Revising the marriage liturgy in the Church of England: Towards clarifying issues and possibilities

Anglican Theological Review, Spring 1998 by Spinks, Bryan D

"N., today I take you to be my husband. Whatever life may bring I will love and care for you always."

Though the language here was regarded as too informal for adoption in England, several of the collects and prayers from the New Zealand book were selected for inclusion in a revised English rite. One collect, but also ideas about structure, were taken on board from the ECUSA and Canadian rites. Most recently, A New Australian Prayer Book, 1996 has been the inspiration of another prayer.

7.Other modern rites

It is probably in the area of marriage liturgy that Anglican and other Reformation English-speaking churches have been at their most conservative, and most rites still follow Cranmer and the canon lawyers by making the vows the climax and only center of the marriage rite. However, since the late 1980s the English Roman Catholic church has been authoring a new marriage rite. A copy of the draft document which was to be submitted to Rome was generously made available to the Liturgical Commission, and this provided a number of ideas, though no actual direct borrowing. First this rite includes staged rituals-liturgies for engagements, marriage and anniversaries. Second, as well as including the family and friends in verbal support of the couple, the two families and bride and groom coming together as one was ritualized in the increasingly popular lighting of the wedding candle. Thirdly, the proposed rite contained some rich nuptial prayers.

The other "State" Church in the United Kingdom is the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and its Book of Common Order 1994 has been the source of two prayers, one of which is a nuptial blessing, though the prayer was rewritten in places. The ecumenical body in the United Kingdom, the Joint Liturgical Group, has also been the source of two prayers.

8.Church politics and bishops

Perhaps the most crucial and totally unpredictable factor is the reaction of bishops and the General Synod (the Church of England's legislative body) which swings between expressing desire for something adventurous, only to change its mind between meetings. Liturgy is particularly vulnerable. The House of Bishops and General Synod frequently take a conservative stance on liturgical change to compensate for denomination drift in other areas of church life. This has an unfortunate effect. All too often the initiative is seized by unofficial groups who author unofficial liturgies, and a future liturgical commission then has the task of catching up, reining in and responding to these liturgies, instead of leading the way with good practice.4 Thus a liturgical commission will be aware that anything too exotic or too different from the liturgy now in place is likely to meet with hostile criticism, for no other reason than fear of the new. This means, however, that a new rite must be seen to evolve from the present rite, and not present itself as a complete revolution. This factor qualifies just how far the other factors can be taken into account, as well as whether the proposed revisions ever see the light of day.