The Rule of ’62

It becomes more readily apparent the longer I travel as an Anglican on the Christian Way, that we are indebted (or should be) to our ancestors. I hold no illusions about our Anglican forbears or even the Church Fathers being infallible, but they were wise. As we find ourselves traveling in times of uncertainties, illusions, and false paths that will lead us astray from the depths of the loving gaze of Jesus Christ our Savior and our Lord, it is critical to beat the bounds of our formularies and rediscover the ancient landmarks which fence out irreligion and protect the flock.

Yet in this confusing age where the zeitgeist would see fit to dismantle whole churches either through mimicking the world or downplaying doctrine for the sake of false unity, we Anglicans should find comfort in the old ways – not because they are old – but because they are immune to the whims of a Christless culture and self-serving society. It is a blessing that orthodox Anglicans in the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans, the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (better known as GAFCON), and the Anglican Church in North America, each ascribe an allegiance and authority to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

The Covenantal Structure of the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans holds the following:

a) the doctrine of their Churches is grounded in the Holy Scriptures, and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular, such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer (1662), and The Form and Manner of Making, Ordaining, and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, annexed to The Book of Common Prayer, and commonly known as the Ordinal;^[1]

Likewise, the founding document of GAFCON states:

6. We rejoice in our Anglican sacramental and liturgical heritage as an expression of the gospel, and we uphold the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer, to be translated and locally adapted for each culture.^[2]

Finally, the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) concurs in Article I, Section 6, the following:

6. We receive The Book of Common Prayer as set forth by the Church of England in 1662, together with the Ordinal attached to the same, as a standard for Anglican doctrine and discipline, and, with the Books which preceded it, as the standard for the Anglican tradition of worship.^[3]

Notably, the ACNA also assents to the Jerusalem Declaration in the Preface to its Constitution, stating, “We affirm the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) Statement and Jerusalem Declaration issued 29 June 2008.” Id. The Jerusalem Declaration is also invoked as authoritative in support of ACNA Title II, Canon 8, “Of Standards of Sexual Morality and Ethics.” See Id. at p. 18, (“In view of the teaching of Holy Scripture, the Lambeth Conference of 1998 and the Jerusalem Declaration …”). This profession of the Jerusalem Declaration’s authority is further evidenced by the ACNA publishing it along with the Fundamental Declarations found in the ACNA Consitution in the 2019 ACNA Book of Common Prayer, under the section “Documentary Foundations.”

Therefore, when the 1662 speaks, we should listen. Perhaps one of the most often overlooked resources of 1662 is her rubrics. The word rubric, hearkens back to a tool used to measure, a rule. Despite post-modern man’s attempt to redefine language and reduce it to babble, even Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary provides the following guidance by defining “rubric” as “an authoritative rule,” “the title of a statute,” “an established rule, tradition, or custom,” etc. Each is fitting, particularly “an authoritative rule” for we Anglicans are (or should be) living under the rule of life the prayer book prescribes for us “miserable sinners.”^[4] Since we live under the rule of the prayer book life and what we pray forms what we believe, the rubrics are as important in explaining why we pray as we do and what we believe when we are praying. Hence, the authority of the 1662 should compel us to seek her wisdom, her counsel, and her discipleship as we learn at the feet of saints who have finished the race, who in turn followed the teaching of the Apostles, and who sat at the feet of the Master, our Lord Jesus.

Read the rest at The North American Anglican.