Are we done with the '79 Prayer Book?

Reblogged from Covenant.

After twenty years of pastoral use, we have discovered that, like all its predecessors, it is not a perfect book and could stand some general improvement in some fairly critical places. But I believe the Church has other mission imperatives that require its energy and attention at the present time …. We are nowhere near being finished with what this book is calling us to do. For a variety of reasons, I suspect that most of the Episcopal Church is neither ready to abandon the 1979 prayer book nor willing to commit the time and resources required to replace it. — Neil Alexander, Leaps and Boundaries, pp. 183-184

The Episcopal Church was different in 1997, when these words were penned by Neil Alexander, then a professor of liturgics and preaching at General Theological Seminary. Average Sunday attendance across the church was over a third higher. We had more dioceses, seminaries, and central boards and agencies. There were no Millennium Development Goals. There was a great deal less anxiety about the future. And the cross-marked volume in the pews was still known, fairly universally, as “the new prayer book.”

Commentary: Saint Augustine's Prayer Book (2014 Edition)

From the Sept. 20 Edition of The Living Church.

My copy of Saint Augustine’s Prayer Book is battered and stained.  A constant companion since my earliest days as an Episcopalian, it has pointed me to God through difficult times of discernment, the death of loved ones, and many of my life’s greatest joys.  I greeted the news of its pending revision with the suspicion associated with a change to grandma’s pie crust recipe or a new route to the family vacation spot at the beach. 

But the new edition, edited by David Cobb of Ascension Church, Chicago and Derek Olsen has exceeded my expectations.  In his preface, Cobb notes his “genuine affection” for the book, which shines through this very careful and gentle revision of one of the greatest spiritual classics produced within the American Church.  The new volume is more than 100 pages longer, beautifully designed, and a convenient size.

Above all, the new edition is a tribute to the devotional usefulness of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.    The work’s opening section defines its purpose, in part, as helping Christians “prepare for and participate in public liturgy thoughtfully.”  Past editions of Saint Augustine’s Prayer Book claimed to be a “devotional companion to the Book of Common Prayer,” but relegated the prayer book to the shadows.