Hear His Most Holy Word
The BAS Lectionary: the closing of the Bible?
By the Rev'd David Curry
~ FIVE QUESTIONS ~
(1) WHAT IS THE BAS
LECTIONARY?
(2) DOES THE
BAS LECTIONARY PRESENT A GREATER AMOUNT OF SCRIPTURE?
(3) HOW
ADEQUATE IS THE BAS' USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT?
(4) HOW
ADEQUATE IS THE BAS' USE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT?
(5) HOW ECUMENICAL
IS THE BAS LECTIONARY?
CONCLUSION
---------------------
BOOK OF ALTERNATIVE SERVICES
The weaknesses of the Book of AlternativeServices
(BAS) Lectionary
appear in the claims made for it, in the programme
of Scripture
reading it presents, and in the principles upon
which that
programme depends. These are practical and theoretical
problems
which also mark a significant departure from
the principles of the
Common Prayer tradition in the understanding
and use of Scripture
as embodied in the Book of Common Prayer (Canada,
1962). A further
problem is that the BAS not only departs from,
but also
misunderstands and misrepresents the nature and
place of Scripture
within that tradition.
WHAT IS THE BAS
LECTIONARY?
The BAS Lectionary is an amended version of the
Roman Catholic
Ordo Lectionum Missae (OLM) 1969. The ecumenical
Consultation on
Common Texts (CCT) issued their amended version
of OLM in 1983
"for a three-year trial period ending 1 December
1986". The Common
Lectionary, the Church Hymnal Corporation, New
York, NY, 10017,
p.13) with the expectation of issuing a final
ecumenical version
in 1987. The "Common Lectionary", as it appears
in the BAS. is
actually an experimental version in the process
towards an
ecumenical lectionary.
For CCT and our Canadian revisors ecumenical means
identical
practice in the reading of Holy Scripture. The
BAS preface on the
"Propers of the Church Year" speaks of "a final
revision around
the end of the decade" (BAS p.263).
The word lectionary refers to an ordered programme
of Scripture
readings for the public worship of the Church.
OTM and the "Common
Lectionary" revision of OTM present a three-year
cycle of three
readings "for the principal acts of worship"
on each Sunday of the
year BAS. p.263). The Common Prayer tradition,
on the other hand,
understands the word lectionary in a broader,
more comprehensive
sense as embracing readings provided not only
for the Holy
Eucharist on Sundays and "all the week after"
(BCP p.94) and Holy
Days, but also for the Sunday and week day offices
of Morning and
Evening Prayer.
The interrelation and interdependence of these
programmes of
readings and the comprehensive doctrinal unity
which they form is
the fruit of a four hundred-year development
within the framework
of Scripture understood as a doctrinal instrument
of salvation.
Such a development, moreover, maintains a remarkable
continuity
with the eucharistic lectionaries of the Western
Church from the
Patristic period onwards. It belongs to the whole
tradition of a
doctrinal understanding of Scripture.
While the BAS provides various cycles of readings
for the offices,
daily Eucharists and other purposes, it regards
these, not as
integral, but "in addition to the lectionary"
and calls them
"other guides" BAS, p.264). These "other guides"
form independent
cycles unrelated to each other and to the BAS
lectionary to which
they are simply an addition. Thus, even in definition,
the BAS
lectionary stands apart from the lectionary tradition
of the Book
of Common Prayer.
------------------------------------------------------------------
DOES THE
BAS LECTIONARY PRESENT A GREATER AMOUNT OF SCRIPTURE?
The BAS' claim to present a greater amount of
Scripture than ever
before needs serious qualification. on the one
hand, the
three-year lectionary with three readings obviously
provides more
Scripture when simply compared to the one-year
two lesson BCP
eucharistic lectionary. But, on the other hand,
the comparison is
improper. It is like comparing apples and Oranges,
or finding
fault with apple barrels for not containing oranges.
The BCP eucharistic lectionary is the centrepiece
of a larger,
more comprehensive system of Scripture reading,
which in the
course of a single year vixtially covers the
entrre corpus of the
Old Testament at least once and the complete
body of the New
Testament more than twice.
A similar claim cannot be made for the BAS lectionary,
even with
its "other guides", for essentially two reasons:
first, the cycle
of readings "for use at daily offices provide
shorter and fewer
readings than their predecessors" BAS p.265);
and second, the
degree of liberty given in either omitting or
allowing to be
edited out certain passages of the Old and New
Testaments both in
the daily offices and at the Eucharist.
The BCP, moreover, does not so much seek to provide
a great
quantity of Scripture at the eucharist as to
present the fulness
of saving doctrine. Thus, the first half of the
year from Advent
to Pentecost follows what one may call the substantial
or
doctrinal moments of Christ's life. We "run'
as it were, through a
great part of the Creed" (Bp. Sparrow, 17th cent.),
learning what
Christ has done for us. The essential mysteries
of the Christian
Religion are set before us.
The second half of the year from Trinity to Advent
seeks the
practical application of Christ's saving work
in us, the Creed
runing through us, as it were. It urges the life
of holiness
through the practice of Christian virtue.
The doctrinal completeness in the one and the
practical
application in the other were the express concerns
of the
architects and commentators of the Prayer Book.
The Epiphany
season and the Trinity season specifically were
areas where they
improved upon what they had received. They saw
that our
incorporation into the life of Christ meant the
interrelation of
the principles of justification and sanctification.
Any one of the three years of the BAS eucharistic
lectionary
compares unfavourably with the BCP on this criterion
of the
presentation of the fullness of saving doctrine.
The intentional
and doctrinal integrity of one-half the year
have been lost in the
BAS by virtue of the adoption of the logic or
Ordinary Time,
which, as we shall see, has a necessarily accidental
or arbitrary
quality to it.
The BAS lectionary's claim to be "spreading a
much larger body of
biblical material" hangs upon its three-year
cycle and its
inclusion of an Old Testament lesson. But the
shortness of the
lessons at the eucharist significantly qualifies
even the force of
this rather obvious claim. Their "much" may be
more, but not much
more. More importantly, it may be doctrinally
less full.
------------------------------------------------------------------
HOW
ADEQUATE IS THE BAS' USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT?
An important claim for the BAS lectionary is its
provision of an
Old Testament lesson at the eucharist While this
has been
popularly received, nonetheless the way in which
it has been
conceived makes this one of the major weaknesses
of the BAS
lectionary. The problem is that it presupposes
what it claims to
provide. It presupposes a far greater acquaintance
with the Old
Testament than it can possibly provide.
As we shall see, one of the principal areas of
ecumenical
difference within the intended ecumenical scope
of the Common
Lectionary concerns the way in which the Old
Testament is read.
The reason for these divergences points to a
weakness in
conception at the heart of all the modern lectionaries,
including
that of the BAS. It is not that an Old Testament
lesson has been
included which constitutes the problem, but the
principles upon
which the reading of it has been ordered.
The felt weakness of the Roman Catholic OLM was
with its
representative and overly typological use of
the Old Testament OLM
determines the appointment of the Old Testament
reading according
to the theme of the gospel lection which qualifies
both the
integrity of the Old Testament in itself and
much of its narrative
character (The Common Lectionary, p.19). Thus
CCT sought to amend
these tendencies by extending OLM's principle
of semi-continuous
reading for the New Testament lesson and the
Gospel in Ordinary
Time to the Old Testament in Ordinary Time.
Certain consequences necessarily follow from this
CCT amendment.
First, it means that for one-half the year all
three lessons are
in principle unrelated since all three follow
their own
independent, semi-continuous course. Second,
the semi-continuous
course of reading the old testament is so semi
as to be just as
unrepresentative of the Old Testament as OLM's
more typological or
thematic selection.
This means that the progress through any given
book of the Old
Testament in Ordinary Time is extremely sketchy.
In Year A, for
example, 9 verses of Genesis 12 are read, 18
verses Genesis 22, 15
verses of Genesis 25, 7 verses of Genesis 28
and 10 verses of
Genesis 32. This really amounts to little more
than a chapter of a
book that has fifty chapters and yet this completes
the treatment
of Genesis in Ordinary time for Year A according
to this
semi-continuous plan intended to do justice to
the integrity of
Old Testament books in their own character.
The treatment of Genesis in Year A is hardly well
supplemented by
the Ordinary Time selections in Year B and Year
C which only
provide four additional short lessons from Genesis
1,2,3 and
Genesis 45 respectively. From the reading of
Genesis in Year A,
the lectionary moves on to read on 13 Sundays
parts of 11 chapters
of Exodus, three of Ruth one of Amos Zephaniah
and Ezekiel.
A major prophetic book such as Ezekiel gets remarkably
short
shrift in the entire three-year cyde of the lectionary.
In three
years there are only seven lections appointed
from Ezekiel and one
of them is twice repeated, but as an option:
In Year A, Lent V has
Ezekiel 37, 1-14 to be read; the same lesson
is allowed as a
Pentecost Year B option and as an option at the
Easter Vigil.
By such a programme the CCT lectionary as found
in the BAS
endeavours to overcome "the too highly stressed
typology" The
Common Lectionary p.21) in OLM's scheme in order
to accommodate
the non-liturgical Protestant denominations,
especially Black
American Churches. The irony is that these churches
have neither
lectionary traditions nor the legacy of the daily
offices. Most
Anglicans defer where they have rnost to offer?
The CCT amended
version, moreover, claims to be more representative
of the Old
Testament, but such a programme neither does
Justice to the Old
Testament itself nor to the principle of semi-continuous
reading.
There is, moreover, a practical problem of great
significance that
appears most dramatically in the appointment
of Old Testament
lessons both at the eucharist and in the offices.
The degree of
leaping around within the Old Testament texts
appointed to be read
makes it very difficult to read from the Bible
directly. The BAS
points to the need for lectionary texts which
effectively close
the Bible to the people.
For example for Year C, Proper 24, the Sunday
between 11 and 17
September,the eucharistic lectionary appoints
Hosea 4.1-3;
5.15-6.6; For Year B, proper 19, the Sunday between
7 and 13
August it appoints 2 Samuel 18.1, 5, 9-15. At
the Easter Vigil
Genesis 7.1-5; 11-18; 8.18; 9.8-13 is appointed
as a single
lesson.
In these instances the problem is not necessarily
the actual
content of what has been omitted so much as the
practical
difficulty of reading such selections from the
Bible itself. The
solution which the BAS clearly presupposes is
the publication of
lectionary texts and/or leaflet inserts which
have the serious
consequence of both obscuring the actual character
of the biblical
texts in their integrity and effectively taking
the Bible out of
the hands of the people.
This problem also presents itself to a remarkable
degree in the
Sunday and Daily Office lectionaries. The difficulty
of
determining what is to be read and when is compounded
by the
difficulty of actually reading the lessons themselves.
A few examples suffice to illustrate this problem.
On the Sunday
of Proper 23, the Sunday between 4 and 10 September,
Job 25.1-6;
27.1-6 is appointed to be read as the Old Testament
lesson in Year
Two. On Palm Sunday Zechariah 12.9-11; 13.1,7-9
is ordered to be
read. On the Sunday of Proper 21, the Sunday
between 21 and 27
August provides that in Year One 2 Samuel 24.1-2;
10-25 be read.
On the Thursday of the Week of Sunday between
28 August and 3
September, Proper 22, Job 16.16-22; 17.1, 13-16
is appointed to be
read in Year Two. On the Wednesday of the Week
of the Sunday
between 4 and 10 September, Proper 23, in Year
Two Job 29.1;
30.1-2, 16-31 is appointed. 2 Chronicles 29.1-3;
30.1(2-9) 10-27
is appointed in Year One on the Tuesday of the
Week of Sunday
between 25 September and 1 October, Proper 26!
These are but a few examples of the many that
the BAS Daily Office
Lectionary presents. The difficulty is not Simply
that upon
occasion a lesson is provided edited from the
biblical text per
se, but the remarkable degree of frequency with
which this is done
in the BAS.
The degree of leaping about is at least four times
greater in the
BAS than the BCP, (where some allowances are
made in the daily
offices and Sunday offices, usually for the reading
of the Old
Testament as, for example, on the Sixteenth Sunday
after Trinity,
Year two, at Morning Prayer the first lesson
is Ezekiel 18.14,
19-end). The far greater extent of this in the
BAS makes saying
the offices practically difficult, awkward and
frustrating. It
makes public reading from the Bible difficult
and discouraging.
In some respects, however, the BAS should be commended
for
avoiding the more glaring errors of omission
found in the OLM
eucharistic lectionary and in the version used
by the Episcopal
Church in the U.S.A. For example, the core and
conclusion of the
parable of the talents, Matthew 25.14-30, omitted
by these
churches, have been rightly restored in the BAS.
Also by comparison to those lectionaries, the
amended version in
the BAS allows for considerably less leaping
around within
biblical texts, though their less is still too
much. Yet they all
share substantially the same premises and present
similar
practical difficulties. They all compare unfavourably
in practice
and in principle with the doctrinal character
of the Prayer Book
eucharistic lectionary, as discussed above.
The inclusion of an Old Testament lesson at the
eucharist is, no
doubt, a response to a pastoral need. But how
adequate a response
is it? For many, the mere provision of the Old
Testament lesson at
the eucharist argues for the new lectionary over
the oh What is
being questioned here, however, is not the idea
of an Old
Testament lesson at the eucharist, but the principle
of the
selection of Old Testament texts and the subsequent
claims being
made for that provision. It simply cannot do
what it claims to do.
The BAS is disingenuous in asseeing the superiority
of this new
lectionary over the old on the basis of such
a provision. The
attraction of the Old Testament eucharistic lesson
actually arises
from the general neglect of the Sunday and Daily
Offices of
Morning and Evening Prayer by clergy and laity
alike.
The Sunday office lectionary in the Common Prayer
tradition does
provide what the BAS claims but falls to provide
in the way of a
real acquaintance with the major and substantial
portions of the
Old Testament. But apart from simply reiiding
the Old Testament,
the daily offices of Morning Prayer and Evening
Prayer really
provide the only regular means of gaining a proper
knowledge of
the Old Testament.
The problem that the BAS faces is simply the impossibility
of
providing at the eucharist what can only be properly
provided
through the offices What seems to be overlooked
is the sheer size
of the Old Testament - it is about four or five
times the length
of the New Testament~ Moreover, to relegate the
necessary
programme of scriptural reading in the offices
simply to the
status of "other guides" undermines the coherence
and
interrelation of the Prayer Book programme of
Scripture reading
and departs from the scriptural heart of the
Common Prayer
tradition.
The provision of an Old Testament lesson at the
Eucharist does not
logically demand the jettisoning of the Prayer
Book eucharistic
lectionary. The Prayer Book idea of Scripture
as a doctrinal
instrument of salvation, embodied centrally in
the eucharistic
lectionary, can easily accommodate the addition
of an Old
Testament lesson appointed in accord with the
logic of that
lectionary itself.
Not only has this been done by the Church of India,
Pakistan,
Burma and Ceylon in 1960 and also specifically
for Canada by the
Rev. Michael Averyt, but it must further be emphasized
that inso
doing the scriptural basis of the Prayer Book
tradition is not
traduced but enhanced. Such a provision does
not admit what the
BAS irresponsibly calls "the shortcomings of
the eucharistic
readings". Rather such a provision could mean
a responsible answer
to a pastoral problem from within the Common
Prayer tradition but
without devaluing the ideal of the offices in
their right relation
to the eucharist.
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HOW
ADEQUATE IS THE BAS' USE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT?
The dominance of modern biblical criticism appears
most clearly
and most questionably in the appointment of New
Testament readings
in the BAS eucharistic lectionary as well as
in the "other
guides". Scripture is ordered to be read less
according to the
doctrine of Scripture and more according to the
hypotheses of
modern biblical criticism.
The three-year cycle itself assumes the priority
of the synoptic
gospels and designates each year to a synoptic
gospel: Year A -
Matthew Year B - Mark Year C - Luke This three-year
cycle is based
upon what is called the synoptic problem and
assumes as fact the
scholarly hypothesis of "Q" - Quelle, source,
namely, that a
pregospel narrative source underlies and predates
the actual
gospel texts. "Q" is the premise upon which some
scholars would
re-order the form of the gospel andlor dispute
the authenticity
and authority of major portions of the gospels.
It must be emphasized that no-one has ever seen
"Q". It has been
posited hypothetically by some biblical scholars
as a means of
explaining parallels between the three gospels.
It has been the
single most dogmatic point of contemporary biblical
scholarship.
But dogmatic insistence upon "Q" cannot prove
its existence.
Nor, as we shall see, is its necessity assumed
by all scholars.
Yet, surely, it is a matter of real concern that
the Church's
ordered reading of the Gospel be based upon a
non-doctrinal but
dogmatic hypothesis about text transmission over
and against the
doctrinal interest in content and teaching that
informs the
traditional eucharistic lectionaries of the Western
Church.
this dogmatic assertion of "Q" directly affects
the programme of
gospel reading in the BAS' three-year cycle.
It shows itself most
decisively in Year B - the year of Luke. St.
Mark's gospel is the
shortest gospel. The criterion of selection for
gospel readings
during Ordinary Time is not thematic but semi-continuous.
There
are thirty-four Sundays in Ordinary Time.
Thus, one might reasonably suppose that reading
progressively
Sunday by Sunday, chapter by chapter, all sixteen
chapters of St.
Mark's gospel would easily be completed with
Sundays left over.
But it is not so.
In the BAS, following OLM the semi-continuous
reading of St.
Mark's gospel is interrupted from the 17th to
the 22nd Sunday in
Ordinary Time by a series of readings from the
sixth chapter of
St. John's gospel - the so called "bread of life"
discourse. This
incursion of an eucharistical theme into the
midst of the
semi-continuous course of Mark is justified by
Rome (OLM) on the
assumption that this is where John's gospel naturally
matches the
order of events in the synoptic gospels.
The American commentary "Preaching the New Common
Lectionary"
observes that "at this point we have a tradition
that had already
forged three stories into one narrative prior
to the work of the
Four Evangelists" (emphasis added). Such is pure
hypothesis and,
however interesting it may be, it remains unprovable.
And exactly how is it useful in the sense of serving
the purposes
of doctrinal instruction and moral edification?
Both the integrity
of the gospel texts and their doctrinal unity
as Revelation are
undermined by the dominance of this hypothesis
in the ordering of
the Church's lectionary.
Further support for this insertion of John 6 into
the course of
Mark is provided by those biblical scholars who
question the place
of the bread of life discourses (Ch. 6) in St.
John's gospels
(i.e. Bultmann, Wikenhauser, Schnackenburg, etc.).
Removing it
altogether from its gospel context avoids any
such difficulty for
them as to whether Chapter V should or should
not be Chapter VI by
placing the discourse instead within the hypothetical
order of the
hypothetical gospel of "Q".
No manuscript tradition supports this hypothetical
reconstruction.
At the very least, then, there are problems about
the use of the
hypothetical "Q" in the Church's ordered reading
of the Gospel.
There is a flirther irony. We are urged to adopt
a lectionary
based upon this hypothesis at a point when biblical
scholarship is
more critical of its dominance.
In a recent review of the first four volumes of
the 'Understanding
Jesus Today' series, Prof. J. Leslie Houlden
of King's College,
London criticizes their total and exclusive assumption
of "Q".
"While this so-called Q source is believed in
by most scholars of
the Gospels, it remains hypothetical (in the
sense that it has
never turned up), and other views about the relationship
of the
first three Gospels, eliminating the need for
Q are widely held.
None of this is even hinted at" TLS May 10, 1991).
Nor is it even
questioned, it seems, in the ordering of the
new lectionaries.
While such questions may belong to the activity
of modern biblical
criticism, the assumptions inherent in the form
of that
scholarship remain inimical to the use of Scripture
as a
'doctrinal instrument of salvation'. The phrase
derives from
Cranmer and Hooker and describes the principle
underlying the
Prayer Book tradition of reading the Scriptures.
It means that
Scripture has a content, that it is thinkable
and that its
intelligible content is doctrine.
The hypothesis of "Q" and the hypothetical re-ordering
of the
Gospel material assume that the teaching of Scripture
must be
other than the actual texts themselves. Such
hypotheses run
counter to our Anglican standpoint that "Scripture
containeth all
things necessary to salvation" (Art VI), that
nothing is to be
ordained "that is contrary to God's Word written"
(emphasis
added), and that "one place of Scripture" is
not to be so
ex-pounded "that it be repugnant to another"
(Art XX).
Insofar as these hypotheses undermine the doctrinal
character and
content of Scripture, they have no place in the
programme of the
Church's reading of the Revealed Word of God.
They show that the
Church which formerly placed herself under the
rule and authority
of Scripture has come to arrogate unto herself
the role of judge
and arbiter of Scripture. The reed of human experience
has
supplanted the rod of Revelation.
The consequence is the omission of those parts
of Holy Writ deemed
unacceptable to contemporary sensitivities and
modern assumptions.
This appears most clearly in the treatment of
the New Testament
presented in the Daily Office lectionary. The
Canadian BCP
provides that the New Testament be read through
at least twice
every year, excepting the Book of Revelation
which is read through
once.
The BAS departs considerably from the BCP in not
appointing the
New Testament to be read through in its entirety
even once in a
year. That the BAS should even allow for omissions
from the New
Testament marks a substantial departure from
the developed Prayer
Book tradition present in our Canadian BCP. The
passages that are
omitted or allowed to be omitted also reveal
much about the
contemporary spirit of today's church.
The following passages of the New Testament are
omitted altogether
from the Daily Office lectionary of the BAS:
Mark 11.26:
Romans 1.26,27;
1 Corinthians 11. 9-11;
1 Corinthians 11.3-16;
1 Corinthians 14.33-36;
Philippians 4.21-23;
Colossians 4.7-18;
1 Timothy 2.9-15;
1 Timothy 5.1-16;
1 Timothy 6.1-5;
1 Peter 3.1-12;
The following passages are allowed to be omitted
if so desired:
Luke 16.18; 2 Corinthians 6.14-7.1; 1 Timothy
5.23-25 and 1 John
5.21.
More than just suggesting the dominance of modern
biblical
criticism and the ascendancy of sexual, feminist
and political
liberationist ideologies within the church, they
really signal the
intellectual poverty of the contemporary church
which is so unable
to think these passages that it must pretend
that they don't
exist.
The omissions also show up in the eucharistic
lectionary. For
example, the Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year C,
appoints Rev.
22.12-14, 16-17, 20 to be read. The vesses omitted
concern the
exclusion of the wicked from the heavenly city;
and - ironically -
a warning against those who add to or subtract
from the text of
Scripture!
One of the most obvious features of difference
between the BAS and
the BCP is that, apart from the Psalter, Scripture
itself is
absent from the BAS. The scriptural centrepiece
of the Prayer Book
- the Epistles and Gospels together with their
appropriate
Collects - are not printed and indeed, are significant.
The removal of the Bible from the people equally
results in the
separation of prayer from Scripture. The Collects
now free-float
in liturgical space, removed from any direct
connection to
particular passages of Scripture from which prayer
properly finds
it voice.
It suggests that the liturgy itself stands apart
from the
Scriptures, no longer under its rule, no longer
subject to the
primacy of its content, no longer the vehicle
and expression of
its truth. The very principles ordering the reading
of God's Word
written are external to the teaching and character
of Scripture
itself. They do not derive from Scripture but
are imposed upon it
from without.
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HOW ECUMENICAL
IS THE BAS LECTIONARY?
One of the claims made for the "Common Lectionary"
in the BAS is
that it is an ecumenical lectionary. This claim
expresses more a
wish than a fact This lectionary has not been
commonly received
either ecumenically between various Christian
churches or even
within the Anglican Communion. In England, for
example, there are
currently three different lectionaries in use:
the Book of Common
Prayer lectionary, a two year cycle lectionary
and the BAS'
three-year cycle. In North America, the Episcopal
Church of the
U.S.A. uses its own version of the OLM while
in Canada, the BAS
presents the CCT amended version of OLM, with
a few alterations of
its own.
This means, for example, with respect to the Old
Testament
readings in Ordinary Time (Epiphany season and
Trinity or
Pentecost season) that in Year A there are only
three, in Year B,
six and in Year C, five Sundays in which the
same Old Testament
lesson is read by BAS users in the Anglican Church
of Canada, by
the Roman Catholic Church and by the Episcopal
Church in the
U.S.A. respectively.
Nor is it the case that the same Old Testament
lessons are read
but simply on different Sundays. For the greater
part of Ordinary
Time, approximately one-half of the year, the
Old Testament
lessons are completely different between two
churches of the same
communion on the same continent.
The choice of Old Testament lessons shows differences
in principle
about the use of the Old Testament in relation
to the New
Testament. Such differences will not be easily
resolved. In point
of fact, our adoption of the "Common Lectionary"
renders us
uncommon with Rome - with whom it was wished
to be in common - and
with other parts of the Anglican Communion.
A further complication are the different Systems
for numbering the
Sundays in Ordinary Time and the numbering of
the Propers (i.e.,
the designated readings) for those Sundays. For
example, what in
the BAS is designated as the "Ninth Sunday after
Epiphany or
between 29 May and 4 June" for which Proper 9
is appointed, is
called "Proper 4 The Sunday closest to June 1st"
in the 1979
American prayer book, and the "Ninth Sunday in
Ordinary Time" in
OLM.
These differences in numbering reflect different
sensibilities
about the ordering of the Calendar of the Church
Year for those
parts of the year which may vary in length. OLM
swallows up the
Epiphany season and Trinity or Pentecost season
into what it calls
Ordinary Time and numbers those Sundays accordingly.
It begins
with the Feast of Our Lord's Baptism on the First
Sunday after
Epiphany which it calls the First Sunday in Ordinary
Time,
proceeds until Lent and then resumes after Pentecost.
The Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. has wanted
to retain at least
in name the idea of an Epiphany season and so
follows a system of
numbered proper for the greatest possible number
of Sundays after
Pentecost But because the number of such Sundays
may vary each
year the "proper number" will not always coincide
with the number
of the Sunday after Pentecost.
For example, in 1991, the Fourth Sunday after
Pentecost uses
Proper Six, but in 1992 Proper Nine. Thus, the
naming of Sundays
after Pentecost becomes irrelevant for determining
what propers
are to be used. Instead, it only confuses.
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BOOK OF ALTERNATIVE SERVICES
The BAS creates a third system by attempting to
combine the Roman
system and the American. It keeps the names of
Sundays after
Epiphany, Sundays after Pentecost and it adopts
the numbering
system of Propers, only it begins to number with
the Baptism of
Our Lord (First Sunday after Epiphany) - Proper
1. As with OLM and
the Episcopal Church's lectionary, so too with
the BAS there is no
integral connection between the season, the Sundays
within the
season and the propers of the day for those Sundays
after Epiphany
and those after Pentecost.
A further ecumenical difference appears in the
appointment of the
gospel accounts of Our Lord's Transfiguration
which the Episcopal
Church sets for the Last Sunday after Epiphany
but Rome places on
the Second Sunday in Lent. The Consultation on
Common Texts both
acknowledges this as "the place of widest divergence",
and admits
that at issue in part is the integrity and character
of these
seasons versus Ordinary Time (The Common Lectionary,
p.13). The
BAS does not determine a fixed "Last Sunday after
Epiphany" and so
does not end "Epiphany season" with the accounts
of the
Transfiguration, but allows them as options for
the Second Sunday
in Lent.
All these differences in the numbering and the
naming of these
Sundays add to the general confusion and point
to different
outlooks which cannot be easily brought within
the compass of one
ecumenical system. At present there is not even
common agreement
about what to call the Sundays for about half
the year or how to
determine what is to be read on these Sundays.
A further practical difficulty emerges. The BAS
with its many,
many options for liturgy presupposes the regular
production of a
service bulletin to provide direction in following
the service,
together with either several volumes of pew lectionaries
or weekly
printed lectionary leaflets.
The possibility of securing a library of lectionary
texts for
church pews and for printing a weekly service
bulletin with a
lectionary insert lies beyond the scope financially
and
practically of many parishes in the Canadian
Church. The BAS does
not accommodate itself conveniently to the reality
of multi point
rural parishes.
The BAS commits us to an ecumenical lectionary
which has yet to be
accepted and for which there are serious obstacles
to the
possibility of its acceptance, either ecumenically
without or
within the Anglican Communion. One of the practical
consequences
of OLM and the "Common Lectionary" is the production
of lectionary
texts and/or Sunday bulletin leaflets.
Both for the Roman Catholic Church, with the liturgy
now in a
multitude of vernacular languages, and for the
Episcopal Church
this has meant a considerable expense and a commitment
to what has
been printed and presented. Embracing the "Common
Lectionary"
would mean jettisoning volumes of lectionary
texts, and pages of
lectionary inserts in favour of printing altogether
new ones. How
likely is this when there is not even common
agreement about the
"Common Lectionary"?
Our Canadian situation reflects this ecumenical
confusion. The BAS
preface records with approval a decision of the
1980 General Synod
of the Anglican Church of Canada requesting that
"every diocese
and parish, including those which in other respects
substantially
follow the Book of Common Prayer give thoughtful
consideration to
the possibility of using this lectionary as a
symbol and
expression of unity in our Church and with many
other Christians"
(BAS p. 264).
What is there referred to as "this lectionary"
is not in fact the
BAS lectionary but another BAS-based lectionary
published and
authorized for experimental use in Canada in
1980. It shares
closer similarities with the Episcopal Churches'
lectionary as
found in their 1979 Prayer Book.
While the BAS would like to claim the 1980 General
Synod's
resolution for its lectionary, the motion actually
refers to and
authorizes the use of the 1980 Lectionary. The
differences between
the BAS lectionary and the 1980 experimental
lectionary are,
again, substantially the same as exist between
the BAS and the
1979 American BCP. This motion and its inclusion
in the BAS are
important in two other respects. They raise the
question whether
the BAS truly is a Book of Alternative Services
and not an
intended replacement of the Book of Common Prayer
since the BAS
here promotes dropping the programme of Scripture
reading which is
basic and central to the character of the BCP.
The BAS' preface "The Proper of the Church Year"
(p.264)
contradicts the Introduction to the BAS itself
(p.8), which
commits the Church to the coexistence of two
liturgies, even
though they are founded upon radically different
attitudes towards
Scripture. Secondly, it shows the degree of confusion
about the
lectionary which the BAS promotes and presents.
That there are differences in the appointment
of Old Testament
lessons; that there are differences about the
relation and the
integrity of the seasons of Epiphany and Lent
to Ordinary Time;
that there are differences about the numbering
and naming for half
the Sundays of the year; and that there are difficulties
in the
practical provisions for scripture reading in
services of worship,
show the extent of the ecumenical confusion.
Consequently, the BAS lectionary is not "a symbol
and expression
of unity in our Church" either in Canada, or
within the Anglican
Communion, or "with many other Christians". While
the BAS
lectionary may wish to be ecumenical, it is not
in fact.
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CONCLUSION
That the Scriptures are not allowed to be read
in their integrity;
that the New Testament Scriptures are not allowed
to be read in
their entirety; that the system of reading the
Scriptures is so
awkward and unwieldy, so complicated and confused;
that the
Scriptures have been relegated to the status
of "the repository of
the Church's symbols of life and faith" ~AS p.9);
that the
interrelation and interdependence of the eucharistic
and daily
office lectionaries have been ignored; that the
principles
ordering the reading of Scripture do not emerge
from the content
of Scripture, all these together represent the
closing of the
Bible to the people.
In practical terms, The Book of Alternative Services
represents a
return to the medieval breviary tradition with
its many
alternatives and usages,its many texts and tables,
its complexity
and clutter.
Cranmer and the Common Prayer tradition sought
to deliver the
Church from such confusion by restoring to the
Church the full
force and vigour of the living Word of God so
that by it our lives
might be made scriptural, not conformed to the
world but
transformed by the renewing of our minds.
For the Scripture of God is the heavenly meat
of our
souls; the hearing and keeping of it maketh us
blessed,
sanctifieth us, and maketh us holy; it turneth
our
souls; it is a light lantern unto our feet. It
is a
sure, steadfast and everlasting instrument of
salvation.
(Cranmer, The First Book of Homilies,
A Fruitful Exhortation to the Reading of Scripture')
The closing of the Anglican Mind to our Anglican
scriptural
foundations means the closing of the Bible.
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© David P. Curry, 1996.
