Introduction: Peering Over the Archbishop’s Shoulder
Christianity has embedded in it the germ of antireligion that fights its own tendency to become a religion that is based in works-righteousness.
PROTESTANTISM AND GOSPEL-CENTRALITY
We have apparently arrived at a moment in Western evangelicalism where gospel-centrality is a thing. In the grand scheme of worldwide Christianity, it might not be a very popular or widespread thing, but it is a thing. Gospel-centered, gospel-shaped, gospel-driven, and the like have all but become brands in certain tribes and subcultures. Responding cries have challenged that all this talk has diluted the clarity of what the gospel is and what the gospel does. The longer I live and move and have my being in the realm of gospel-centered worship, the more I am sympathetic to these cries for clarity.
In the first chapter of his epistle to the Romans, Paul headlines his letter by describing the gospel as the “power” of God (1:16). The apostle then goes on to unpack that power over the next ten chapters. At the center of that enterprise is a stark antithesis: no one can be justified by works of the law, but instead justification is a gift, received by faith (3:20-25). This antithesis appears in Paul’s letters again and again as the way the gospel is made clear (e.g., 1 Cor 15:9-10; Gal 2:16; Eph 2:8-9; Phil 3:9). In other words, the gospel is proclaimed in all its power precisely when it is recognized and received by faith, apart from works. Paul speaks elsewhere of paradoxical instances where that power is absent even while its fruit is still apparent, albeit in counterfeit form. In his words, such people are caught “having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power” (2 Tim 3:5). I have begun to wonder whether the landscape of Western worship is not dotted, if not significantly fortressed, with expressions and practices which have the appearance of godliness—of worshipfulness, of piety, of passion, of zeal, of truthfulness, of even the right words and the right “biblical elements”—and yet deny the power that animates them all. I long for the kind of zealous, fiery worship marked by a “demonstration of the Spirit and of power,” and I believe, with Paul, that this demonstration happens best when worship has “decided to know nothing . . . but Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:1-5).
This book seeks to clarify the Scripture’s vision for gospel-centered worship with the hope that such clarification might lead us toward a daring confidence that the very power that stands at the center of Christianity—the good news of Jesus Christ for sinners—is sufficient to withstand all contenders and lead the church into the uncharted waters of the future. But instead of directly surveying the Scriptures or overtly developing a liturgical theology of gospel-centrality, we might do well to come at this from the side.
Those of us who stand in the Reformation tradition of evangelicalism (before it was tarnished by cultural and political overtones, an evangelical was simply a “gospel-person”) have to admit that our commitment to sola scriptura is prone to being bastardized into a kind of strict biblicism which in turn closes our ears to other faithful Christians of the past who have read and interpreted the same Bible we prize. In other words, something in our Protestant DNA causes us to almost instinctively bristle at listening to the Great Tradition. Tradition, to say the least, is complicated, but in the best of light it is merely that repository of previous generations of Christians wrestling with what the Word of God was saying to them and then living out the work of that Word in their given time and place. If those of us in Protestant traditions would lift our heads for a second, we might be able to look back and notice that the question of what the Bible has to say about gospel-centered worship is not a new one. This was, in fact, my own far-too-late discovery. There I had been on my own for over a decade as a pastor and worship leader grappling with the Scriptures about what it meant for the gospel to govern and guide the worship service. Then one day, someone lifted my head, and I encountered a Christian who five hundred years ago asked those very same questions I was asking and answered them with far more knowledge, far more depth, far more work, and far more clarity. I had met the reformer, Thomas Cranmer.
If people are aware of Thomas Cranmer, they are likely acquainted with the fruit of his labor—the Book of Common Prayer, and the broad and global legacy of English-speaking worship that traces its history back to it. However, far fewer are aware of the labor itself. The goal of this book is to expose that labor in order to learn. This effort is nothing more than an attempt to transport ourselves five centuries back and stand over the shoulder of England’s greatest reformer as he sits bent over his candlelit desk, surrounded by hundreds of books, manuscripts, notes, and liturgies contemporaneous and historic. We will observe the Archbishop at work with these liturgical sources. When we do so we will see he is not only translating, but transposing. We will see him making decisions. And we will try to ask, on what basis is he making those decisions? Can we observe an undergirding set of criteria or a rationale behind what he chooses to keep, what he chooses to omit, what he chooses to move, and what he chooses to remain in place?
This book makes the claim that Cranmer indeed had such a rationale and that this rationale, though not exclusive and singular, so overwhelmed the Archbishop in its importance that it dominated all other criteriological motivations for liturgical redaction. Getting right to it, what overwhelmed Cranmer was God’s love for him in Christ, and once that love seized him, the Archbishop became fiercely committed to the clear proclamation of that good news. In other words, Cranmer’s vision for liturgical renewal was intensely fixated on the gospel. His evangelical convictions drove his liturgical decisions. If this is true, then I would suggest that as we look over the Archbishop’s shoulder, we will discover that he provides, among all sixteenth-century Reformers English and Continental, a most exemplary model of what it might mean to be gospel-centered in our worship today.
I want to be careful to recognize that gospel-centered is modern speak, and it is therefore terminologically anachronistic to refer to Thomas Cranmer’s gospel-centered theology. Still, the argument of this book is that it is not theologically anachronistic to view Cranmer’s work as an attempt at gospel-centered worship. In fact, I’m hoping Cranmer will provide for us a much more theologically rich and biblically faithful definition for what it looks like for worship services to be centered on Christ’s gospel. Nevertheless, I will attempt to use the phrase sparingly with reference to Cranmer’s work.
I further recognize the boldness of the claim that Cranmer’s evangelical convictions drove his liturgical decisions. Indeed, much ink has been spilled, including Cranmer’s own, about what his motivations were behind the choices made in the formation of the Book of Common Prayer. It will be helpful to briefly recount what has been said about Cranmer’s criteria for liturgical redaction, both to affirm their truth and to expose why they fall short of accounting for his great doxological obsession.
CRANMER’S CRITERIA FOR REDACTION
The Archbishop’s preface to the 1549 Book of Common Prayer states his methodological intentions plain enough, and we want to observe these stated reasons alongside some unstated ones that centuries of liturgical analysis make equally clear. Our goal here is to better understand Cranmer’s criteria for liturgical redaction and to set the stage for the argument that they inadequately account for all his liturgical moves. Cranmer’s criteria in eight broad categories are catechesis, affective persuasion, missional intelligibility, participation, unification, simplification, antiquity, and scripturality.
1. Catechesis. In Cranmer’s mind, the Scriptures themselves are the bedrock of the liturgy. Therefore, Scripture reading would be front and center in liturgical reform. Cranmer advocates this reform precisely so that believers and ministers can “be more able . . . to exhort other[s] by wholesome doctrine, and to confute them that were adversaries to the truth.” In short, one of Cranmer’s aims with the liturgy was to catechize the people. In the sixteenth century the average believer possessed limited biblical knowledge. The liturgy would serve as a primary place where this widespread biblical vacuum could be filled. And even though we will classify simplification as a separate criterion, we acknowledge with Bryan Spinks that simplification and catechesis for Cranmer went hand in hand: “In terms of his main Latin source, the Sarum rite, he simplifies for the purpose of education.”
2. Affective persuasion. As a descendant of medieval affective piety, as a humanist in the school of Erasmus, and as a Protestant persuaded by Melanchthon’s Lutheran interpretation of Augustine’s affective theology, Cranmer was committed to the idea that a good liturgy did more than provide a framework for worship. The liturgy’s aim was to cause the worshiper’s heart to, in his words, “be the more inflamed with the love of [God’s] true religion.” The liturgy would primarily do this affectively persuasive work through its use of language and rhetoric. By “affective,” we mean “a mode of experience that is tethered to physical bodies and that encompasses emotion, feeling, and desire.” With these objectives in mind, we observe the Archbishop not merely translating the received liturgies, but instead, as a “connoisseur of English,” he would “stamp them with his own style,” transposing the language into more rich and expressive keys. Cranmer’s Prayer Books are famous for their excessive doublets, triplets, and even occasional quadruplets: “Humble and hearty”; “direct, sanctify, and govern”; “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.” Certainly, these expansions of single Latin and English words betray his training as an Erasmian humanist as he employs affectively charged rhetoric, using language to evoke and provoke the senses. Compared with other preexisting English translations of prayers, Cranmer’s translations consistently exhibit a superior felicity of style. Take for instance this Collect for Whitsunday, alongside its predecessors, exposing Cranmer’s strong affective style (see 
GEORGE JOYE’S HORTULUS ANIMAE, 1530
THE KING’S PRIMER, 1545
THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER, 1549
O God,
which has instructed the hearts of faithful men with the lightening of thy Holy Ghost;
O God,
which by the information of the Holy Ghost, hast instructed the hearts of thy faithful,
God,
which as upon this day hast taught the hearts of thy faithful people by the sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit;
grant us to savour aright in the same Spirit,
grant us in the same Spirit to have right understanding,
grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things,
and to rejoice evermore of his holy consolation,
and evermore to rejoice in his holy consolation.
and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort;
Through Christ our Lord.
through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour;
which livest and reignest in the same Spirit ever.
who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end.
Figure 1.1. The Collect for Whitsunday and its sources
At the same time, these kinds of translational moves may also be an attempt to slow down the liturgy to allow for a meditative rumination in prayer, or, in the words of Cranmer’s Homily on Scripture, a chewing on “the heavenly meat of our souls” in order “that we may have the sweet juice, spiritual effect, marrow, honey, kernel, taste, comfort and consolation of them.” The net effect of all these observations is that Cranmer freely translated out of a desire to see people moved by the liturgy. Cranmer’s criteria included facilitating a “hearty” encounter. In fact, the verbal statistics in his 1552 Holy Communion and Morning Prayer liturgies speak for themselves, as Cranmer’s translations of those liturgies significantly increase the use of “heart” language.
3. Missional intelligibility. Cranmer further articulated that his liturgical redaction was motivated by an emphatic desire that worship be “plain and easy to be understanded.” The Archbishop even summons Paul’s own admonitions, presumably from 1 Corinthians 14, regarding foreign tongues and making gathered worship intelligible: “St. Paul would have such language spoken to the people in the Church as they might understand and have profit by hearing the same.” Certainly the great missionary passage from Cranmer’s preface to the Great Bible of 1540 could be easily applied to his liturgy, to the end that all kinds of people such as “publicans, fishers, and shepherds may find their edification.” Tempering the above comments about felicity of style, Cranmer would not sacrifice intelligibility on the altar of artistry, unlike “the writings of the Gentile philosophers and rhetoricians, to the intent the makers should be had in admiration for their high styles and obscure manner of writing, whereof nothing can be understood without a master or an expositor.” Diarmaid MacCulloch notes that Cranmer was linguistically conservative with his use of English Latinisms and Greekisms, preferring instead wording and phraseology of Anglo-Saxon vocabulary and style. This apparently conscious choice seems to flow naturally from his missionary impulse to contextualize liturgy and prayer to the native tongue of the common person. Cranmer desired the Prayer Book not to be high art, but to have a plain and simple kind of beauty, so that the liturgy might be apprehended by all kinds of people. Though this missionary impulse toward contextualization and inculturation is not unique to Cranmer or even the Reformation era, this criterion of intelligibility certainly drove Cranmer further in his editorial decisions than most up to that point.
4. Participation. Hand in hand with intelligibility was a desire for greater congregational participation. Cranmer’s redaction of the liturgy sought to move more things out of the mysterious and private words and actions of the priest and into the public language and movements of the people. Behaviors that might appear surprising to twenty-first-century Christian worshipers were quite common in Cranmer’s day. For the congregation, this included walking around during the sermon, engaging in gossip or small talk with one’s neighbor during the service, or simply doing one’s own thing throughout the liturgy, such as privately praying, or entering and exiting at random. In preparation for a visit to the diocese of Norwich, Cranmer sent ahead a list of injunctions including this: “That every minister do move his parishioners to come diligently to the church, and when they come not to talk or walk in the sermon, Communion, or divine service time, but rather at the same to behave themselves reverently, godly and devoutly in the church.” Clerical custom aided and abetted this behavior, as it was quite common to mumble or quietly speak the liturgy and quickly work through the mass, which is why Cranmer’s liturgies contain rubrics for the minister to lead the liturgy “with a loud voice.” We therefore find Cranmer making liturgical decisions based on this desire for greater participation.
5. Unification. In line with the political agenda of the day, Cranmer’s preface clearly states that the Prayer Book was redacted with the specific purpose such that “all the whole realm shall have but one use.” Top on Henry’s agenda was nationwide obedience and submission. Certainly this demand was the fruit of his egomania, but it was also because Henry believed that a well-ordered society full of loyal subjects would produce peace, stability, and cultural flourishing. Cranmer believed in these endgame virtues as well, even if he did not share Henry’s conviction of the means. For Henry, the virtues of England’s unity were the fruit of loyalty and submission to the king. For Cranmer, those virtues were the fruit of the gospel. Therefore, unifying the disparate liturgies of England to “but one use” was simultaneously political and theological, with the latter being more toward Cranmer’s motivation for liturgical conformity.
6. Simplification. Tied to unification was the idea that the liturgy should pare down “the number and hardness of the rules” and “the manifold changings of the service.” With a hint of sarcasm, Cranmer expressed concern “that many times, there was more business to find out what should be read, then to read it when it was found out.” Both leading and following the liturgy had become cumbersome for clergy and laity alike, and Cranmer felt that it was time to demolish many of the rickety additions that had been built onto the liturgical house over the years. And so we find across the board, chiefly exhibited in the Daily Offices and the Holy Communion liturgy, Cranmer’s liturgical agenda included condensing all material into one simple volume.
7. Antiquity. Of all the criteria of Cranmer pointed out by the history of liturgical scholarship, it is antiquity that continually comes to the fore as one of Cranmer’s chief editorial motivators. In the preface, Cranmer clearly desires to put forth a liturgy “agreeable to the mind and purpose of the old fathers,” whom he sets in contrast again and again to the liturgy of his present. This is not surprising. As a humanist, Cranmer would be predisposed to appeal to the “primitive” sources over against more recent iterations of liturgical formulation. And, especially as the preface opens with ominous pessimism about how “the continuance of time” ends up corrupting what was once pure, it is clear that antiquity is a primary value. We might stress here that while modern liturgical scholars have pointed out that Cranmer’s access to patristic liturgies was perhaps limited and piecemeal, what they often overlook is that his access to and study of the Fathers’ theological outlook was vast and comprehensive. Even if he did not possess the widest array of ancient liturgies, he was saturated with ancient Christianity’s “mind and purpose.” And especially if, as this book will argue, Cranmer’s motivations were more fundamentally theological, for him the Fathers’ theological writing would be just as useful (even perhaps more useful) as liturgical sources as the ancient liturgies themselves.
8. Scripturality. The broadest consensus, though, is that fidelity to the Scriptures was Cranmer’s chief criterion. In fact, most liturgical scholars argue that the Archbishop’s commitment to antiquity is actually grounded in his commitment to the Bible. As one historian notes, “What the witness of Christian antiquity contributes, as Cranmer sees it, is a confirmation of a correct interpretation of the scriptures.” Another liturgiologist rightly observes that Cranmer
was not beholden to any notion that the ancient codified liturgical texts enjoyed the privileges ascribed to the inspired scriptures; they were not rendered untouchable in light of their respected and accepted historical pedigree. They had no more objective, intrinsic theological value than newly minted, theologically correct orations penned and articulated in his day. Intuitively he seemed to have understood the difference between idol and icon.
By far and away, scriptural fidelity takes centerstage in the Prayer Book’s preface. Cranmer strongly criticizes how little Bible was read and how much the liturgy was instead unnecessarily filled with “uncertain stories, Legends, Responds, Verses, vain repetitions, Commemorations,” and other “such things, as did break the continual course of the reading of scripture.” Instead, what is to be read and prayed should be nothing “but the very pure word of God, the holy Scriptures, or that which is evidently grounded upon the same.” In short, as Cranmer was evaluating liturgical sources for use in England, his first evaluative question seems to have consistently been, “Is it biblical?”
THE INADEQUATE ACCOUNTING OF CRANMER’S
LITURGICAL CRITERIA
None of the above criteria, either individually or collectively, adequately accounts for all of Cranmer’s editorial decisions. In fact, the more we dig into these criteriological motivations the more they beg further questions. For example, simplification certainly is important perhaps to save ecclesiastical resources or to allow for ease of liturgical leadership, but might there be a more fundamental reason why simplification was a priority? A united realm is certainly a noble political pursuit, but would national solidarity be a sufficient rationale for an Archbishop who was a studied and convicted theologian of the first rank? Is it simply that Henry’s desire for “hegemonic legitimation” was enough for Cranmer to unify disparate liturgies and pepper the Prayer Book with more instances of the language of “service” than in the Latin original? This motivation for radical unity is at least somewhat tempered by Article XXXIII of the Forty-Two Articles of 1553, which argues that while England might have one use, other realms and regions need not all keep the same traditions and ceremonies. Like Luther and the other Reformers, Cranmer was aware of the need for liturgical diversity within certain bounds.
With regard to antiquity, modern liturgiologists have been quick to simultaneously laud Cranmer’s meticulous study and employment of the church fathers and criticize his imprecision or relative ignorance with their use. Mid-century liturgical scholar E. C. Ratcliff exemplifies these voices:
[Cranmer’s] interests lay behind the medieval period, in Christian antiquity. To discover the usages and beliefs of antiquity, he had laboriously to read through the works of ancient ecclesiastical writers, to collect references from them, and to make of their allusions and statements what he could. A task of such dimension might well have daunted him; but he had the scholar’s patience no less than the scholar’s desire for exact knowledge. . . . If, moreover, in his search for the genuinely ancient, he frequently failed to perceive it, or (as often in his handling of liturgical material) cast it aside, it was because he had no early training and, later, no adequate aid to enable him to identify it.
Forthcoming scholarship will, to put it mildly, put these assertions to the test, but we do not necessarily need to refute them to observe some large leaps here that are made not infrequently in modern liturgical scholarship. Saturating twentieth-century liturgical thought is the assumption that because modern researchers have access to a far more complete patristic library than Cranmer, the Archbishop would have probably done things differently had he known what we now know. What does not tend to enter the conversation is the positing of another viable theory for why Cranmer seemed to miss or fail to perceive the patristic witness even when he did have access to those sources. Could there be other criteria at play that help explain why he might cast aside the voice of the Fathers in certain instances? Could it be that he did perceive some ancient liturgical material as such and yet for other reasons deliberately choose to not employ them?
Even with the criterion of scripturality, we too must recognize that this desire was not unique to Cranmer and the Reformers. Catholic humanists like Spanish Cardinal Francisco Quiñonez were just as interested in and motivated toward going back to the sources and making the liturgy more scriptural as their own liturgical projects testify. And we also observe Cranmer in key moments making decisions to omit scriptural quotation in the liturgy, such as the removal of the Agnus Dei (Jn 1:29) and the Benedictus (Ps 118:26; Mt 21:9; Mk 11:9; Lk 19:38; Jn 12:13) from the Communion liturgy.
Ultimately, we are led to conclude that while all the above criteria were necessary for Cranmer, they were not sufficient. As a result, we hope this present work will expose two things: first, that these criteria cannot account for many of Cranmer’s decisions in his liturgical redaction; and second, that even these criteria may be seen in a different light as largely springing from another more singular and fundamental criterion. In other words, we want to argue the plausibility of a theory that Cranmer’s desire for liturgical catechesis, affective persuasion, missional intelligibility, participation, unification, simplification, antiquity, and scripturality was motivated by something more basic, that not only explains why he prioritizes these criteria but gives us a far more comprehensive explanation for many, if not most, liturgical changes made, even possibly answering some questions that have puzzled liturgical historians down through the ages. We will want to argue that Cranmer’s fundamental criterion was, in fact, the gospel itself.
At this point, given how much time we have spent observing Cranmer’s preface, one might ask, “Well then why does this gospel-criterion find no mention there?” There may be a good reason for Cranmer to have concealed this motivation in that most public document. We must remember and appreciate the political-ecclesiastical tightrope Cranmer was walking even after the death of Henry. He was not leading a unified group of bishops, clergy, and laity. In fact, as many have noted, as Reformed as the 1549 Prayer Book was, it certainly was much more of a halfway measure toward a more thoroughly Protestant, gospel-centered liturgy that would be unveiled in 1552. We therefore might do well to look at the list of criteria disclosed in the preface with the same eye that we look at the partially Protestant 1549 liturgy itself—it does not tell the complete story. Furthermore, as we have observed with scripturality, none of the above-listed criteria is in any way uniquely Protestant. In each category, we can find contemporaneous analogues among those who remained faithful Roman Catholics. Therefore, we have some valid reasoning in pursuing the question of why in liturgical redaction Cranmer could be most fundamentally motivated by the gospel and yet not mention it in the preface to the Prayer Book, even as he mentioned other criteriological motivations.
At this point, we need to entertain one more question: Even given all this, will we be able to establish that there is a clear enough correspondence between Cranmer’s thought and what we have in his Prayer Books? Put another way, were Cranmer’s convictions about the gospel strong enough to trump the other ecclesiastical and political forces at play which would have influenced him to make his Prayer Books more measured, compromising, and conciliar? In a way, this book attempts to build a case that answers yes to those questions. Still, even here I invite the reader to look forward to our discussion in 
SETTING THE STAGE FOR WHAT WE MEAN BY GOSPEL-CENTRALITY
We come back around now to our opening inquiry. What we will see is that, for Thomas Cranmer, to be gospel-centered in the formation and enacting of worship services means far more than mentioning the cross, championing atonement, and filling the liturgy with references to the person and work of Jesus Christ. As Cranmer understood it, the nature of the gospel would require certain norms for communication between God and his people.
In part one, we will observe and summarize these norms by establishing the connection between Cranmer’s theology and that of the apostle Paul, employing a few clarifying metaphors along the way—governor, grammar, and filter. We will crack the door open to this inquiry first by observing how the gospel was positioned in Cranmer’s theology in the way he responded to two central debates of his day—purgatory and the Lord’s Supper—noting how the good news of the finished work of Jesus Christ stood as a governor over where he would land in his theological decision-making (chap. 1). We then open the door more widely by establishing how this governing position actually functions. We will look at how Cranmer’s understanding of the Pauline doctrine of sola fide would serve as a theological grammar for how God would be approached, heard from, and prayed to in a worship service (
In part two, we will observe the application of this theological grammar in Cranmer’s formation of the 1549 and 1552 Book of Common Prayer. We will then see how sola fide serves as a filter for all liturgical form (
An appreciated early reader of this book’s manuscript, a Cranmer scholar, respectfully asked if this work did not suffer the fate of other treatises on the Archbishop which looked down the Cranmerian well only to find the author’s own reflection. Having taken that question seriously, I still come to the conclusions of this book with confidence in what my early philosophical training taught me—a cumulative case is a powerful argument. Indeed, there is likely no lost letter of Cranmer’s which confesses the chief criterion of justification sola fide for his theology of worship and editorial agenda. Nevertheless, my hope is that in the sometimes atomistic examination which follows, while any one neutron of evidence may appear more or less convincing, the weight of the whole matter might be found persuasive.
Some might understand the methodology of this book as presenting a kind of cipher (what we have already named as the grammar of justification by faith alone) that is then used to “decode” Cranmer’s liturgical thinking and work. It is more accurate, however, to see what follows as an attempt to observe the “rules” of the grammar at play in Cranmer’s liturgical work—an exposition of what is within the liturgy, rather than an imposition of an idea on the liturgy. Perhaps the reader will have to decide whether this has truly been accomplished.
Just over seventy-five years ago, in a most influential liturgical text, Dom Gregory Dix quipped that Cranmer’s work was “the only effective attempt ever made to give liturgical expression to the doctrine of justification by faith alone.” Dix was not being complimentary. Ironically, what follows seeks to prove Dix’s assertion, and not merely as complimentary, but as exemplary. What we hope is that by observing Cranmer at work, we might hold up an example of what it looks like to craft worship services “in step with the truth of the gospel” (Gal 2:14). But the goal of this is much more than to give expression to a doctrine. The goal, as noted above, is hearts on fire—changed lives.
AN IMPORTANT FINAL WORD ON LITURGICAL THEOLOGY
The clarification of Cranmer’s goal just made—namely that changed lives, not mere expression of doctrine, is the aim—exposes an important feature of this book, which requires brief explanation lest its labor be misunderstood. This book is a cross-disciplinary work (biblical studies, historical theology, and liturgics) that fits well but not cleanly into the relatively recent academic field of liturgical theology. Our query attempts to heed the criticism raised by this field which notes that text-heavy, word-based studies like this present work are prone to error because liturgical practice is irreducibly embodied and situational. Liturgies are first and foremost events, not texts. Juan Oliver’s useful summary of these insights of liturgical theology warns,
The history of liturgical practice cannot be studied properly by examining only texts, without reference to the history of church architecture and ceremonial. When abstracted from them as the history of the development of ideas or meanings about or communicated through liturgy, we are no longer talking about the history of the liturgical practice but about the history of ideas about it.
The insights of ritual studies are indeed taken seriously in what follows even if its categories are not explicitly utilized. Indeed, textual study is valuable, as we shall see, but it does not tell the whole story, which is why we will examine ceremonies, practices, architecture, and other socio-cultural phenomena surrounding worship in England at the time leading up to the Reformation. Thankfully, historians over the last few decades have helped us reconstruct some of the social and ritual dynamics of medieval worship practice, which allow us to better read between the (even rubrical) lines of Cranmer’s liturgies. We will attempt to glean from these insights what we can, remaining cautiously aware that our knowledge of the embodied practices surrounding Cranmer’s liturgical context is largely attained by examination through a spotted rearview mirror.
A similar critique of this text could be marshaled, namely that it force-fits abstract dogmatic analysis into a field of study that is highly experiential, subjective, embodied, even ascetic. However, the richest understanding of justification by faith alone—especially as articulated by sixteenth-century Reformers such as Luther, Melanchthon, and Cranmer—exposes a false dichotomy between theological truth and subjective experience. In fact, this book will argue for an understanding of sola fide as a gospel-grammar that does its best parsing in experience, particularly in the congregation’s embodied encounter with God in a gathered worship service.
This argument will therefore challenge certain schools of thought in liturgical theology which tend to overemphasize the idea that prayer shapes believing (one interpretation of the maxim lex orandi lex credendi) to the neglect of the reality that believing shapes prayer. Indeed, even liturgical theology’s great proponent of the distinction between primary theology and secondary theology, Aidan Kavanagh, admitted that “one thing that [the maxim] does not, however, say or mean is that the lex credendi exerts no influence upon the lex supplicandi [i.e., lex orandi], only that it does not constitute or found the lex supplicandi.” This book will admittedly go further than Kavanagh and his followers would probably be comfortable. As we will see especially in
Alexander Schmemann, grandfather of modern liturgical theology, argues that the Christian liturgy’s deep structural meaning—what he refers to as its “Ordo”—is found not just through participation in the liturgy, but in reflection on it:
To find the Ordo behind the “rubrics,” regulations and rules—to find the unchanging principle, the living norm or “logos” of worship as a whole, within what is accidental and temporary: this is the primary task which faces those who regard liturgical theology not as the collecting of accidental and arbitrary explanations of services, but as the systematic study of the lex orandi of the Church.
In a way, the burden of this book is to find the “Ordo behind the rubrics, regulations, and rules” of the Book of Common Prayer as its original architect conceived it. But we are not doing so by engaging in a “systematic study of the lex orandi of the Church.” Instead, we are attempting a systematic study of a particular theologian’s systematic study of the Scriptures, which resulted in an observable conviction about what Christian liturgy’s Ordo most deeply is—Jesus himself, revealed especially in his gospel. Admittedly we depart, therefore, from liturgical theology’s method as established by Schmemann, starting not with a sweeping investigation of liturgical practice across history and traditions. Rather, as a consciously Protestant enterprise, we will attempt methodologically to start as Cranmer did, with Scripture itself. As we learned, for Cranmer this does not happen to the neglect of history and the Fathers, but simply seeks to do what the tradition at its best was always seeking to do: see and savor Christ alone, in the power of the Spirit, to the glory of God the Father.