Sometimes people ask me why I prefer traditional Prayer Book services. Often, there seems to be a suggestion behind that question. The suggestion or implication is that the traditional versions of the Book of Common Prayer and all traditional religious language services are out of date. Of course, Prayer Book language is different from contemporary secular language, and at times, the average Christian of our time does have to pay attention in order to understand certain words or phrases. There are some expressions or uses that could be clarified or updated by trustworthy editors. Over past centuries, great liturgies have developed, and they will continue to be modified in the future.
Yet, acknowledging some linguistic issues does not mean that the Book of Common Prayer as a whole is out of date. I think that most of the language in a traditional BCP service is comprehensible to a moderately literate English speaker who wants to understand the Christian faith. The issue is often whether a person wishes to understand traditional Christianity. In other words, for many of our contemporaries, the difficulty in understanding traditional Common Prayer liturgies is not primarily linguistic but personal and theological.
Proclaiming the Christian Faith is a central issue, and traditional Book of Common Prayer liturgies provide us with a treasury of almost two millennia of Christian doctrine and devotion. So the main solution to problems of understanding is not to throw out the sound doctrine of traditional Prayer Books; the solution is to preach and teach sound Christian theology. That means that we all need to understand certain Christian vocabulary. Some of this vocabulary may sound strange to secularized people, but this Christian vocabulary is rooted in Scripture. Certain words and concepts are essential for a mature understanding of the Scriptural message of salvation. And this Scriptural message of salvation permeates traditional Book of Common Prayer services.
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