Many things contribute to the excellence of the old Prayer Books (up to the American revision of 1928), but one of them is its clarity about what is happening when we worship – nothing less than our transformation by the Gospel, a transformation that delivers us from guilt to gratitude by the grace of God. The architects of the old Prayer Book brought this clarity to their revision of the church’s ancient traditions of worship, and the result is a liturgy uniquely fit for its purpose. For thoughtful and responsive users, it is a precision-made instrument for spiritual renewal and transformation.
At the heart of conventional worldly religion, God is conceived of as a metaphor or symbol of spirituality, a projection of human hopes and aspirations, a dream of what might or should be. But if God is just the other end of human willing, then any accomplishment of these hopes depends upon human efforts and human goodness. Since human goodness and accomplishments are fundamentally flawed, this is a recipe for failure, futility, and despair. However high the arrow is shot, it must fall again to the earth; and the higher it soars, the more calamitous its fall.
That’s conventional religion (including some versions of Christianity, including conventional Episcopalianism): but the Gospel is fundamentally different. The Gospel does not call man to a religion of meritorious