Big inside baseball Episcopal Church liturgy thread incoming, feel free to mute this thread if you'd prefer to not deal with it.

So, our Task Force on Liturgical and Prayer Book Revision ("TFLPBR") just dropped their report for our next General Convention, and I want to think through it a little bit with you all. https://extranet.generalconvention.org/staff/files/download/29991?fbclid=IwAR0LmDj-B66ZqxkXgCFEf-YQargD3FtYvw5xD3DWR2mgS66-xU9uEM3GbNo

On my reading, here's what it does: (1) preserves the 1979 book as authorized in its current form (2) suggests that new liturgical materials be developed and authorized primarily as digital/virtual, not necessarily in book form

(3) stipulates that such materials must be in line with our doctrine (which is roughly to say creedal) & meet expansive & inclusive language guidelines (4) retains the provision that new liturgical materials must pass 2 General Conventions

Here are some disorganized thoughts on this:

First, the good. I'm glad that a high bar (2 GCs!) is retained for approving new liturgies and that there is a commitment that they be creedal.

Now, the most dramatic change - albeit one that is in many respects more the culmination of a process than a wholly new thing - is the abandonment of any vestige of the historic Anglican position that for a given church there will be "but one Use," in a single book.

This has, let's be honest, been chipped away at since the late 19th c., and most dramatically in the second half of the 20th. Here in TEC, we have in our BCP two rites, six Eucharistic prayers, as well as the 'Rite III' create-your-own Eucharist...

...along with the Eucharistic prayers in Enriching Our Worship, the set of three modified 1979 prayers that last GC passed for trial use, and also lots of parishes just do whatever they want, regardless of whether our canons allow it.

So, in one sense, one might reasonably say that this proposal to produce a new directory of approved liturgies alongside the BCP is just being honest about the situation that currently exists, and trying to regularize it/bring it under some level of control.

On the other hand, one might say that this marks something new: an abandonment, even in principle, of being a church of 'one Use'. And maybe this is unimportant or even positive! Certainly the traditional Anglican way isn't the only way to organize liturgy. But it is significant.

It is very helpful to be able to give someone a single volume and say "this will take you from cradle to grave", to be able to say that they could take this volume into any church and (hopefully, at least...) worship according to the liturgy.

It is a helpful check on clerical tinkering to have a sort of liturgical contract between people and priest, that liturgy will be conducted according to forms accessible to all.

And this is a big thing to lose!

Now some people have suggested that this means for us liturgical conservatives (perhaps not the best phrase) this means that we'll be able to get the 1928 and the 1662 approved again, that this will open up opportunities for retrieval of more classical liturgies. I'm not so sure.

As I read the proposal, new liturgies will have to pass the inclusive & expansive language guidelines put out by the SCLM. It's unclear exactly what that will mean in practice, but probably neither the 1979 nor its predecessor liturgies would 'pass' in their current forms.

And this, I must confess, raises another question for me. As someone who believes that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the revealed name of the Triune God as translated into English, and so ought to be used in public worship, how many of our new liturgies will be usable by me?

Now of course, you might reasonably riposte that I'll still have the 1979, and be free to use that. And that's fair enough as far as it goes. But that, for me, raises yet a further potential issue.

Will it really satisfy if our 'book' remains the 1979 book, yet it contains material unacceptable to many of our members, and then we just have lots of additional materials that get printed off or w/e? Is this a stable solution?

And I should note that I include myself here among those who does not want the 1979 book as it currently exists to remain our perpetual book; the marriage service needs to reflect our commitment to the possibility of same-gender marriage!

So idk, I find myself perhaps like the late 19th c. Anglo-Catholics did. Do I want to just try to eke out a space to be tolerated in the church, or still hold out hope for the entire church's transformation?

Like, I still believe that the best solution at this time would be a light-touch revision of the 1979, which revises the marriage liturgy & catechism, incorporates some of the EOW material that has stood the test of time, makes some minor tweaks to language for God.

But it's entirely possible that the ship has sailed, that our ability to be a people of one book is gone, and that what TFLPBR has given us, a robust set of rules for determining alternative liturgies on a roughly CofE/SEC liturgical pattern, is the best we can do at this point

(And lest I sound too mournful, this obviously isn't *terrible*! It's already the situation in a number of member churches of the Anglican Communion; it can be made to work. I just think there are real losses.)