Today sees the end of three weeks of morning prayer from the Book of Common Prayer. Yesterday’s chapel service started with a clip from the Lord of the Rings – the struggle between Gandalf and the Balrog – and included intercessions before the Lord’s Prayer and petitions, after a homily (a Thursday Ridley custom). All fairly typical of the Ridley way with BCP, except we didn’t sing a hymn or song. It wasn’t awful. But it set me thinking about the integrity of liturgy and how far we can fiddle with it. We seldom, if ever, run the CW or BCP morning office as writ. This is partly because we have quite a tight time limit – lectures start at 9.05 am at up to 15-20 mins walk away. And also we are encouraged to be imaginative about worship, quite rightly. But how much can you play around with Cranmer’s finely crafted common prayer for the people without destroying its integrity?
I’m not a particular fan of BCP – love the poetry of it but it sends me straight back to being a child at church. I know most of it by heart. But there comes a stage in experimenting when even I think ‘This has lost the point.’ Cranmer had very good reasons for structuring BCP offices as he did, confirmed by a few centuries of tradition. The postmodern take tends to be that doesn’t matter too much if we just slip that in here, drop that out, change ‘Queen’ to ‘rulers’ or don’t follow the rubric. But then it isn’t really BCP…
Does that matter? How far do we go down the apologetic route that says that it has to be accessible and relevant to today’s culture before we lose the plot? Liturgy of any sort seems to be a novel concept to some ordinands, let alone the possible person in the pew or café church. Does it matter if ‘Te Deum’ comes out as ‘tedium’ as long as we do praise you, O God? My heart says that it does but my mind is just confused.
And, scary thought, is there a Precentor or liturgist inside me struggling to get out?
I’m not a particular fan of BCP – love the poetry of it but it sends me straight back to being a child at church. I know most of it by heart. But there comes a stage in experimenting when even I think ‘This has lost the point.’ Cranmer had very good reasons for structuring BCP offices as he did, confirmed by a few centuries of tradition. The postmodern take tends to be that doesn’t matter too much if we just slip that in here, drop that out, change ‘Queen’ to ‘rulers’ or don’t follow the rubric. But then it isn’t really BCP…
Does that matter? How far do we go down the apologetic route that says that it has to be accessible and relevant to today’s culture before we lose the plot? Liturgy of any sort seems to be a novel concept to some ordinands, let alone the possible person in the pew or café church. Does it matter if ‘Te Deum’ comes out as ‘tedium’ as long as we do praise you, O God? My heart says that it does but my mind is just confused.
And, scary thought, is there a Precentor or liturgist inside me struggling to get out?
5 comments:
I kind of half see where you are coming from (and welcome to blog-land by the way)!
I was thinkin this morning about whether it would be fun to run a service from one of the books that have been de-authorized... series 1, series 2 or ASB. I concluded that to indulge in a bit of liturgical novelty wasn to miss the point. Our liturgy is there to serve the 'work of the people' in worshipping God.
Personally, I think if we are able to tinker within the rubrics, show creativity and make use of both BCP and CW with integrity... then we should do so. With the clear aim in mind, however, that it helps us worship God.
I know you would do likewise, but I'd defend everyone being able to tinker a bit at Ridley and experiment because it's a safe place to do so and a lot easier here than in a parish.
Having said that, personally, I didn't quite think the Gandalf-Balrog thing worked for me... but only because it is too loaded with other meaning for me.
Thanks for the comments, David. Like you I have no objection to experimenting, or 'creative liturgy' if it works. It's just that if it is supposed to be say BCP then when in the creative experimenting does it cease to be that, when does it lose its integrity? In my sending LEP we have this debate about which liturgy we use because we have the choice of 5. Some LEPs produce a melange of all that manages not to be anything in particular - and are in danger of creating another denomination at worse, or losing touch with their roots at best. We choose to have 5 distinct liturgies that keep us in touch with the traditions that we belong to - and has the slightly perverse effect of strengthening unity because you notice what all the traditions share, rather than the differences between them.
Gandalf and the Balrog didn't work for me either - couldn't work out the symbolism re the Revelation reading.
I really struggle to work out where I stand on all of this. I grew up in the evangelical end of the C of E, but in churches that were pretty much by the book (ASB) liturgy wise. Then ended up in a house church while I was at Uni before spending the last 9 years at a very 'low' charismatic church that used the absolute bare minimum of set liturgy in communion services and that was about it. I'd hardly seen a common worship order for morning prayer before coming to Ridley. BCP was completely alien too me!
Ridley has in some ways re-introduced me to the different ways liturgy can be used, and I'm finding myself increasingly comfortable with it - to the point where I notice the lack of it when I go back to my sending church and services at certain other churches. I fully agree with Dave about being creative in our use of liturgy and the ultimate purpose of enabling us to worship God. That for me is key. I know people who are comfortable with liturgy and find that it helps them to worship, but equally I know people who would be really put off and not feel like they're worshipping God by going through BCP or CW by rote every service. Does that mean they shouldn't use the liturgy at all instead of just picking and choosing the bits they want to use? Would Cranmer and more modern liturgy writers want their liturgy to be used exactly as they wrote and intended it or would they be happy for people to tinker and use it in the way they think best suits? Does that ruin the integrity of the liturgy?
Thanks for a thought provoking post Mary, and an equally thought provoking reply Dave!
I think Cranmer would be horrified at the suggestion that we ought to use his liturgy, unamended in its entirety. Much of it simply does not makes sense in the context of our current use of language. Several times reciting the psalms these past three weeks - and despite years of experience of BCP services - I have found myself thinking "I actually have no idea what I am saying".
I am genuinely comfortable in services with or without liturgy. However, when liturgy is used it ought to facilitate our worship of God, point us to him. When liturgy itself becomes the object of our worship, or becomes a barrier to it, then something has gone wrong.
Cranmer did a wonderful job of making church accessible to the masses, but that was 400 years ago! Of course, we have a lot to learn from Cranmer's theology, and Common Worship stands firmly in his tradition, but unadulterated BCP is simply a curiosity, a museum piece.
I really liked the use of DVD, regardless of the liturgical form. Made me think also - which takes a lot!
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