How We Got the Book of Common Prayer

The Book of Common Prayer is for those of us who don't always know what to say. So . . . all of us. Thomas gives us a little history, then a quick rundown of the book.
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[@yeetoburrito9972]

Anne Hathaway was Shakespeare's wife! Not Henry VIII's lol

[@cgpyper7536]

New, prospective user of BCP? Start with the Daily Devotionals that appear after the lengthy Daily Offices. Include the appointed psalms (Coverdale translation) that are in your BCP. Order the Anglican Church of North America version from Anglican House. If Traditional (King James) Language (much more liturgical, holy, and sacred) is preferred, order the green instead of the red. Thank you, Brethren, for your presentation and amiable discussion.

[@nalaredneb78]

How is it decided what is added to the book?

[@ClassicalStuffYouShouldKnow]

Committees! There's a Liturgy Committee that worked with the College of Bishops to develop the 2019 Book of Common Prayer. Depending on how far back you go, the answer could include Thomas Cranmer, the king, or certain sects within Anglicanism that demanded change (such as the Oxford Movement).

[@hexahexametermeter]

Or taken out....

[@SVHotspur]

The reformed Church of England, initiated under King Edward VI and permanently established under Queen Elizabeth I, was assuredly Protestant. Because Henry VIII was not a Protestant, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer could only implement limited reforms until Edward, a Protestant, took the throne. One need only look at the 1549/1552 Books of Common Prayer (BCP), the 42 Articles of Religion, and the First Book of Homilies to see the strong influence of Calvinism (and Lutheranism) on Cranmer. While the reformed Church of England always has seen itself as “Catholic” in the sense of being part of the “One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church” mentioned in the Nicene Creed, it broke decisively from Roman Catholicism and remained so in the later modestly modified versions of Cranmer’s original documents (e.g., the 1662 BCP and the 39 Articles of Religion). It has been Anglo-Catholic elements for the last few hundred years who have sought to modify these documents/reinterpret them in a more Roman Catholic manner. The most successful efforts occurred in the 19th Century with the “Oxford Movement.”
The Episcopal Church in America (officially known as the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America) modified the BCP in 1928 and 1979 using Roman Catholic liturgical forms and theology, thus significantly diverging from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. While the ACNA in its 2019 BCP appears to have sought some return of the 1662 BCP, it is heavily influenced by the 1979 BCP.
I agree that attempting to read any of the early BCPs exactly as they were written (archaic spelling and typefaces) is challenging. I suggest that anyone interested in praying the daily office as it was intended (or to understand the BCP) should obtain the 1662 BCP (International Version) from InterVarsity Press (IVP), easily purchased on Amazon or the IVP website. It is printed in modern typeface and using modern spellings with some minor updates to the most archaic language (it also includes a glossary for other old vocabulary, particularly useful for understanding the Coverdale Psalter included in this BCP). It also includes Cranmer’s homily on justification by faith (a thoroughly Protestant view of salvation).
I disagree with the statement in the video that the 1979 BCP is a perfectly fine BCP to use. The 1979 BCP has limited relationship to the 1662 BCP, modifying the text in theologically significant ways and relegating the 39 Articles to being simply a “historical document,” rather than as a confessional statement. The 1662 BCP is filled with scripture readings and has a limited number of ceremonies (basically, even for most important holidays, the 1662 BCP expects the normal morning prayer or communion service to be used with an appropriate collect (prayer) and scripture readings meant for those holidays. The 1979 BCP removed the reprinted scripture readings for many services and filled the BCP up with various new services for a variety of holy days, thus replacing Protestant simplicity with the high church inclination for ceremony. The 1979 BCP is also inherently complicated to use, giving readers many choices as one goes through the daily office. The 1662 BCP is simple (and the IVP version has the instructions (called rubrics) in red type to highlight them) and allows an individual to focus on the prayers (which are mostly scripture itself). As CS Lewis (an Anglican who loved the 1662 BCP) said in a letter:
“The advantage of a fixed form of service is that we know what is coming. Ex tempore [] public prayer has this difficulty; we don’t know whether we can mentally join in it until we’ve heard it-it might be phony or heretical. We are therefore called upon to carry on a critical and a devotional activity at the same moment: two things hardly compatible. In a fixed form we ought to have “gone through the motions” before in our private prayers; the rigid form really sets our devotions free. Also find the more rigid it is, the easier it is to keep one’s thoughts from straying. Also it prevents getting too completely eaten up by whatever happens to be the preoccupation of the moment (i.e. war, an election, or what not). The permanent shape of Christianity shows through. I don’t see how the ex tempe method can help becoming provincial, and I think it has a great tendency to direct attention to the minister rather than to God.”
Thank you making a video on the BCP.

[@arobles201263ar]

Why create a book on how to pray and what to pray when the Bible itself is clear enough on how to pray and what to pray?

[@SeraphimMJM]

The BCP’s prayer services are 90% just the psalms and other parts of scripture. The BCP mostly just organizes scriptures into a prayer service so you’re essentially just praying the Bible but it’s organized to be more conducive to strictly prayer. I’ve always read the Bible daily, however, my spiritual life has skyrocketed once I started using the BCP daily.

[@hexahexametermeter]

Because the Bible is a library of books and is not in a worship format. It puts the portions of scripture in a progression of worship guided by the theology of the Bible. Also because it utilizes the wisdom of over 1000 years of contemplation of what it means to worship and pray.

[@arobles201263ar]

@@hexahexametermeter doesn't that justify only using the bible as your main source of how to pray?

[@hexahexametermeter]

@@arobles201263ar I bet if you recorded the words spoken and sung at any non-liturgical worship service, it would have FAR fewer scripture than with the use of the Book of Common Prayer. Easily.

[@hexahexametermeter]

@@arobles201263ar Curious how you think the Bible was compiled. There's no list in the Bible that says which writings to use as scripture, so what is your source of which books to use for prayer? You will find that the answer to this is the same answer that tells you how the church used and compiled those scriptures for worship and the BCP is a composition of that.