Nigerian Church begins Prayer Book revision: CEN 2.01.08 p 8. February 2, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Nigeria, Hymnody/Liturgy.trackback
The Church of Nigeria will begin a new round of Prayer Book revision, Archbishop Peter Akinola said in a pastoral letter published at the end of the church’s House of Bishops’ meeting last week.
The current Prayer Book, last revised in 1996, will seek to use modern language and African imagery to “help us to worship God meaningfully and relevantly in our setting and many situations,” Archbishop Akinola said.
He encouraged Anglicans to “prepare prayerfully so that the liturgy does not become a cold and lifeless aspect of our worship life, but a vibrant, inspiring and liberating encounter with our self-revealing God.”
The revision process for the Nigerian Church’s new prayer book will differ from that taken by the Episcopal Church with the 1979 Book of Common Prayer in that no doctrinal innovations or revisions will be made.
In 2005 the Nigerian Church amended its constitution outlining the substance of its faith and subordinating its ecclesial structures to doctrinal formularies. Language that defined the Church as being “in communion with the See of Canterbury” was rescinded.
The Nigerian Church would now be “in communion” with “all Anglican Churches, Dioceses and Provinces that hold and maintain the Historic Faith, Doctrine, Sacrament and Discipline of the Holy Catholic, and Apostolic Church as the Lord has commanded in His holy word and as the same are received as taught in the Book of Common Prayer and ordinal of 1662 and in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion.”
Sources familiar with the revision project tell The Church of England Newspaper the Church of Nigeria is committed to the “historic faith once delivered to the Saints” and to Anglicanism’s traditional formularies. The new book will seek to acculturate these doctrinal truths into a West African context, allowing the Church to grow through a living liturgy.
That may be well and fine for the Nigerians, but I intend to stick with the 1662 BCP all the way, with no revisions. We are currently affiliated with CANA and they seem to have a duality of prayerbooks 1979 mostly with a few congregations using the 1928. The only sensible way for the orthodox re-asserters to hold and maintain the Historic Faith, Doctrine, Sacrament and Discipline of the Holy Catholick and Apostolic Church as the Lord commanded in His holy word and as the same are received as taught in the Book of Common Prayer and Ordinal of 1662 and in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion is to stick with the original 1662 BCP with no revisions. That’s what I’m doing.