CHAPTER 1

THE ETHOS OF THE 1979BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER

The baptismal rite in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer represented a radical departure fromits predecessor rites. It has put in place a new theology of baptism, focused less on washing fromsin and more on making disciples; a new ecclesiology, shaped around the baptized members,not around the clergy; and a new initiatory process, centered around a baptismal rite that iscomplete in and of itself. These shifts have been paralleled by changes in the ritual procedureitself. Baptisms, which in earlier years were private and frequent, have become significant publicoccasions in the life of the worshipping assembly. In this chapter, we will examine the baptismalrite of the 1979 BCP to uncover its theology and liturgical ethos.

To appreciate the ethos of the 1979 prayer book, as well the radical nature of its revision, wemust begin with a look at the situation the revisers inherited. The 1928 book included a baptismalrite and a baptismal theology that stretched back to the sixteenth century, in the midst of theEnglish Reformation's attempt to purge the church of traditional religion.

ANGLICAN BAPTISM BEFORE 1979

Prior to the revision process leading to the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, the baptismal rite inthe Episcopal Church was essentially that of Thomas Cranmer's 1552 Book of Common Prayer.In an earlier revision, in 1549, Cranmer had translated the medieval rite from Latin into Englishand had added some text from Lutheran baptismal rites. But in 1552 he had stripped out suchmedieval ceremonies as exorcism, the blessing of the font, and anointing the candidate with oil;reordered some components of the 1549 rite (for example, shifting the sign of the cross frombefore the water bath to afterward); and added a post-baptismal prayer of thanksgiving, askingGod to "regenerate this infant" and to "receive him for thy own child by adoption." Both ofCranmer's rites included a lengthy charge to the godparents to ensure that the child was broughtup to know the creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer, and to live a godly life.Additionally, the book supplied a similar form for baptism in private houses—and private baptismbecame increasingly prevalent in early modern England.

Later English prayer books, in 1559, 1604, and 1662, left Cranmer's basic structure intact.The 1662 book made a few minor changes to the baptismal liturgy, but only two significant ones.The 1662 book added a petition to "sanctify this water to the mystical washing away of sin" to theprayer just prior to its administration, and added a vow to "obediently keep God's holy will andcommandments, and walk in the same" to the end of the affirmation of the creed. The formerrestored some of the sacramental emphasis lost in the 1552 revision when the blessing of thefont was dropped, while the latter was a step toward acknowledging that the Christian life isabout behavior as well as belief. The 1662 prayer book also added a separate rite for thebaptism of adults, though its structure and most of its content were drawn from the more familiarliturgy for the public baptism of infants.

Cranmer's prayer books retained the medieval rite of confirmation—but reinterpreted for aProtestant church. In the early church, there had been a variety of baptismal procedures, and bythe fourth century, a post-baptismal anointing became increasingly accepted as a part of therite. The Roman pattern, in which one post-baptismal anointing was reserved to the bishop,became the root of confirmation, once presbyters were allowed to baptize. This episcopalceremony, designed for children after baptism and termed "confirmation," was quite separatefrom baptism in most of the West by the eighth and ninth centuries. Cranmer discarded theanointing, kept the hand-laying, and transposed confirmation to serve as a way for adolescentsto mark the completion of catechizing. Later, English Protestants would use this justification,sometimes adding, as Richard Baxter did, that it allowed those baptized as infants to claim thebaptismal covenant for themselves. Cranmer's prayer books therefore made baptism the firststage of a two-part initiatory process.

Cranmer's baptismal rite was marked by several features. It was a rite for infants: Cranmerexpected children to be baptized within days of birth, and because of the Church of England'smonopoly status, it was impossible for him to imagine an unbaptized adult who was also asubject of the monarch. It was also framed as a washing from sin: baptism's purpose was theindividual's spiritual cleansing. Baptism was sacramental, and the liturgical text asserted that thecandidate was regenerated by the rite, but anything resembling the blessing of water had beenremoved, along with anointing. Finally, baptism was not, in itself, complete: the newly baptizedwas to be instructed, and later, at adolescence, return for confirmation. Only confirmationconferred full membership in the church.

The English prayer books had, of course, come to North America in the colonial era. Whenthe newly founded Episcopal Church adopted the 1789 Book of Common Prayer, it used theexisting English baptismal rite as its starting point, cutting it down while leaving the theology, withits emphasis on cleansing from sin, untouched. The next prayer book revision, in 1892, didnothing to change this. It added some stage directions, and it slightly altered the provisions toshorten the service. Both books made similar changes to the form of baptism in private housesand the form for the baptism of adults, cutting material but retaining the underlying theology. TheAmerican church still used Cranmer's baptismal rite.

The next American prayer book, in 1928, did not make substantive changes. The 1928 BCPstreamlined the many, separate rites for adults and children, and domestic and church-basedbaptism into a single liturgical form (while offering a set of directions to indicate which parts of theliturgy might be done at home and which at the church). Nevertheless, the rite still assumed thebaptism of infants as normative. This was reflected in several places, not least in the rubrics,which most often referred to children, often without accommodation for adult candidates (forexample, in the rubric concerning the gender of godparents). The 1928 revision also adjustedsome familiar texts and rubrics. The most significant change altered the blessing of the font,which had been added in 1662. The new form was changed to resemble, structurally, theeucharistic prayer, in place of what had been a collect. Despite the textual changes, thetheology of the baptismal rite remained the same as it had been in Cranmer's prayer book. Therite was primarily focused on cleansing the candidate from sin, whether original (the...