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Tradition!
When Jesus was twelve years old, his parents went up to Jerusalem, after the custom of the feast.
Luke 2:42
In the celebrated musical “Fiddler on the Roof” there is a rousing song which begins: “Tradition!” I have always admired Judaism’s tenacity in maintaining its tradition in the midst of change and persecution. In today’s gospel we see Jesus carrying out a Jewish tradition with which we are all familiar. Having reached the age of twelve, he performs the traditional rite of coming of age for Jewish boys: the bar mitzvah. Born under the law (Galatians 4:4), he now assumes the obligations of the law.
In Anglicanism tradition is not a source of revelation, as it is in Roman Catholicism. The 6th Article of Religion declares: “Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation.” But this does not mean that tradition is unimportant or that we can get along without it, and for Anglicans tradition is embodied in the Book of Common Prayer, which was the crowning achievement of the English Reformation.
Anglicanism without the Prayer Book makes about as much sense as Catholicism without the Pope or Islam without the Qur’an. No one could reasonably object to modern services to supplement the Prayer Book, and so in 1985 the Book of Alternative Services was approved at Synod. But when the book which was approved as an alternative to the Prayer Book was used to replace the Prayer Book, there was an outcry, and the results of this altercation are with us still today.
So when I noted that a motion is coming before the next Synod concerning “the revision of common worship texts,” I suspected that this might be another assault on the Prayer Book, and I wrote a letter of concern to Bishop Poole. In his reply he states:
“It is my view that the Book of Common Prayer is still the official prayer book of the Anglican Church of Canada. While I am glad that we have an alternative to the BCP I must confess that I have little appetite for the production of another prayer book in the life of our church at this time.”
Modern liturgies need to be revised from time to time, but the Book of Common Prayer is a classic text, and a classic text is never out of date. We Anglicans have an ongoing identity problem. We are a reformed church which nevertheless has preserved a much closer connection with the pre-Reformation church than most other reformed churches. The BCP is the embodiment of our unique Anglican identity, and so it is understandable that those who are uncomfortable with this identity would like to get rid of the Prayer Book. But it just won’t work: the breakup of the Episcopal Church in the United States is clear proof of that.
Six years ago, when we celebrated Millie Bath’s 100th birthday, we sang the grand old hymn “Blest be the tie that binds.” Today when the Anglican Communion is appealing to “the bonds of affection” to get us through the divisions which threaten us, we need to remember that these bonds have no power apart from the ties of tradition which bind us together as Anglicans in Christian fellowship.
January 7, 2007
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