Promoting orderly Christianity

INTRODUCTION

Liturgy and devotion are two important facets of how a Christian interfaces with God.

Liturgy means the manner of how church (e.g. Sunday public worship) and religious services (weddings, funerals, etc.) are ordered and relates to their content, their use of the Scripture and other elements, particularly scripted elements. Liturgy can also involve the religious content, including Scripture readings, that is used by other organisations, or at other times, for example again weddings and funerals, but also baptisms, child dedications or other services.

Devotion means the manner of family altar, private gatherings and especially personal interaction with the Lord.

While evangelicalism and especially Pentecostalism have largely loosed themselves from the constraints of templates and formulaic prayer, there are still patterns to be found in Word of Faith teachings as regards to model sermons/studies (e.g. the Kenneth Copeland Reference Bible) and model prayers (e.g. prayer of petition, tithing prayer, etc.)

THE NEED FOR COMMONALITY

Different denominations and movements have their own prayer books, hymn books, etc.

The Word of Faith Movement has several books containing prayers, such as, Prayers that Avail Much (original) by Germaine Copeland (not related to Kenneth Copeland), and secondarily material by Lynne Hammond.

It also has been telling that all kinds of Christians have used the Anglican Book of Common Prayer’s wedding ceremony as a tradition. It is this tradition which keeps the use of a wedding ring as a custom for marriage.

Reading the Scripture through the year, in church or personally can be well guided by using the charts of the Book of Common Prayer for daily, Sunday and special day readings. I think this would be good for encouraging the personal reading of Scripture and also having everyone reading/hearing the same thing every day.

Not everything would be useful from the Book of Common Prayer, of course, including Apocrypha readings, but it certainly is a good and common resource to draw upon.

It is also important to understand how the Book of Common Prayer works, in that it has a fixed position of the year and a moveable portion of the year, and that requires switching from one calendar to another so many weeks before Easter, and this continues on until so many weeks after Easter. This is because Easter moves every year.

THE 1662 BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER

The Book of Common Prayer has developed out of the deep Reformation era, and the common form as it stands now is called the 1662. There are also modernised, localised and translated forms of the Book of Common Prayer, but we are not advocating in any direction that way.

The Book of Common Prayer has altered in ways since 1662 but still is called the 1662. It alters in regards to naming the current monarch of England, and also in 1859 some content was removed.

One of the removed elements that is really good, and to be retained on its own, now independent of the Anglican/Episcopal church is the content in regards to the Gunpowder Plot and Landing of William III, http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1662/nov5.pdf

I have copies of the BCP: a Queen Victoria, Oxford, 1900 and a Queen Elizabeth II, Cambridge, 1954. Older copies can easily be sourced from archive.org, see also here: http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1662/1662.html

FURTHERANCE

Whereas it is expedient to retain, restore or alter elements of common liturgy and devotion arising from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, its practice can continue privately or in church services under the concept of a Protestant titular bishoprick of Bethlehem. I discuss related matters here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1777l7qmCWorAcFq5zOEwIajhbjuOlQlK/view

1 Corinthians 14:33 and 40 states:
33 For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.
40 Let all things be done decently and in order.

Order and conformity would mean that we should use the same Bible, a time-honoured and correct one. Only the King James Bible should be the standard and guide. In regards to the question about editions, it is good to have the Pure Cambridge Edition.

The Book of Common Prayer uses the Lord’s Prayer from pre-1611, and likewise the readings of the Scripture can be printed in forms not consistent with the Pure Cambridge Edition, so these can be altered. In the creeds, they can be followed, but “catholick” and “virgin” should be lowercase. Also, as mentioned, the Apocrypha readings are not required.

The Book of Common Prayer should be used as a resource that can be drawn upon, for weddings, words for certain days of the year, especially the 5 November material, and would be an excellent guide for daily readings and Sunday readings, and can be used in church or personally.

In this way we can follow the irenic encouragement for orderly Christianity in line with the Word and Spirit movement.

The Word and Spirit perspective does not conform to any single Protestant stream in total, but to recover and synthesise those doctrinal, devotional and practical strengths which have been preserved in different parts of the Protestant inheritance.

Word and Spirit draws together two streams of King James Only (Pure Cambridge Edition) Fundamentalism and Word of Faith Pentecostalism, but also encompasses vast elements of Multiple fulfilments of Bible Prophecy which includes Historicism (traditional Protestantism), millenarianism (Puritan), higher life entire sanctification Christian perfection (Holiness), creation (Fundamentalism), law and grace (Wesley/Finney and Reformed Evangelicalism), etc.

One also must mention the preference for Redemption Hymnal and a common pool of classic choruses, including those by David Ingles.

CONCLUSION

Having commonality in liturgy and devotion is very helpful in orderly Christianity. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer is a good resource for selective usage. The aim of the Word and Spirit movement is not merely insular but universal, therefore Christians are encouraged to conform to the pattern shown them.

Just as the Pure Cambridge Edition is the common inheritance for all Christians, so right Protestantism should be held to as a matter of common faith.