New Yorker Article re Book of Common Prayer

Due to the kindness of a CCC parishioner, I was vouchsafed opportunity to read an article from a recent New Yorker titled “God Talk: The Book of Common Prayer at Three Hundred and Fifty,” by James Wood. It is an erudite piece, full of respectful praise for the “majestic and grandly alienated” language of our liturgical tradition, as well as for what the author labels as its “coziness,” a quality he ascribes to its being intended as a “handbook of worship for a people, not a priesthood.”

It is nice to have our tradition admired by so respected a literary person as James Wood, who, in addition to his work for the New Yorker, is also a professor at Harvard. He is also (according to Wikepedia) a professed atheist, which explains why he would write: “the words persist, but the belief they vouchsafe is long gone.” For this author, the “grand sonority” of the Prayer Book is an exercise in cultural nostalgia, not an expression of living faith.

The article contains some errors of fact, such as when he identifies the “Sarum Missal” as the Latin service book wherein “orders of service for Evening Prayer, Morning Prayer, and the Mass” could be found. The Sarum Missal, like all missals, included only the rite for the Eucharist, not for Morning or Evening Prayer, which would have been found in any of the monastic breviaries then in use. James Wood also makes the misleading statement that “the 1662 edition [of the Book of Common Prayer] is identical, in all important respects, to its 1552 predecessor.” In fact, the 1662 Book differs from the 1552 in a number of significant ways, and, more importantly, had as its immediate predecessor not the 1552 Book, but the 1559 version, developed during the early years of Queen Elizabeth the First and moving in a somewhat more catholic direction from the extreme Protestantism of 1552.

Most worshippers in Episcopal parishes today are only occasionally exposed to the Cranmerian English that so appeals to James Wood. The language of the Book of Common Prayer used by Episcopalians since 1979 preserves something of the cadence and solemnity of the older versions, but relies on sacramental actions and non-verbal symbolism more than elegant phrases to express its meanings. In any case, even James Wood acknowledges that “Cranmer’s prayers use ordinary phrases” from the 16^th Century to express ancient and future meanings, just as latter-day revisers have sought to do using contemporary language. In most cases the results of recent revision seem unlikely to survive as literary masterpieces, but the congregations using these liturgies are using them to sustain their understanding of Christian discipleship, not as relics of a more pious age.         

James Wood’s atheism is of a different sort than the militant variety that has spawned so many best-selling books recently. He seems to share the attitude he ascribes to “agnostic or atheist writers,” which is to “approach Cranmer’s words without easy mockery but with something closer to reverent irony.”  “Reverent Irony” is a felicitous phrase that, to my mind, comes close to what some in the church might call “faith.” It reminds me of Albert Camus, whose bleak and defiant atheism was muted by similar expressions, such as when he wrote: “ I can refute everything… except this chaos, this sovereign chance and this divine equivalence which springs from anarchy.” “Divine Equivalence”? Another interesting phrase, and one which may or may not accurately translate the French original, but whatever its author’s intent, it sounds like something best approached using the language of reverent irony, does it not?