Celebrating the Rites of Initiation: A Practical Ceremonial Guide for Clergy and Other Liturgical Ministers

by James F. Turrell

Overview

Celebrating the Rites of Initiation continues the standard of scholarship set by Patrick Malloy’s Celebrating the Eucharist, and offers similar aids around issues of baptism and confirmation. It is an ideal book for students and practicing clergy who seek to strengthen their knowledge—and parochial practice—of baptismal theology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780898698763
Publisher:	Church Publishing
Publication date:	04/01/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	292 KB

About the Author

James F. Turrell is Dean of the School of Theology, University of South.

Read an Excerpt

CELEBRATING THE RITES OF INITIATION

A Practical Ceremonial Guide for Clergy and Other Liturgical Ministers

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By James F. Turrell

Church Publishing Incorporated

Copyright © 2013James F. Turrell
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-89869-876-3

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Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

THE ETHOS OF THE 1979 BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER

The baptismal rite in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer represented a radical departure from its predecessor rites. It has put in place a new theology of baptism, focused less on washing from sin 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 is complete in and of itself. These shifts have been paralleled by changes in the ritual procedure itself. Baptisms, which in earlier years were private and frequent, have become significant public occasions in the life of the worshipping assembly. In this chapter, we will examine the baptismal rite 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, we must begin with a look at the situation the revisers inherited. The 1928 book included a baptismal rite and a baptismal theology that stretched back to the sixteenth century, in the midst of the English 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 in the 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 English and had added some text from Lutheran baptismal rites. But in 1552 he had stripped out such medieval 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 from before the water bath to afterward); and added a post-baptismal prayer of thanksgiving, asking God to "regenerate this infant" and to "receive him for thy own child by adoption." Both of Cranmer's rites included a lengthy charge to the godparents to ensure that the child was brought up 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 baptism became 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 the prayer just prior to its administration, and added a vow to "obediently keep God's holy will and commandments, and walk in the same" to the end of the affirmation of the creed. The former restored some of the sacramental emphasis lost in the 1552 revision when the blessing of the font was dropped, while the latter was a step toward acknowledging that the Christian life is about behavior as well as belief. The 1662 prayer book also added a separate rite for the baptism of adults, though its structure and most of its content were drawn from the more familiar liturgy for the public baptism of infants.

Cranmer's prayer books retained the medieval rite of confirmation—but reinterpreted for a Protestant church. In the early church, there had been a variety of baptismal procedures, and by the fourth century, a post-baptismal anointing became increasingly accepted as a part of the rite. 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 episcopal ceremony, designed for children after baptism and termed "confirmation," was quite separate from baptism in most of the West by the eighth and ninth centuries. Cranmer discarded the anointing, kept the hand-laying, and transposed confirmation to serve as a way for adolescents to 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 the baptismal covenant for themselves. Cranmer's prayer books therefore made baptism the first stage of a two-part initiatory process.

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

The English prayer books had, of course, come to North America in the colonial era. When the newly founded Episcopal Church adopted the 1789 Book of Common Prayer, it used the existing English baptismal rite as its starting point, cutting it down while leaving the theology, with its emphasis on cleansing from sin, untouched. The next prayer book revision, in 1892, did nothing to change this. It added some stage directions, and it slightly altered the provisions to shorten the service. Both books made similar changes to the form of baptism in private houses and the form for the baptism of adults, cutting material but retaining the underlying theology. The American church still used Cranmer's baptismal rite.

The next American prayer book, in 1928, did not make substantive changes. The 1928 BCP streamlined the many, separate rites for adults and children, and domestic and church-based baptism into a single liturgical form (while offering a set of directions to indicate which parts of the liturgy might be done at home and which at the church). Nevertheless, the rite still assumed the baptism 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 (for example, in the rubric concerning the gender of godparents). The 1928 revision also adjusted some 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, the eucharistic prayer, in place of what had been a collect. Despite the textual changes, the theology of the baptismal rite remained the same as it had been in Cranmer's prayer book. The rite was primarily focused on cleansing the candidate from sin, whether original (the flawed nature we inherit at birth) or actual (those things one has actually done). Baptism in the 1928 BCP was framed as what my liturgics professor once termed "celestial fire insurance," and it was very much geared toward keeping the baby (and it was almost always a baby) out of hell. The imagery and language in the rite that concerned joining the body of Christ was minimal, while the emphasis on washing off sin and on regeneration was heavy.

The performance of the rite under the 1928 book was fundamentally similar to what it had been under Cranmer. Baptism according to the 1928 BCP was generally a private affair. As Ruth Meyers has shown, for all that the prayer book rubrics indicated that baptism should be done publicly in the presence of a congregation, the prevailing practice was for it to be done privately. Indeed, some commentators went out of their way to rationalize the prevailing practice, acknowledging the rubric but creating a large array of exceptions or stretching the meaning of "public" baptism to cover baptisms done in the church building but outside the normal schedule of public worship. Infant baptism was normative—adult baptism was rare. Massey Shepherd, in his commentary on the 1928 BCP, insisted that the rite should be done in public with a congregation present, but he also urged that it be done as soon as possible after birth: "we are commanded in Scripture to bring little children to Christ. (Many parents are unpardonably lax in fulfilling this duty and privilege.)" As one would expect, given such an insistence on early baptism, there was little preparation of either parents or sponsors of infant candidates, but there was also apparently little preparation of adult candidates.

The 1928 American Book of Common Prayer, much like its predecessors, offered a baptismal rite that in its theology was largely indistinguishable from that authored by Cranmer. Nevertheless, the 1928 book streamlined the liturgical texts, and it showed the stamp of a higher churchmanship, with a mandatory consignation and an elaborate blessing of the water. These textual shifts would be further developed in the next revision, even as the theology of baptism would undergo a revolutionary change.

The process of revision

The revision process that culminated in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer was itself a significant change from the process used in prior revisions. For the first time, there was extensive field testing of new liturgical texts. The Standing Liturgical Commission (SLC) proposed an amendment to the church's constitution to allow trial use of new liturgies; the amendment passed its first reading in the 1961 General Convention and was given final approval in 1964. Also in 1964, the General Convention instructed the Commission to prepare a plan for prayer book revision, which was approved in 1967. The SLC's plan created several drafting committees, each with their own section of the prayer book. Committees were chaired by SLC members and staffed by persons appointed by the Commission. The committees drew on 260 consultants who reviewed their work. The committees then incorporated the responses before forwarding their drafts to the SLC, which had final review before the texts were published as Prayer Book Studies. These Prayer Book Studies were available for trial use, and a network of diocesan liturgical commissions was formed to gather feedback from parish use, forwarding this on to the SLC.

Once a full range of liturgical services had been drafted (in Prayer Book Studies 18 through 24), this material was authorized by General Convention for trial use as Services for Trial Use (known colloquially as the "Green Book," for its olive cover) in 1970. A revision of these services, plus new material, was approved by the next General Convention in 1973 and published as Authorized Service (the "Zebra Book," for its unsettling cover). Further revisions were made and circulated as the Draft Proposed Book of Common Prayer. With a few changes, this was approved by General Convention as the Proposed Book of Common Prayer in 1976. It was given its second reading and final approval in 1979, as the Book of Common Prayer.

This lengthy and exhaustive process was quite unlike that used in earlier prayer book revisions. The reliance on trial use meant that the liturgical texts had been thoroughly "road-tested" before given their final form. The drafting committees included liturgiologists, parish clergy, at least one anthropologist, two literature professors, and a poet. There was extensive and broad scholarly input as a result. Liturgical study in the twentieth century had become increasingly ecumenical, as scholars studied at some of the same institutions, gathered for meetings, and shared an interest in the same texts from the early church. The result was substantial, informal interchange among the churches. In addition to these informal influences, the Standing Liturgical Commission consulted with other denominations and with other, autonomous churches within Anglicanism during the revision process. The result of this wide consultation was a prayer book unlike any of its predecessors.

The baptismal theology of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer

In order to celebrate the initiation rites of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer with integrity, one must grasp the essential features of the prayer book's baptismal theology. It is marked by a baptismal ecclesiology, an emphasis on baptism as the entry into discipleship, and an assertion that baptism is full initiation.

Baptism became the defining identity marker for Episcopalians, and the church placed a renewed emphasis on the importance of the ministry of the laity in the world. Looking at the church more broadly, the same insight was dawning in other denominations, as such diverse theologians as Hans Küng, Karl Rahner, Robert Hovda, and Robert Farrar Capon defined the church not as the institution but as the "whole people of God," with distinctions between the ordained and the laity being simply a matter of different gifts and functions, given by God for the sake of the people as a whole. In this view, the liturgy does not belong to the institutional church, or to the clergy; it is the common property of the whole people of God. Liturgy is a "public work"—something done for the good of the people. The clergy, and more specifically the bishops and their presbyters, are ordained as custodians of word and sacrament, and so they have a particular accountability to the assembly for what happens in the liturgy. But they do not own the liturgy.

Further, the liturgy as constituted by the 1979 BCP (and as visible in the early church too) requires the active participation of the whole people of God—the entire liturgical assembly. As Rahner and Kü;ng noted in the larger context, the whole people of God is involved in the liturgical act. As Louis Weil put it, "the celebration of the liturgy is the shared activity of all the assembled people." The laity are understood to have an active role in each and every one of the liturgical forms in the 1979 prayer book.

In promoting the place of the laity and ordering the life of the church around baptism, the prayer book was quite explicit about two things: one became a member of the church solely through baptism, with no other additional rite required; and there was no two-stage process of membership, with the baptized as junior members and the confirmed as full members. The prayer book is quite explicit: "Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ's Body the Church." The book adds, "The bond which God establishes in Baptism is indissoluble." One becomes a full member in baptism, and one cannot lose that status by any means.

This was, of course, a stunning reversal of traditional Anglican thought. From the earliest days of the reformed Church of England, baptism was only the first stage of initiation. It made one a member of a sort—one was still barred from participation in much of church life. According to the prayer book, one could not receive communion until one was confirmed. Many dioceses also demanded confirmation of those who would be married or stand as godparents. Ultimately, this rubric was not enforced for communion, but instead one was required to know the catechism—a standard of learning was required, rather than the prayer book's insistence on completion of a ritual. When the prayer book's requirement was loosened in 1662, to require that one be confirmed or "ready and desirous of confirmation," the church hierarchy focused its attention on the clergy, enforcing requirements that they prepare and present candidates for confirmation. Only in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries did confirmation become popular and frequent; it was then that confirmation became the de facto prerequisite for communion, a status it continued to hold into the twentieth century. For Anglicans before the mid-twentieth century, then, baptism was never full initiation.

Because infant baptism was the statistical norm in the Anglican tradition, proposals to make baptism "full initiation" ran squarely into the problem of whether communion should be offered to small children. The common practice in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had been to withhold communion until confirmation, but, influenced by the Parish Communion movement, at least by the 1950s some clergy were administering communion to unconfirmed children as young as five. Some of those involved in the revision of the prayer book were initially wary of making baptism the gate to communion, envisioning at least some sort of delay, perhaps to age six or eight. Others took a different view, arguing that baptism should admit one to communion, regardless of the age of the candidate. Ultimately, the 1970 General Convention authorized the admission of children to communion before they were confirmed. By making baptism full initiation, the 1979 prayer book had to fight the assumptions the church had absorbed from this long tradition. The image of confirmation as an essential blessing and a completion of baptism was powerful in the imagination of some of Anglo-Catholic sympathies, while those of a more Evangelical persuasion insisted that one could not participate in a sacrament without knowledge and understanding of its meaning. A rubric in the proposed text for the baptismal rite would have required communion of the neophytes at their baptism, regardless of age, but this was dropped at some point between the 1975 revision of the text and the Draft Proposed Book of 1976. Nevertheless, the articulation of baptism as "full initiation" implied admission to communion. Finally, in 1988, the House produced a set of guidelines for infant communion that affirmed communicating infants at their baptism, leaving subsequent communion until such time as the children and their parents ask for it. The 1988 edition of the Book of Occasional Services included a rubric inviting (but not requiring) communion of the newly baptized infant; the initial draft would have mandated it.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from CELEBRATING THE RITES OF INITIATION by James F. Turrell. Copyright © 2013 by James F. Turrell. Excerpted by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction....................          

1. The Ethos of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer....................          

2. Making Sense of Confirmation, Reception, and Reaffirmation of Baptismal Vows......          

3. Catechumenal Rites and Formation....................          

4. Performance Notes....................          

5. Performing the Solemn Renewal of Baptismal Promises....................          

6. Rethinking What Follows: Baptism and the Table....................          

Epilogue: Initiation That Works....................