A love of literature, a love of the Christian Church, a love of God and a dedication to orthodox and challenging theology as embedded in centuries of worship in the church has led David Jasper to put together a series of essays on a historic selection of those whose similar commitment led them to write scholarly commentaries (characterized by Geoffrey Cumming as, ‘a new species of literature’) on the Church of England’s central book of worship since 1549, The Book of Common Prayer (BCP).
At first glance, one could downplay Jasper’s book as a ‘commentary on the commentators and their commentaries’. To do so, however, would be to miss the mark of what Jasper has written. Underscoring every chapter, each containing a literary biography of principal historical authors and their substantial emphases, is Jasper’s determination to remind his readers of the scriptural, patristic and mediaeval origins and subsequent continuity of the BCP and its formative place in British (largely English) society, something that remained so up to Britain’s rising pluriform nature in more recent times.
Jasper is a scholar of letters and theology – a priest and pastor like many of those about whom he writes. His erudition, like that of his subject-authors, shines from these pages.
The BCP became embedded in English culture from very early days after its first publication in 1549 and remained so in its subsequent revisions. The 1662 version that became commonplace in England up to at least the 1970s bears that out both through its use in communal worship as well as private devotion. Jasper’s biographical essays cover the period 1655 – 1901 and bring to the modern reader nineteen scholar-priest writers (and one learned layman) whose commentaries on the BCP (many earning multiple editions and reprints) were in their day as crucially instrumental in the practice of worship and prayer as was the BCP itself.
Is Jasper’s book an epilogue on a subject now part of a treasured past but one no longer valued? Quite possibly, in one sense. Yet the BCP persists and, perhaps not unlike the traditional Latin Mass of the Roman Catholic Church, will not go away. The sheer beauty of its language, the fact that it carries the worshipper rather than pandering to the whim of a secular ephemeral age means that it will challenge those priests and worship leaders to think again when they consider their explanatory interjections to be necessary in the conduct of worship.
Jasper acknowledges his selection of scholar-biographies has left out many commentators who could have been included. He notes that his subjects are all male but acknowledges influential women in his personal life and professional scholarship with affection and respect.
Much in the BCP will not survive to another generation except perhaps in academic seminars. ‘The Thirty-Nine Articles’ might be such a casualty. Similarly, the ‘Athanasian Creed’ as a component in worship. The ‘Churching of Women’ has long since disappeared from practice and is unlikely to return. So too the BCP Lectionary and maybe also particular occasional offices such as the Baptism and Burial rites and, sadly, the Catechism. I’ve never heard of the Commination being used, ever.
What is it in the BCP that will not fade away? The Psalms and Collects will most likely survive along with Evensong and Matins in those places with the resources and will to sustain them. Similarly, also the Communion rite. The Kalendar of Sundays, holy days and seasons should remain as modern liturgical revisions hold to it as well as develop it.
In this very readable book, Jasper reminds the current generation of worship leaders and those interested in liturgy that the BCP of the Church of England is not to be discarded easily. With its roots in ancient and mediaeval texts, and from rites and rituals that shaped generations long before, the BCP has served God well in its time. Through these essays, Jasper persuasively and respectfully contends that it still does.
