Alternative Service Book - Earlier Attempts at Reform

Earlier Attempts At Reform

Following the failure of the attempts to introduce a new Prayer book through Parliament in the 1920s, liturgical reform had idled.

Some Anglo-Catholic parishes used the English Missal, a version of the BCP, which included the Prayers of the Latin Mass both in translation and in the original interspersed with prayers from the Prayer book; most used either the BCP or the 1928 Prayer Book, which though it was never approved, has continued in print until the present day with the warning "The publication of this book does not directly or indirectly imply that it can be regarded as authorized for use in churches". As time passed and liturgical scholarship proceeded, it became clear that a new attempt should be made to provide orders of service for the church. In an attempt to break the deadlock, Dom Gregory Dix, in his book The Shape of the Liturgy published in 1945, proposed that his own thinking about the Eucharist, using the so-called "Four Action Shape" be the basis of a rite. He suggested that such a rite be produced by a number of bishops, too many for them to be victimised but not so many so as to suggest rebellion, who would allow such a rite to be used in their own dioceses but who would not protect parish clergy from legal challenge if they used it. Dix's ideas were very influential but no one took up the suggestion.

Only in 1955 did the Church set up a Liturgical Commission and ten years later the Church Assembly passed the Prayer Book (Alternative and Other Services) Measure 1965. A series of books followed: the Series 1 Communion Book scarcely differed from the 1928 book (as was the case with its Wedding Service). Series 2, issued at the same time, put forward a form which followed the Dix formula: Offertory, Consecration, Fraction, Communion. This was a pattern which was to be widely influential in countries which had used the BCP.

Series 3 was less dependent on, and, by implication, more reflective of criticism of, Dix. The evidence for the Offertory had been challenged from left and right by liturgical scholars such as Colin Buchanan and Ronald Jasper: it had been championed by the adherents of the Liturgical Movement but came to be regarded as suspect not only by evangelicals. In his Durham Essays and Addresses Michael Ramsey had warned against a 'shallow Pelagianism' which it seemed to betoken. E.L. Mascall asked "what can we offer at the Eucharist?". (Contrary views were expressed by the likes of Donald Gray and Roger Arguile, partly on the ground that, following the writings of St. Irenaeus, the goodness of the natural order and its relation to the eucharist was an important element; the offertory brought the world into church) The Fraction, or breaking of the bread, was criticised on the grounds that it was not nearly as significant as the Consecration or Administration; it was largely a practical act. Other services were less controversial and some scarcely surfaced, including the Funeral Service, which never got beyond the draft stage. The Baptism service, allowing more responses from the godparents and being considerably less wordy than the BCP, became popular.