunday procession. In small parishes these additional prayers and devotions are often simply recited because it easy - the path of least resistance. But while the sentiment and language of the prayers is very powerful and beautiful in its own way, the simple fact that they are recited - along with much of the regular service - takes away from their significance and impact. Instead of glorying in the liturgy that day the people end up complaining about the long service. In other words, the profound words of the special rite for that day end up getting lost in the rest of the service. I have found, however, that if a little bit of time is taken in advance to learn some chants and work with the choir, and to choreograph a decent liturgy and procession (if one is called for), these additional devotions have the intense spiritual effect they were meant to have, and that even the lowest of low churchmen will shake your hand after the service and comment on its sublimity.

So what we did at St. Francis was chant instead of simply and boringly "recite" the Hosanna Filio David along with the Psalm verse and other related prayers and devotions. It took a few choir practices, but our choir of four amateurs nailed it to great effect! But we didn't leave it at that. We wanted to incorporate as much chant in the service as possible. And since Anglican chant is very hard for such a small untrained choir as ours, we focused on Gregorian chant... that is what we would do to ornament the liturgy for this special day! What to chant came next. Besides the "Hosanna Filio David" (which our untrained, tiny choir learned to read and sing in traditional Gregorian chant notation in one night), we took some of the 1940 Hymnal selections for Passiontide and sung the Gregorian chant tunes of them (e.g. #63, first tune). For the Palm Sunday procession we sang #64 - 1st Tune. Granted, it would have been easier to sing the second tune (Winchester New, I think it was...), but then again we always sing that tune. Why not work a little harder with the choir and congregation and have them learn a new tune that is more solemn and stirring for this special day? So that is what we did. And it sounded great, and made the service more special and solemn. The 1940 Hymnal has so many great but unused resources for the average parish church. We did a classical "pretzel" procession in the church, and our organist at exactly the right moment transposed from #64 into "All Glory Laud and Honor". Then we did some more Gregorian chant in the service, and we read the Holy Gospel in parts. It was all very powerful, different (for this parish), and beautiful.

All of this was (obviously) a lot of extra work, but it was well worth it. People remarked afterwards at how beautiful the service was. One person in the congregation was fending off tears while reading the peoples' part in the Gospel reading from St. Matthew. Why do I mention this? Because I think in our parishes there is often the temptation to accept too much the status quo, and to be content with how things are "always"done. But what we end up with in our services dullness and even deadness. There is the tendency to think that parishioners are too dumb to try a new tune, or the organist is too lazy to commit to an extra rehearsal for a special service, so we stick with the easiest way out, and the way we have always done things, and then wonder why people leave after a year or so. On the contrary, there is much flexibility and 2000+ year tradition to draw upon in ornamenting these important services. We clergy need to get creative and think of ways to use the 2,000 year old tradition of the Church in their parishes to better effect.