Login
Vol I No. 8
English Reformation

Praising the Book of Common Prayer for its Literary Style

by William J. Martin
Anglican Way Vol 37, No 2

THE SUMMER 2014 ISSUE of the Anglican Way magazine has hit the press, and this issue’s theme is poetry, liturgy, and the relationship of aesthetics to doctrine.

Included in this issue is Joan O’Donovan’s review of Alan Jacobs’ book The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography. The Rev. Gavin Dunbar has discussed the meaning of sola scriptura, correcting contemporary misinterpretations and setting the term within its historical context.

Bill Murchison has contributed the second part to his tale of 1970s liturgical giddiness, “In Defense of the Book of Common Prayer–The Early Days”. Professor Gillis Harp has written on George Whitefield, a great Anglican reformer of the eighteenth century.

Finally, Professor Roberta Bayer has written about the literary merit of the Book of Common Prayer and the historical evolution of drama and liturgy. She writes: “The sacred and the beautiful and the true are not in fact isolated occurrences in the world; they all come from God; and despite the tendency to think of them as unrelated, they should be united in Christian ritual and prayer.”

Read the latest issue here and watch for it to appear in a parish near you.