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I have raised the subject of non-excluding or inclusive language several times in previous chapters, and it is now time to reflect in some detail upon it.  Though the development of our language in the public arena in an inclusivist direction has been far from smooth, most people seem to think that inclusivist language is now here to stay and soon such generic terms as "mankind" will disappear completely from modern written and spoken English.  They will simply be used when one is referring to literature from previous times and spoken when presenting poetry and plays from earlier days.  Young people are being taught to speak and write in the modern way, and when they grow up everyone will be of the same mind – or so it appears.

Within this context where inclusive language is seen as necessary in order to affirm the rights of women and minorities as well as to state the equal dignity and worth of all people, it would seem that the Church ought to be in the vanguard of the use of such language.  Further, it could be argued, if the Church cares for justice and dignity, human rights and sexual equality, then it ought to set an example and be in the vanguard also in this revolution. Obviously some in the Church have felt and do feel this way and have engaged in such a crusade in order to implement this agenda.  Yet the majority have simply gone along with the results achieved by the pressure groups and have accepted the gradual adoption of this new language, offering only minor resistance here and there along the way.

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A minority has resisted the moves towards inclusivism and the rejection of all forms of generic language.  They have said something like this: "It is one thing adopting inclusive language today in order to converse with people or work within an organization or government agency which has made such language compulsory; but it is another thing actually to commend its use as a just and noble activity; and it is yet another thing requiring that it be used in divine worship or inserted by sub-editors into the text of prayer books, hymn books, devotional books, and theological books."

The values and the ideology which undergird the call for and implementation of inclusive language are not neutral.  Not only is there a call for equality for women in all aspects of social and political life as well as in the workplace, but there is also a blanket condemnation of societies and cultures in the past or present which are judged to be sexist or patriarchal in their mindset and organization.  Apparently, the message is not simply that society and its self-consciousness have developed and we have reached a new era requiring changes in our language.  Rather, it is that we have discovered and acted upon a truth which males in earlier cultures and societies kept hidden in order to subjugate and maltreat women.  That truth is not only that there is equality of female and male but also that there are no essential differences between the two sexes.  It is claimed that biological differences are of the same order as differences in the color of eyes and hair; further, any supposed brain and psychological differences between the sexes are said to be no more

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obvious than between one male and another male, or one female and another female.

Of course, many who use inclusive language do not consciously have any ideology in their intentions: they just do what others do and reckon it is the best way to get on in the world.  This, however, does not change the general effect of the use of such language upon a society and a culture.  If we get the impression and the message that equality means that there are no essential differences between female and male human beings, then that has an effect upon our thinking about the relations of male and female in the home, marriage, church, and society.  In asserting such an effect, one need not be saying that all was well and good in previous societies where most women spent most of their time in the home as homemakers and mothers.  Surely to ask questions and make critical assertions about the ideology behind inclusive language is not necessarily to commend a previous state of affairs when generic language was common, even universal!

Christians obviously need to think about the inner content and logic of inclusive language before they use it in Christian worship either to speak of man (the human race) or to address God.  They have inherited a Bible and a rich tradition of devotional, liturgical and theological literature which is not in inclusive language.  Such terms as "man" and "mankind" are used in that holy tradition in a generic way to refer to the whole race; one of the titles of Jesus is "Son of Man," and God Himself is named "the Father" and portrayed as the King of kings and Lord of lords.

Language does not exist in a vacuum but within culture, and this is the case with the Hebrew of the Old and the Greek of the New Testament. Generic

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language existed and was used because society was so organized that the man or the father represented the tribe or the clan or the family in real life.  This may be called a system of patriarchy in the sense that men were obviously the ones who were actively in charge as the warriors, hunters, and rulers.  They were to care for and provide for their wives and children.  Such a system may seem to modern eyes to have been tyrannical and wicked, and patriarchy has become a pejorative or abusive term for some people today.  Nevertheless we cannot escape from the fact that nearly all ancient societies, even where they worshipped female deities, were decidedly patriarchal, and that most societies in the world today – many of them very prosperous – are still patriarchal.

Israelite society in the period of the Old Testament was like other near-eastern societies in certain ways, but in others it was different, for it had the vocation to model its life on God’s revealed Law (Torah).  Within that Law it is clear that male and female, man and woman, are equal before God since they are made in His image and after His likeness.  This basic equality, however, in no way prevents the existence of an ordered relation between them in marriage and in society. An Israelite woman is to obey her husband who in turn is to love and care for his wife while children of all ages are to honor their parents and grandparents.  Of course, relations within ancient Israel, as everywhere else, were marred by such sins are selfishness and pride, and thus the ordered family of happy and contented relationships was not always (maybe not often) there to behold.  The Israelites did not always do what God’s law required to be done.  Yet God’s will concerning order within His covenant is clear, expressed not only through sociological and legal

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means, but also through language and in particular through the use of basic, generic terms such as "man."

We are not far off target if we also assume that relations between husbands and wives, children and parents, and grandparents and grandchildren within the so-called patriarchal systems of the countries which made up the Roman Empire in New Testament times were marred by sin, both in their actual structure and in the way people treated each other.  However, our Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles did not reject patriarchy.  They taught that there is to be an ordered relation within the family as well as in the Church.  They placed ordered, human relations within the covenant of grace and thus within the orbit of the love (agape) which Paul extols in 1 Corinthians 13.  Certainly they taught that there is perfect equality of all people before God the Father, for He offers the same salvation to all, and without exception all baptized believers are adopted into His family.  All enter on equal terms (sinners) and remain on equal terms (forgiven sinners) in order to be sanctified in the dynamic of a personal relationship with the Father through the Son and by the Holy Spirit.  Yet in all relations between male and female (as well as between male and male and female and female) in home and church there is to be a following of God’s order.  One cannot defend the requirement that children obey their parents unless one also teaches that the wife obeys her husband in Christian love.  There is a hierarchy within equality.  Therefore the language of the New Testament, which conveys and contains this doctrine, is generic in content and style, as is that of the Old Testament.

Bearing all this in mind, one can see at once that to translate generic terms in Hebrew and Greek in

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a non-generic way will be to lose something of importance.  Though it is certainly true that when the apostle Paul writes to the "brethren" he writes to each one of the members of the fellowship of faith, it is also true that calling them "brethren" (when there were certainly females present) is actually a way of stating their equality in Christ and asserting that all of them without exception are adopted by the Father into the family of His Son to share in his Sonship.  Thus believers appear before God’s throne of grace as both sons of the Father and brothers of Christ, whether they be male or female.

After careful study and thought a Christian today may decide to reject the biblical portrayal of order for the family and the church and accept one or another view of equality from contemporary life.  Does this entitle him or her to ask or demand that the Bible be translated in an inclusivist way?  Certainly she or he has the opportunity to present the Christian Faith in inclusive language and to change into modern egalitarian and inclusivist terms the patriarchal and generic terms of the original Scriptures.  But to translate the Scriptures as though they were not (by God’s inspiration and guidance) patriarchal and as if they did not contain the doctrine of divine order seems to me dishonest.  What is honest is to translate the texts as accurately as possible, bearing in mind not only the possible meaning of words but the cultural and religious context in which they were said and written.  I accept that this is a difficult task, and since the sixteenth century as readers of the English language we have been exceedingly blessed by the supply of good translations.  However, to make an ingredient of translation the modern doctrine of anti-sexism or inclusivism seems to me to be a major mistake, for then what belongs

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to honest disagreement with the text is erroneously made a part of the text in translation.

The most obvious form of inclusivism in biblical translation is the removal of generic words from the Canticles and the Psalter.  The clearest example from the Canticles is in the Magnificat in both Books.  The last line is literally "to Abraham and to the seed of him," and this meaning is preserved in the older translations (e.g. of 1979, Rite I and the BCP generally).  One reason for preserving "seed" is that in comparing Scripture with Scripture, we note that in Galatians 3:16–19 the apostle Paul emphasizes that the one seed of Abraham is Jesus Christ.  However, Mary’s Song (Luke 1:46–55) does actually use the word seed (= semen) and so ought to be translated "Abraham and his seed" rather than "Abraham and his children" (as in Rite II).

It was only at the final stage in the translation of the Psalter that the revising committee decided to adopt a limited policy of inclusivism for their work.  This is described by the most influential member of that committee, Charles Mortimer Guilbert, in this way:

In its final review of the Psalter, the attention of the revisers was drawn to the frequent, and sometimes ambiguous, use of generic terms.  This usage is especially characteristic of the Wisdom Psalms, but it is not confined to this category.  The psalmists were given to the use of ‘man’ and ‘children (or sons) of men’ and similar terms, where, from the contexts it is quite clear that those referred to were neither exclusively masculine in gender nor singular in number.  Some of the passages deal with our common humanity, others are plainly collectives, still others

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are speaking of our human mortality.  (The Psalter. A New Version for Public Worship and Private Devotion, Introduced by Charles Mortimer Guilbert, 1978, p. xiv.)

We note that the basic work of translation was nearly completed before the committee decided (not unanimously and not without resignations) to adopt inclusivism.  Further, we note that in this decision were several judgments which are, to say the least, questionable and debatable.  What ought to be comment on the text (the last sentence quoted above) becomes part of the text.

Guilbert uses Psalm 1 as an example and claims that the opening words, which literally speak of the blessedness or happiness of the man who lives in a particular, God-pleasing way, are in fact "a universal statement about the human condition."  So he and his team give us "Happy are they" instead of "Happy is the man."  If we look at the commentaries on the Psalter from church fathers, we find that the "man" is first of all the ideal Jewish man, who is the head of his family; and then, in Christian exegesis, he is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the Man in whom we are all called to be blessed.  So both honest translation and Christian usage demand that there be no inclusivism here.

Yet Guilbert is not consistent in his translation policy, for he tells us that "this treatment of generic terms has not been carried into those Psalms which in the New Testament and almost universal Christian tradition have been accounted messianic."  And he cites Psalm 8 as an example where "man" and "son of man" are left as such in verse 5.  So it appears that the final group of revisers, after the departure of two or three of their former colleagues, decided which psalms were to be given in literal translation

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and which were to be treated by the ideology of inclusivism.  Regrettably, in the 1979 book we are not told anywhere that this Psalter is partially inclusivist.  Thus thousands have assumed it was an honest translation.  In contrast, the Canadian 1985 book does have a preface which admits that one reason it was chosen was that the "translators made an earnest (although not always successful) attempt to use gender-inclusive language whenever possible" (p. 703).

However, if we go back to the earlier part of the process of the production of the 1979 Psalter, we note the publication of The Prayer Book Psalter Revised (1973), which was the result of the six years of work by the Standing Liturgical Commission in revising the Psalter of the 1928 BCP.  At this stage there was apparently not the slightest intention to use inclusive language, and the principles of procedure in producing this revised psalter had been clear.  As the Preface explains,

First, the Prayer Book text [1928] is normative and would only be revised where a word or passage was deemed to be an absolute mistranslation, or where, in modern usage, a word or phrase has become obsolete (not merely archaic) or positively misleading; secondly, where revision was agreed upon, the primary reference would be to the received Hebrew text, with the Masoretic printing, but full weight would be given to the Septuagint and to the Vulgate readings which lie behind the English text; thirdly, all pronouns and verbal forms even when addressed to God would be rendered in contemporary second-person forms.

This was 1973.  Within three years a new text was available and authorized, in which a fourth

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principle had been operative – that of inclusive language.

But in 1983 when the official French version of the American Prayer Book appeared, published by the Church Hymnal Corporation, it did not have an inclusive language Psalter!  Instead it made use of the Psautier Oecumenique: Texte officiel (Paris: Cerf, 1977) which is not in inclusive language!

We have noted that the translation in Psalm 1 of "the man" as "they" illustrates the dishonesty which the ideology of inclusivism requires.  In the Old Testament "man" is not simply a combination of letters which make a sound when spoken and which have one and only one meaning.  The word’s meaning is determined by the context and more generally by the cultural and religious presuppositions within Hebrew society.

To illustrate how one word can have a variety of meanings, here is a sentence (composed by Vernard Eller) where "bridge" occurs five times with five different meanings: "He was under the bridge, flat on his back, playing bridge, when his buddy cried, ‘Bridge!’  He did; and the bridge popped out of his mouth and landed on the bridge of his nose."

Now we can move on to see how, particularly in the opening chapters of Genesis and in the Psalter, the word "man" is used in several ways with differing meanings.  First of all, in Genesis 1 we read:

So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him. . . (v. 27)

Then in Psalm 8 we read:

What is man, that thou art mindful of him?

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Here we encounter the primary meaning of "man" in the Bible.  It is the human race seen as simple (not complex), as a totality and a homogeneity.  Here "man" is not a collective, for its pronouns are singular; and not only singular but personal.  God treats and relates to the whole human race as one unit.  So the essential unity of the race is prior to and superior to any and all component analysis or individuation.  It is this "man" which is made in God’s image: he is created after God’s likeness.

It is important to note that there is no substitute for this use of the word "man."  If it is paraphrased or another word/phrase is used, then its meaning is gone.  Today we find it difficult to accept that this meaning is the primary one for the Bible, for our thinking is so molded by individualism that we move from the individual to the collective and really have little comprehension of an integer.

In Genesis 1:26 we read that God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule.., over all the earth."  At first sight "man" here would seem to be the same "man" of the next verse which is quoted above.  But this is not the case. In verse 27 "man" is an integer of such integrity and entirety that there was (and can be) no hint of addressing "him" in terms of component individuals.  In verse 26, however, man is a collective and has the meaning of "all people" or just "people."  So we are not surprised to read in v. 26b, "let them rule..."  Here "them" refers to a plurality of individual persons who are not yet divided into two categories of male and female.  "Them" means all people, and as persons they are not differentiated into two sexual categories.

Neither of these two uses of "man" has any gender implications.  They provide a way for speak-

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ing of the human race without forcing gender into the discourse.  The same applies to "mankind," which we notice below.

We first encounter the use of "man" with gender implications in Genesis 2.  However, this is anticipated in 1:b where we read, "male and female God created them."  So in 2:24, after the account of the creation of "the man" and "the woman," we learn that in God’s order "a man will leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife and they will become one flesh."  So from the beginning a man and a woman are not to be seen primarily as autonomous individuals but rather as made for each other and finding their meaning and fulfillment in an ordered relation.

It is fairly clear that in contrast to the several levels of meaning of "man" in the Bible the feminist agenda wants to reduce the meaning of "man" to this one level where it can mean only "a male human being."  In modern language we can probably get by if we keep to their rule, but if we apply it to the Scriptures and refuse to allow that the Bible has a much richer use, then we are going to misunderstand or even pervert Scripture.

Perhaps now it is appropriate to return to Psalm 1, "Blessed is the man...," and ask "What is the meaning of ‘man’ here?"  Commentators on the Hebrew text explain that the poet had in mind the ideal man – a godly, holy man whose true delight is in the Torah of the LORD.  All Israelite men are to aim to be like him. Here "man" is being used of a representative individual person.  We are familiar with this device in English.  For example, when as a writer I say, "My reader will understand my point," I am thinking not of hundreds (or thousands?) of readers in Britain and America but of the repre-

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sentational person in whom and by whom I see all my readers.  This reader I envisage is without gender.  (If I write, "My readers, men and women, will understand...," then I have lost this way of speaking.)  Or, to take another example, if I say, "The Christian takes up his cross and follows Jesus," I am thinking of the way the ideal, prototypical Christian person lives.  (If I write, "The Christian takes up his/her cross," then I have lost this way of speaking.)

So Psalm 1 is distorted in translation if for "Happy is the man..." we are given "Happy are they..."  Man here operates in two spheres of meaning.  First of all, man is the ideal, prototypical Jew; and secondly, within God’s order, he is the man in relation to his family and his tribe.  They can never in any circumstances be an adequate replacement for man in a Psalm of this kind (see also Pss. 25:12; 32:2; 40:4).

To complete this section we need also to note how mankind functions.  This word is total in reference and singular in that it treats the human race as an integer.  However, unlike "man" it presents the human species as impersonal and calls for the pronoun "it."  (See, for example, its use in Daniel 4:17, 25, 32, 33 and Revelation 9:15, 18, 20.)  It has no gender implications; nevertheless, modern replacements for it are "humanity" and "humankind," but neither of these is strictly equivalent.  (For more reflection on this general theme see Vernard Eller, The Language of Canaan and The Grammar of Feminism, Grand Rapids, 1982.)

Unlike the American Psalter, the Canadian Psalter contains psalm-prayers.  These represent a kind of half-way house in terms of inclusive lan-

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guage for God.  Of the 152 prayers, while only nine invoke God as "the Father" and seventeen as "the Lord," fifty invoke Him by some variant of the formula, "God of x" (e.g., "God of pilgrims"; "God of power" and "God of justice and mercy"), and forty-eight address Him in terms of His attributes or His functions (e.g. "Source of our life" and "Giver of courage").  The same tendency is to be seen in Eucharistic Prayer 4 of the BAS.  The theological criticism of this technique is that it represents a tendency to project certain perceived human concerns, needs, and experiences into the realm of the divine, where they are made absolute.  Instead of discovering ourselves in God’s own Revelation we project into God our own self-understanding.

It is in the use by feminists (female or male) of the 1979 and 1985 books that one may hear what everyone will judge to be inclusive language for God.  This is usually in the form of substituting "God" or "Godself" where there is the masculine pronoun "His" and the changing of the names of "Father" and "Son" to "Creator" and "Redeemer."

But what is certainly interpolation in these two Books is a real possibility and concern in Prayer Book Studies 30 (1989).  In order to avoid the names of "the Father" and "the Son," the Eucharist begins, "Blessed be the one, holy, and living God."  This is justified in the Introduction (p.26) in this way:

‘Blessed be the one, holy and living God’ acclaims the Trinity as Unity through its structure of three adjectives describing the one God.  God is ‘one’ as in the traditional Judeo-Christian vision of God the Father; ‘holy’ suggesting the sanctification of the Incarnate One; and ‘living’ recalling both the risen Christ and the eternal and living presence of the Holy Spirit.

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There is no natural trinitarian meaning in this Acclamation, and this explanation is not convincing.  The confession of the Holy Trinity has been effectively excluded in the name of inclusivism.

Likewise, the glorious Trinity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit has been effectively dismissed from the two so-called eucharistic prayers.  The prayers are not addressed to the Father (but in order to avoid a gender-specific word) to "Holy God," "most generous, self-giving God," and "Holy and living God."  The only places in the Eucharist where the name of "the Father" is used is in the Lord’s Prayer and in the Nicene Creed, where it is obviously difficult to get rid of it without changing a received text.

It is much the same with the revised Daily Offices.  The name of the Father occurs only where a traditional text (e.g. the Gloria and the Te Deum) is used.  We are told in the Introduction (p.16) that care has been taken to avoid an over-reliance on metaphors and attributes generally perceived as masculine, and to seek out and use images which describe God in feminine and other scripturally based terms.

Thus, in the Second Eucharistic Prayer God is pictured as a mother who brings to birth the whole creation and cares for human beings like a mother cares for her children.  (It is this kind of material which brought the charge of panentheism against this liturgy.)

As an alternative to the traditional Gloria which names the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity in terms of their relations one to another within the one Godhead, the texts of the Daily Office allow this formulation, which speaks of the activity of God in relation to the world:

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Honor and glory to the holy and undivided Trinity, God who creates, redeems, and inspires: One in Three and Three in One, for ever and ever. Amen.

Here there is no clarity as to God-as-God-is-in-Himself but only a statement concerning God-as-God-is-towards-the-world.  The threefold activity of God as Agent of creation, redemption, and inspiration does not in and of itself point back into the Godhead as being a Triad or Triunity.  At best, we have here another form of modalism.

In the opening essay in The Commentary on Prayer Book Studies 30 (1989) Leonel L. Mitchell commends the use of inclusive language.  He makes many assumptions which I cannot here challenge for lack of space. What I shall do is examine what he claims (and what is done within the texts) concerning the use of the name of "Father." He writes:

Jesus called God ‘Father’ and taught His disciples to do the same.  It is an image of God we do not find often in the Old Testament.  It represents a distinctive insight into Jesus’s own relationship with God and the relationship into which He calls us, His brothers and sisters, and so is by no means an image the Church can do entirely without.  But if this is the only image we use, are apt not only to use it correctly... but also incorrectly (p.10).

What seems to be assumed here is that the use of the word "Father" when referring to God is uniform or of one type in the Bible with an intensification in the New Testament.  Such an assumption is false, as I hope now to show.

It is possible and necessary to distinguish three senses in which the noun "Father" is appropriately

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applied to and used of God.  The first sense is to speak of God as being a Father; here the main themes are that God creates and cares for His creation as a father cares for the children he begets.  Thus we speak metaphorically and refer to the relation of the Holy Trinity to the world. "Like as a father pitieth His own children, even so the Lord is merciful unto them that fear Him" (Ps. 103:13).  (This way of speaking is found in other religions apart from Christianity.)

Second, by the rule of appropriation, what is known to be the activity of the Triune God (that is, activity common to all three Persons) may be said to be the activity of the First Person.  So we speak of the Father as the Creator and Sustainer when we also know that the universe is the creation of, and is sustained by, the Triune God.  Paul declared, "I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family on earth is named..." (Eph. 3:14).  Likewise in the Apostles’ Creed we confess belief in the "Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth."

The third sense is that of the Father as the first Person of the Holy Trinity.  He is the Father of the only Son, begotten before all ages, and the Father from whom the Spirit is spirated.  Here we speak of the "comings forth" within God and not of "goings forth" from God into the universe He made.  While the trinitarian processions do not involve creation or causation of any kind or type, they do give rise to real relative identities/Persons within the Godhead.  We can only speak of this Mystery of the Three Persons as Three Subsistent Relations because God has chosen to reveal it to us.  Jesus, the Incarnate Son, spoke of and taught concerning the Father with whom He claimed to be One.  It is from this source alone and not from our own religious experience that we name the Holy Trinity as the Father, the Son,

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and the Holy Spirit.  We have no authority to invent or to change these names, for they are the names which Jesus Himself used of God-as-God-is-in-Himself.  Therefore these are the names of the Three Persons used in the Gloria and the Creeds – the Apostles’, the Nicene, and the Athanasian Creeds.

Christians obey Jesus, the Incarnate Son, in naming His Father their Father when they pray, "Our Father..."  While He is the true and only Son of the Father, they are adopted sons.  As such they follow Jesus and call His Father by the very name which He used.  This is their duty, for they have no warrant to use any other name.  So all genuine Eucharistic Prayers and all Collects are normally addressed to "the Father," who is truly first and foremost "the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."

If what has just been stated is true to Scripture and Creeds, then we may say that there is a difference between speaking of God as like a Father or as a Father (thus using simile and metaphor) and speaking of the First Person of the Holy Trinity as "the Father."  The latter use is not based on experience but belongs wholly to the gift of God’s self-revelation through the Lord Jesus Christ.  Thus it cannot be metaphorical in the same sense as the first usage, which works directly from the image of a good earthly father to state truths concerning the heavenly Father.  In trinitarian discourse concerning the "goings forth" within God, a common noun is being used with the definite article of the First Person.  To know what that noun means, we do not look to the examples of human fathers but to the way Jesus Himself described and addressed His Father.  Thus, this image as used of the First Person is a unique form of address.

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It may be added that while Scripture and the tradition of devotion speak of God as like a caring and devoted mother, they do not use this name of the First Person of the Holy Trinity. One may say, "Like as a mother cares for her children, so the Lord cares...," but one may not say, "O Mother, grant us thy peace."  In other words, while both motherhood and fatherhood may be used as images to convey the care of the Holy Trinity for the world, this discourse must be seen as separate from the naming of the First Person as "the Father."  As "the Father" He is so solely because of His relation to "the Son" and not because of the creative work of the Holy Trinity.

Perhaps it is necessary also to make clear why the agent nouns "Creator, Redeemer, and Inspirer" (or any other combination) cannot be substitutes for "the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."  They are so used in PBS 30 and in much unofficial liturgy today. Certainly these agent nouns (or their equivalent – e.g., "God who creates, who redeems, who inspires") may claim to be biblical.  However, they describe God-as-God-is-towards-the-world and not the "goings forth" within God-as-God.  A description of how God is towards the world cannot be a substitute for how one Person within the one Godhead is towards the two other Persons.  Agent nouns are functional; the names of the Three Persons are personal.  Agent nouns are also essential in that they identify all that is common to the Three Persons in the relations of the Holy Trinity to the cosmos.  The personal terms, in contrast, do not identify the agential interaction of the Triune God with His world, but identify the relation of the Three Persons to each other and serve as personal names for them.  It is clear that the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity exercise agency, not with respect to each other, but with respect to the cosmos.  (Perhaps

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at this stage my reader will benefit by reading slowly the first half of the Athanasian Creed and the central paragraph of the Nicene Creed!)

From within theological studies perhaps the most commonly used argument for inclusive language for God proceeds from the claim that whoever God be, God is Mystery!  If God is truly beyond our understanding and is by nature ineffable, the argument runs, then all our ways of describing, speaking of, and addressing Him are inadequate.  In fact, since all our names and images fall short of expressing the Mystery, the greater variety of names and images we use the more likely we are rightly to identify the Mystery.  Thus to "Father" we add "Mother" and to "Son" we add "Child" and so on, using both personal names, common nouns, and a variety of images drawn from the world of the everyday experience of women as well as men, and children as well as adults.

Usually the argument from God as Mystery rests upon the foundation of empirical theology.  That is, all our naming and describing and addressing of God comes out of claimed human religious experience of God and not from any self-naming by God Himself.  The names and images, the metaphors and similes we use of God, are produced solely within the religious consciousness of human beings.  This explains why, feminists tell us, the names and images of God in the Bible are androcentric, since they proceed from the religious experience of men within a patriarchal society.

So we find that in order to face this challenge (and it is taken for granted in PBS 30), we have to discuss Revelation.  Do we have a revelation from

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God in which God tells us how we are to address Him?  Are the contents of the New Testament only the record of religious experience of the first disciples, evangelists and apostles, or do they also contain self-unveiling, self-disclosure by God Himself?  If it be the case that the books of the New Testament are not in some vital sense God’s Word written, then we are at the mercy of the human recording and describing of the human experience of God; and, further, there is no final reason why the apostolic experience is to be preferred to ours today.  Its only advantage is that it is primary.

I believe we ought to follow the wisdom of the Church over the centuries and accept that we do have Revelation from God, as well as the apostolic experience of God, recorded in the New Testament.  Further, while the Church has recognized that God as the LORD is wholly incomprehensible and ineffable, she has also followed the example of Jesus and His apostles to name God as they did.  Certainly God is Mystery, but God also is the God who has revealed His Name and bidden us call Him by the name of "Father."  Thus we name and adore the Mystery by the names He has given to us and especially when we speak of God-as-God-is-in-Himself, we are most careful to follow the example and teaching of Jesus and the apostles.

Of course, in the Church over the centuries much intellectual effort has gone into the study of how the revealed names of God actually operate in the logic of human language to speak of the One who is incomprehensible by nature.  The most important contribution here is probably that developed by Thomas Aquinas and known as the doctrine of analogy.  He showed how we speak literally (i.e., in a natural and customary manner) of God when we say, for example, that God is good, as well as when

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we address God as "the Father."  In claiming that such names as "Father" and "Son" apply literally to the First and Second Persons of the Godhead, the Church has consistently insisted that such literal predications require the exclusion of any limitations associated with the two terms when they are used of human beings on earth.  So ideas of superiority and subordination in generation, male bodily characteristics, and sexual differentiation for procreation are excluded.  "The Father" is so in a way appropriate to God, the Father of The Son and as Creator of man, and not in a way that is appropriate to man, as God’s creature.  (For more details see J.M. Soskice, Metaphor and Religious Language, Oxford, 1985, and Speaking the Christian God: the Holy Trinity and Feminism, ed. Alvin F. Kimel, Jr., Grand Rapids, 1992.)

To summarize: There is no way which I know whereby one may use inclusive language of God and remain within biblical orthodoxy.  To use such language is to deny the authority and content of Revelation.  Further, with respect to the human race (man) it is also impossible to use inclusive language and maintain the biblical doctrine of the human species as within the divine order, set both in relation to God and to each other.  Therefore, to advocate and use inclusive language in divine worship is to begin the process of the rejection of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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Anglicans speak of the ministry of the Word and of the Sacraments and look to their clergy to preach the Word and administer the Sacraments.  By Sacraments they mean Baptism and the Lord’s Supper even though they recognize that there are other Rites which are commonly called Sacraments (e.g., Confirmation, Matrimony, and Ordination).  It is our task in this chapter to look at the theology taught and implied by the services for (a) the administration of Holy Baptism and Confirmation (which is intimately related to Baptism) and (b) the Lord’s Supper (Holy Communion) in the new Books.

Having used the service for Holy Baptism in the classic BCP over two decades, what first caught my attention in studying both the 1979 and 1985 Books was the emphasis on "initiation" and on "community."  "Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ’s Body, the Church," says the 1979 book (p. 298); and the 1985 book speaks of initiation into the Church via and within the local Christian community (p. 146).  The BAS both describes the first part of the service as "the gathering of the community" and assumes that the baptized child will be nurtured "in the faith and life of the Christian community" (p. 153).

The Liturgical Commission of the Church of England also used the term "initiation" but felt the need to explain why:

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During the last fifty years the term ‘Christian Initiation’ has been widely used to indicate the cycle of rites which includes baptism, confirmation and first communion.  In the early centuries the use of this term to describe Christian rites, though not unknown, was neither normal nor common.  Nevertheless it is a comprehensive expression and may therefore be useful, so long as it is not used to beg any theological questions about the relative importance of baptism and confirmation.  (The Alternative Service Book, A Commentary, p. 105.)

We may reply that in North America, at least, its use has begged theological questions.

We need to recognize that this language of initiation belongs more to the realm of anthropology and the rites by which young persons become full members of their tribes than to that of biblical and patristic theology and practice, which describe entry into a relationship with the Holy Trinity and membership of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church of God.  If an individual is becoming a member of a community to which he or she has not previously belonged, then the language of initiation is appropriate; however, if a male or female person is being washed and cleansed of sin, born again and from above by the Holy Spirit, united with Jesus Christ as a member of His Body, and adopted into the family of God the Father, then initiation is hardly the proper term. Instead of initiation we should think in terms of washing, regeneration, and incorporation. But the use of the concept of initiation confirms my point that the liturgists worked on "the newer is better" principle, even though they make use of their reconstructions from the "ancient" Church, thereby giving the appearance that they are simply restoring authentic, primitive practice.

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In the Common Prayer Tradition spiritual regeneration or birth from above by the Holy Spirit into the family of God is a prominent theme of the baptismal service.  This is because of the close identification in the New Testament between water and new birth (= spiritual birth from above).  Thus, for example, immediately after the actual baptism the minister says, "this child/person is regenerate and grafted into the body of Christ’s Church..."  Then he prays: "We yield thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleased thee to regenerate this child (this thy servant) with thy Holy Spirit, to receive him for thine own child, and to incorporate him into thy holy Church" (1928 BCP p. 280).  Baptism is the sign of regeneration by the Holy Spirit and incorporation by Him as a person into the Body of Christ as a forgiven and an adopted child of God the Father.

In the new services regeneration does not seem to be an important theme.  Baptism is merely called "the Sacrament of new birth," and in the Thanksgiving over the Water these words occur: "Through it [water] we are reborn by the Holy Spirit" (1979, pp. 305-6; 1985, pp. 155-158).  Of what then is Baptism the sign?  Apparently it is the sign of three benefits – the bestowal of the forgiveness of sins, the being raised to the new life of grace, and the being received into the household of God (1979, p. 308).  This is achieved through spiritual identification with Christ in His death and His resurrection.  However, the fact that the one to be baptized is not named (given a Christian name) in this Rite suggests that there is no new birth, requiring a new name, but only metaphorical birth through initiation.

Probably there are two reasons for the deliberate reduction of the theme of spiritual regeneration.

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First of all, if there is no original sin and no spiritual disease in the souls of men, then the need for a radical spiritual washing and a birth which penetrates into the depths of the soul is not necessary.  In the second place, if there had been controversy in the past amongst Anglicans over the precise chronological relation of the baptism in water and the regenerating action of the Holy Spirit upon and in the soul, then it may have seemed appropriate to downplay the spiritual birth from above.

Usually associated with the denial of original sin is the teaching known as Pelagianism.  This is the doctrine that we as human beings are not diseased and immobilized by sin but are able freely to enter into a relationship with God, especially when He makes us an offer of grace.  When the Baptismal Covenant (1979, p. 304; 1985, p. 158) is carefully read, one can see that it is based on a view of covenant which assumes that while God takes the initiative, human beings are able freely to choose the way of Christ.  It is hardly a covenant of mercy on biblical terms where God Himself acts in sovereign grace to establish His covenant with His people whom He calls to Himself.  It is more like an agreement made between a senior and junior partner, where the senior partner takes the initiative.  (A similar view of covenant is found to be prominent in Eucharistic Prayer D = Canada No. 6, where the words occur, "again and again you called us into covenant with you.")

Within the section called the Baptismal Covenant there is also the dishonest translation of the Apostles’ Creed (on which I commented in chapter five) and an account of the Christian life of the baptized which seems to equate the Gospel with the agenda of the United Nations.  Striving for justice and peace and respecting the dignity of every human

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being is apparently what it is "to seek and serve Christ in all persons" (1979, p. 305; 1985, p. 159).

Turning now to the Examination of the candidates, we find that the traditional rejection of the world, the flesh, and the devil in the Common Prayer Tradition has been modified so that what the baptized renounces and turns from, in order to turn to Christ is less than it ought to be.  It is as though this age (the world under the control of Satan), human nature (diseased by sin), and the devil (Satan himself) are less active and dominating now than they were in earlier centuries.  This changing emphasis reflects the general move within the teaching and assumptions of modern, liberal denominations to a more "positive" (but less biblical) evaluation of human experience and culture.  Again, we see the absence of the doctrine of original sin.

Further, the traditional blessing of the baptismal water and the portraying of that water as a bath (washing away of sins), a womb (new birth by the Holy Spirit), and a tomb (burial and death in and with Christ) are there but not quite there!  It is certainly a thanksgiving for water, but hardly a blessing of water.  In contrast, the Orthodox Church, in blessing water, has the priest pray: "O merciful Lord, come down and sanctify this water by the descent of the Holy Spirit; impart unto it the grace of redemption and the blessing of Jordan; make it a fountain of immortality, a gift of sanctification, a remission of sins, a healing of infirmities and passions, a purification of souls and bodies, a weapon of angelic might, and a destruction of all evil powers..."

Also, within the "Thanksgiving over the Water" (p. 306), the way in which the Baptism and mission of Jesus are presented is less than satisfactory.  It was as Jesus was actually coming out of the river

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Jordan (not while He was in the water) that He saw the Spirit of God descending upon Him and heard the voice, "This is my Son..." (Matt. 3:16–17).  Further, He did not become the Messiah of Israel at the Baptism: rather, He was confirmed in that Office by the word of the Father from heaven.  Then, in the description of where Jesus, the Christ (Messiah), leads the baptized, we get the inadequate presentation of the "Christus Victor" theme – much the same as occurs in the Eucharistic Prayers (see chapter 5 and the discussion below on the Eucharist).

Looking at the whole Rite of Holy Baptism, we should observe how its own notes evaluate it.  "Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the Spirit into Christ’s Body, the Church."  The older, western doctrine is that where Holy Baptism is of a catechumen and includes both the washing of water and the laying on of hands by the bishop, then a full sacrament has been given, and the door has been opened by the grace of God into the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.  The next (immediate) step for the baptized is to receive Holy Communion for the first time.  However, where the one baptized is an infant, then he waits for Confirmation and first Communion until he can have some basic understanding of the Lord in whom he trusts.

The new doctrine in the 1979 and 1985 books has no place for Confirmation as a separate and later act: in fact, those who espouse the new doctrine (which they claim to be the revival of early Church doctrine) insist that both for adults and children Confirmation (as it has been understood and practiced) is not necessary.  This is because their Rite includes the Consecration of the Chrism (olive oil mixed with perfumed oil) and the possible use of this holy oil when the sign of the cross is made upon the forehead of the baptized (adult or child). So even an

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infant can then be given Holy Communion without waiting for Confirmation, as was formerly the case.  Against this background it is not surprising that "Confirmation with forms for Reception and for the Reaffirmation of Baptismal Vows" is found in the section of the 1979 book entitled "Pastoral Offices" and in that of the 1985 book entitled "Episcopal Offices."

The obvious intention is to have baptisms, which include chrismation, of all candidates, be they infants or adults [preferably] when the bishop is present: such is seen as "full initiation" and leads on to the receiving of Holy Communion.  However, for those who somehow slip through this net and are only baptized in water, there is then the possibility of receiving the laying on of hands of the bishop at a later time.  So provision is made for "Confirmation." In the interim they are free to approach the Lord’s Table and be fed.  (For an explanation of how the procedure according to the 1979 book is to operate see the essay by Charles P. Price, "Rites of Initiation," in The Occasional Papers of the Standing Liturgical Commission, No. 1. 1987.)

The general impression I received from study of these services in both the 1979 and 1985 books is that the writers of them were more fascinated by the way baptisms were performed in the early centuries of the Church than they were committed to the biblical and patristic doctrine concerning the salvation of souls and the pastoral care of the baptized.  Fascination with ancient liturgical rites and their implementation in modified form in this century is not necessarily the way to lead modern people into the salvation of the Lord.  It seems that in the modernizing process the ancient form has been secularized in the new Books.  Put baldly, every person, young or old, goes through the initiation rites in

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order to join the community and be present at its weekly holy meal.  There is a minimal adjustment of life-style required but not a radical one, for the world is not really under the sway of Satan but is instead the sphere (see chapters two and three above) where God still reveals Himself in (selective) contemporary experience.  The liturgists downplayed the necessity of faith and repentance for full participation in the sacramental life of the Church by allowing infants and children to receive Holy Communion before they consciously know that Jesus is their Lord and that they stand in need of His grace as sinners.

While the new Rites may claim to be modelled upon the practice of the "ancient" Church (and be an outworking of the reconstruction of the unitary festival of the Pascha of the third century, which included baptisms on Easter Eve), it stands, nevertheless, in marked contrast to the historical development of Baptism and Confirmation in the Western Church from the patristic period onwards.  The BCP is firmly placed in this later and developed tradition in which, for infants washed and regenerated by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord to believe in and trust this Lord Jesus, Confirmation is the receiving of the gift of the Holy Spirit in its sevenfold manifestation at the hands of the bishop.  From here full participation in the sacramental life of the Church begins with first Communion.  Where this order is set aside, then the way is open to reduce the place of personal faith and repentance and thus of the need for confession of sins and absolution in the Eucharist.  Such was apparently intended and such has happened; and at the same time the potential for the nature of the Sacrament of the Holy Communion to be changed towards becoming more of a

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local, token community meal than a feasting at the Lord’s Table in His presence has occurred.

[It is perhaps worth remembering that while there is no evidence for the separation of baptism and (what we now call) confirmation in the early Church, there is ample evidence (e.g. Origen’s Homilies on Judges, 6:2 from AD 235) to show that there was often an interval between baptism in infancy and first communion some time later (see further The Study of Liturgy, 1992, ed C. Jones et al, p. 75).]

In the ECUSA many people welcomed the change in emphasis concerning what is now rarely called "the Lord’s Supper" and more often called "the Eucharist."  The 1928 BCP states:

The Order for Holy Communion, the Order for Morning Prayer, the Order for Evening Prayer, and the Litany, as set forth in this Book, are the regular Services appointed for Public Worship in this Church and shall be used accordingly.

In a similar but contrasting way the 1979 book states:

The Holy Eucharist, the principal act of Christian worship on the Lord’s Day and other major Feasts, and Daily Morning and Evening Prayer, as set forth in this Book, are the regular services appointed for public worship in this Church.

The continuity is obvious; the change in emphasis is significant!  And the question arises, "What kind of Eucharist?"

Those who prepared the new Rites for the Eucharist in both the USA and Canada were wholly

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taken with the one design which they believed was that design which was common in the early Church, as witnessed by The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus from the third century.  Hippolytus was a Roman who wrote in Greek against the heresies of his time and even against the bishop (Pope) of Rome.  He stands for the early Roman tradition but outside the later tradition of the Roman Catholic Church.  His influence in the East obviously made him useful in seeking a kind of prehistory for ecumenism.  That he died as a martyr gives him also a certain holy appeal.  Thus instead of looking to the structure of the Eucharist in the late patristic period (after the Church had digested the teaching of the Ecumenical Councils and adjusted her liturgies accordingly), liturgical scholars chose to go back to a time before the Church had set forth what we know now as her classical dogma of the Trinity and the Person of Christ and before the Church had settled the framework of the Liturgical Year.

Further, instead of recognizing that the evidence for their preferred structure of the Eucharist is by no means as clear as their enthusiasm in commending it, they imposed their preference and prejudice upon all of us.  In fact, the use of Hippolytus via Gregory Dix’s reconstruction is a example of what has been called liturgical archaeology.  Why should not a piece of liturgical archaeology from the third century be as exciting, as scientific, and as revolutionary in its implications as any other archeological discovery in the field of biblical studies (e.g., the Ugaritic texts or the Dead Sea Scrolls)?  We may ask why other early sources were not used – the Didache (AD 120), for example.  Here we have, of course, an illustration of the way in which pre-Nicene material was used in support of the "newer is better" program (see above chapter three).

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It is important to note that both in the 1979 and the 1985 books (as well as the 1980 ASB in England) the traditional language Rites for Holy Communion are made to fit into this supposed correct structure.  This means that the logic of biblical faith built into the Cranmerian Rite (which I explain and describe in my Knowing God through the Liturgy and which ought not to be forced into a different mould) is set aside.  Further, we are even deprived of the authentic structure of the Eucharist of the Common Prayer Tradition, so that the latter is reduced to being a tradition of language only.  For example, the ‘Prayer for the Whole State of Christ’s Church," turned into "The Prayers of the People," is placed before rather than after the Offertory.  I cannot see why, in reproducing the traditional Administration of the Lord’s Supper in Rite I of 1979 and in "A Form in the Language of the BCP" of 1985 the liturgists could not have left alone both the structure and the words of that which, to say the least, had been hallowed by long usage.  However, in their changing of the received texts, we encounter the mindset of the new liberal dogmatism, which says that we can only have the Cranmerian Rite through their re-creation of it!

Study of The Apostolic Tradition and other early texts has convinced modern liturgists that a sound Eucharistic Prayer should contain most, if not all, of the following features: (1) introductory dialogue; (2) preface or (first part of the) thanksgiving; (3) Sanctus; a transition that may either (4) continue the thanksgiving or (5) take the form of a preliminary epiclesis, if not both; (6) narrative of the Institution; (7) anamnesis-oblation; (8) epiclesis; (9) intercessions; (10) concluding doxology and Amen.  (The Study of Liturgy, p. 333.) The epiclesis is the invocation of the Holy Spirit to descend (upon the assembly and the gifts) while the anamnesis is the memorial

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or remembrance or recalling of the death and resurrection of Christ.

All the Rites for "The Great Thanksgiving" of the Eucharist in both the American and Canadian books follow the modern trends led by the Roman Catholic Church and have the following structure: (a) Preface with the Sanctus; (b) Christological part; (c) institution narrative; (d) anamnesis with oblation; (e) epiclesis over the gifts; (f) epiclesis over the communicants; (g) intercessions; (h) concluding doxology.  (The American Prayer C = the Canadian No. 4 seems to waver on [b], the Christology.) Further, the Prayers are all patterned after what Gregory Dix in his The Shape of the Liturgy called "the four-action shape" – He took the bread and wine; He gave thanks over them; He broke the bread; He gave the bread and wine to the disciples.

Those who are familiar with the Common Prayer Tradition, which is not bound to the "fourfold shape," will recall that the giving thanks over the gifts and the breaking of the bread occur within and alongside the Prayer of Consecration and that there is no separate breaking of the bread in silence after that Prayer.  It is an open question as to whether the "Fraction" ought to be given so much prominence as the new rites give to it.  People tend to associate the breaking of the bread (I Cor. 11:24) with the breaking of Christ’s body on the cross (but see John 19:36 – it was not broken) instead of, perhaps, with the one and the many (I. Cor. 10:16–17).

Before "The Great Thanksgiving" the rubric tells us that "representatives of the congregation bring the people’s offerings of bread and wine, and money or other gifts, to the deacon or celebrant."  Charles P. Price explains: "By offering money, bread and wine, and prayers, the congregation offers repre-

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sentatively itself and the world" (Introducing the Proposed Book, p.78).  This oblation then becomes the beginning of the first part of "the fourfold shape" – the taking of gifts of bread and wine.  Theologically, the danger inherent but not of necessity present here is that which Cranmer sought to avoid – the impression that we, as sinners, can make some contribution to our salvation.  In contrast, the rubrics of the 1928 BCP tell us that the gifts of money alone are brought up from the congregation to the priest, who himself "shall then offer, and shall place on the Holy Table, the Bread and the Wine."  It is interesting that the late Bishop A.M.Ramsey referred to "a shallow and romantic sort of Pelagianism" with respect to offertory processions in England in the 1960s (The Study of Liturgy, p. 332).

The general influence of Hippolytus Romanus via Dix upon modern liturgies is well illustrated by the indexes of two books, Anglican Worship Today: Guide to the ASB (ed. Colin Buchanan, 1980), and Liturgy for Living (by Charles P. Price and Louis Weil, 1979), where we find as many references to Hippolytus as to Cranmer (the father of Anglican liturgy!).  In fact we may note in passing that much of the contemporary prejudice against the Rite for the Holy Eucharist in the Common Prayer Tradition – as being too medieval, overly individualistic, non-corporate, Passion-centered, lacking an eschatological emphasis, being too penitential and lacking a celebratory quality – may be traced back to chapter xvi of The Shape of the Liturgy, where there is an all-out attack upon the Reformation!

It is of interest to note that in the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus the eucharistic prayer begins with a dialogue between the bishop and the congregation:

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The Lord be with you.

And with thy spirit.

Yet, despite all the claims made for this ancient text the reply of the congregation, "and with thy/your spirit," is changed in all the modern Rites of the Eucharist to "and also with you."  In other linguistic groups the original has been preserved – Et avec votre esprit; Und mit deinem Geist; E con il tuo spirito.  Did the modern experts fear that the laity might think that the bishop or priest had a spirit, like some genie called up in a bottle or even that he kept a flask of spirit under his cassock?  They got rid of the spirit and exorcised the beauty of the dialogue: they also changed the biblical psychology, for it is God as Spirit who witnesses with our spirits that we are His children.

Even if there were no questions about the shape of the new Rites and the fascination with third-century texts, there are certainly serious questions about their theology, and particularly their teaching on the saving work of Jesus Christ.  Also serious questions about the orthodoxy of Hippolytus cannot be avoided.  Professor J.G. Davies has remarked that "he was superficially brilliant but lacking in depth, and the Christology which he opposed to the heretics of his day was so subordinationist that it found its logical outcome in the extreme Arianism and Macedonianism of the succeeding century" (He ascended into heaven, 1958, p.88).  Already we have referred to the hesitancy within the Prayers to name "the Father" and to be explicit about the pre-existence of the second Person, whom we confess as the Word Incarnate. Further, we have remarked concerning the way they refer to His sacrifice for the world and not His sacrifice for the sins of the world.  It is to this point that we turn our attention now.

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It would appear that the mindset of the liturgists of the 1960s and 1970s had been impressed by the little book by Gustav Aulen and entitled Christus Victor (first published in English in 1931, and translated by the liturgical scholar, A.G. Hebert – a fact which may have some significance).  This Swedish professor from Lund sought to show that both the Anselmian doctrine of the Atonement of juridical Satisfaction made by the Son to the Father and the classic Protestant doctrine of the Atonement as penal substitution, Christ in the place of sinners, were not acceptable.  That is, Aulen criticized the teaching that Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God, in His manhood on the Cross endured both the wrath of God against the sin of mankind and the punishment due to mankind for its breaking of the divine law. He could not sing,

In my place condemned He stood,

Sealed my pardon with His blood.

Aulen wanted to get behind both the classic Protestant teaching of penal substitution and the medieval, Anselmian doctrine of Christ paying a ransom to the Father in order to satisfy the divine honor and justice.  He saw in the writings of the fathers of the early Church what he called the classic theory or doctrine of God’s victory in Jesus Christ over sin, death, and Satan leading to the deliverance of man from these foes.

Therefore, Aulen closed his book with these final thoughts:

If the classic idea of the Atonement ever again resumes a leading place in Christian theology, it is not likely that it will revert to precisely the same

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forms of expression that it has used in the past; its revival will not consist in a putting back of the clock.  It is the idea itself that will be essentially the same: the fundamental idea that the Atonement is, above all, a movement of God to man, not in the first place a movement of man to God.  We shall hear again its tremendous paradoxes: that God, the all-ruler, the Infinite, yet accepts the lowliness of the Incarnation; we shall hear again the old realistic message of the conflict of God with the dark, hostile forces of evil, and His victory over them by the Divine self-sacrifice; above all, we shall hear again the note of triumph.

It does not take great mental effort to see how, for the liturgist of the 1960s and 1970s, the use of the text of Hippolytus (via Dix) with the supposedly early doctrine of the Atonement (via Aulen) seemed to be a sure, liturgical winner!

Of course, there is a serious academic question as to whether Aulen rightly represented the teaching of the Early Church.  The general judgement seems to be that he focused upon on one important strand but conveniently overlooked others.  Or put another way, he failed to see that other models or explanations of the Atonement of Christ cohere with that of divine victory and thus make the model of divine victory a possibility!  It is not that Aulen is wrong but that he does not give the whole picture.  We can find in the Holy Scriptures and in the teaching of the Fathers the models of propitiation, expiation, substitution, and example to explain the passion and death of Jesus.  The sacrifice of Jesus (He offered Himself to the Father as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world) at Calvary is propitiatory, for it turns away God’s wrath from deserving sinners; it is expiatory, for it cleanses sinners from their sin; it is substitutionary, for He

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as the Second Adam recapitulates in Himself the whole of mankind and hangs at Calvary on its behalf; and it is exemplary, for we too are to take up our cross and follow Him.  However, it is truly the divine victory because the Second Adam, the Head of the new creation, for us and for our salvation overcame the devil, the evil age, and the sinfulness of human flesh by His sacrificial, propitiatory, expiatory, and exemplary death: and then He rose triumphant from the grave.  Hallelujah! what a Savior!  We triumph with, in, and through Him.

It is important to recognize that Christ is truly Christus Victor, who triumphs over death, Satan, hell, and every evil, only because as One Person with Two Natures (as the Council of Chalcedon so clearly taught) He, as Priest, offers the one oblation of Himself as Victim in sacrifice for sin: and therein He is revealed also as the exemplar and inspiration of human good.  All at once He is God and Man, Priest and Sacrifice, Inspirer and Creator of the true good.  Therefore what He did for us men at Calvary is something done for us as well as in us.  His work is not only objective (as the theory of Aulen suggests) but also subjective (as the Scriptures and Fathers make clear). He enables mankind to be restored in holy friendship with the Lord our God.

The Prayer of Consecration in the Cranmerian Rite contains this whole view of the death of Jesus.  He "made there by His one oblation of Himself once offered a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world."  And those who worthily receive the holy Sacrament are "partakers of His most blessed Body and Blood" as they feed on Him in their hearts (the very center of their personalities and beings) by faith and with thanksgiving.  The objective is also subjective, for the

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work of Christ for us is accompanied by the work and presence of Christ in us.

When we come to examine the new Eucharistic Prayers of the 1979 and 1985 books we see immediately that they present a victorious Jesus in and by whom is God’s victory over His foes.  So far, so good. However, there is little recognition that this victory is for us and our salvation because the Son Incarnate is both Priest and Victim and because He dealt with sin, which is the sting of death and the sphere wherein Satan rules.  In other words, the biblical language of sacrifice is subordinated to the language of victory.  For example,

To fulfill your purpose he gave himself up to death; and rising from the grave, destroyed death and made the whole creation new.  (1979 BCP Prayer D)

Gracious God, his perfect sacrifice destroys the power of sin and death; by raising him to life you give us life for evermore.  (1985 BAS, Prayer 1)

He chose to bear our grief and sorrows, and to give up his life on the cross, that he might shatter the chains of evil and death and banish the darkness of sin and despair.  (1985 BAS, Prayer 2)

Then this emphasis upon celebrating His death and resurrection and upon His victory helps to create an ethos in which the too regular confession of sins is regarded as destructive of the spirit of celebration.  So provision is made that confession of sins is not necessary.  The general idea seems to be that God has done it all for us and God offers it all to us, so let us go forward, standing worthily in His presence and receive His gifts.  There is a kind of objectivity to it all – "the gifts of God for the people of God" – and thus some priests hesitate and even refuse to say what are deemed to be unnecessary words, "Take and eat this in remembrance that

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Christ died for you, and feed on Him in your heart by faith, with thanksgiving."

Of course, the influence of Aulen did not stand alone.  In the USA the name of Bayard Hale Jones of the University of the South at Sewanee comes to mind.  Jones wrote several books on the BCP and its history and theology.  In his posthumously published Dynamic Redemption: Reflections on the Book of Common Prayer (1961), Jones both commended the Common Prayer Tradition and made some critical comments on the doctrines of the Atonement and Sacrifice from medieval and Protestant theologians.  He certainly had no time for the doctrine that Christ on our behalf satisfied the justice of God the Father.  Though his teaching is different from that of Aulen, he does insist that in His death and resurrection Christ is the Victor and, as the fruit of this, of the victory of our humanity in Christ.  So he wrote:

In the Incarnation, Christ was made one with us; he took our humanity wholly, so that by his holy life as well as by his saving death, he fought the battle and won the victory of all mankind.  Then, in the Church, we are made one with Christ – "members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones."  And through the Church, we do receive "a higher gift than grace": our imperfect humanity is empowered and conformed to his victorious humanity so that we hold "Christ in us the hope of glory" (Col.1:27).  (page 88)

For Jones it is a reconciliation of man to God rather than for Aulen of God to man.  Nevertheless, the emphases first on victory over evil and then, secondly, on being fed by this victorious Christ through the Eucharistic Sacrifice were attractive themes for the liturgical commissions in the USA and Canada.

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To the trained eye the new Eucharistic Prayers reflect that general Pelagianism which we have noted in the Rites for Baptism and in the Catechism (see chapter six).  It is not merely that original sin is denied but that human beings in their "freedom" actually make a contribution to their salvation (cf. the quotation from A.M.Ramsey above, p.193).

I think that the key to the Pelagianism is found in the "We celebrate..." and "we offer you these gifts" (or, "we offer.., presenting to you, from your creation, this bread and this wine"; or, "we bring before you these gifts").  Within the structure of the new Eucharistic Prayers, the Words of Institution become, as it were, the justification for what "we" do.  Jesus told us to do this and so we do it. Then "we" offer "these gifts," which we have taken from the created order, asking God to sanctify them and "us."  Significantly they are not called "these thy holy gifts" (as in the BCP of 1789, 1892 and 1928).  They are still only gifts which "we" offer.  In contrast, holy gifts are already of God and from God, and so there is no human merit involved in offering them.

Commenting upon the Oblation [from "Wherefore" to "by the same'] within the Prayer of Consecration in the 1928 BCP, the late Massey H. Shepherd wrote:

The Oblation is the hinge of the whole Consecration Prayer.  It gathers up the thanksgivings and memorials that have gone before and offers them to God by means of the "holy gifts," the instruments of bread and wine which our Lord Himself chose to represent His own sacrifice and to be the occasion of its continuing and "innumerable benefits" to His

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Church.  (The Oxford American Prayer Book Commentary, 1950, pp. 80-81.)

The Invocation which follows is a prayer of benediction over the "holy food and drink" to sanctify it, by His great goodness, to our use.

The new Prayers certainly allow, even encourage, the false doctrine of covenant found in other places in the Books.  That is, God initiates; we respond within and out of our freedom; and then God blesses our response.  Thus God gives us gifts of bread and wine in creation; we bring them along for use in Holy Eucharist as Jesus commanded; we offer them and after God has blessed them we receive them from Him in line with their new signification (body and blood of Jesus).  The older Prayer contains a doctrine of covenant which places all the emphasis upon God’s total provision of all that is necessary for everlasting friendship and communion between man and God.  We contribute nothing, for what we offer and do are from and in the grace of God.

In both the 1979 and 1985 books there is a Eucharistic Prayer which is modelled on that of St. Basil of Caesarea and known as a mid-fourth century Alexandrian Anaphora. Scholars suggest that Basil took it to Egypt around A.D, 357.  This modern version was written by an ecumenical team and based not only on the original Egyptian text, but also upon the expanded Roman Catholic Latin version in the 1970 Missal of Pope Paul VI.  It is an excellent example of how modern liturgists think theologically and how they use ancient, classical sources for their own newer-is-better ends.  There are important differences between Prayer D (1979) = Prayer 6 (1985) on the one hand, and the original Prayer of

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St. Basil. And, if we take the later amplified edition of St. Basil’s Anaphora, the Eucharistic Prayer we know through what is now called the Liturgy of St. Basil (and used in the Orthodox Churches on ten days of the year), then we see even greater theological differences.  The very fact that liturgists used the early rather than the later version of the Anaphora of St. Basil confirms for us again that they seek to go for texts which belong to the period before the Church had clarified its dogma and incorporated the same into the lex orandi.

The ecumenical team which provided Prayer D (= No.6) from the original Anaphora made sure that they injected Pelagianism into their version.  Where the original addresses God, saying, "You did not cast us off for ever, but continually visited us through your holy prophets" (here the "us" is the one people of God of the Old and New Testaments), the modern rendering is, "again and again you called us into covenant with you, and through the prophets you taught us to hope for salvation" (here the "us" is less clear and can mean human beings in general).  This is a clear example of the reduction of the biblical covenant of grace given by the Sovereign Lord into a contract continually offered by God to human beings.

If we actually compare the Prayer D with the amplified text of St. Basil in the Divine Liturgy, we find that in the first part (up to the "Holy, Holy, Holy") the new Prayer does little justice to St. Basil’s majestic words.  The Liturgy of Basil addresses the Father as "the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our great God and Savior" and the One "through whom was manifest the Holy Spirit."  It is decidedly and clearly Trinitarian, and the creation of all things invisible and visible by the LORD is certainly ex nihilo! In contrast, the modern Prayer calls the

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Father the "fountain of life and source of all goodness" and does not mention the Son or the Holy Spirit.  Thus, the modern text does not specifically exclude either panentheism or creation by emanation (both of which are common errors today).

Finally, let us note the doctrine of the Atonement found in the two texts.  The modern text states that "to fulfill your purpose he gave himself up to death; and rising from the grave, destroyed death, and made the whole creation new."  Here we have a vague form of Christus Victor, with a doctrine of a renewed (old) creation rather than a new order, epoch, and creation.  The amplified text of St. Basil emphasizes the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  Here is a part of the Prayer:

For as by man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, so it seemed good unto thine Only-begotten Son, who is in thy bosom, our God and Father, to be born of a woman, the holy Birth-giver of God and ever-virgin Mary; to be born under the Law, that he might condemn sin in the flesh; that they who were dead in Adam might be made alive in thy Christ.  And becoming a dweller in this world, and giving commandments of salvation, He released us from the delusions of idols, and brought us unto a knowledge of Thee, the true God and Father, having possessed us unto Himself for a peculiar people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation; and being purified with water and sanctified with the Holy Spirit, He gave Himself a ransom to Death, whereby we were held, sold into bondage under sin.  And having descended into hell through the Cross, that He might fill all things with Himself, He loosed the pains of death, and rose again from the dead on the third day, making a way for all flesh unto the Resurrection from the dead – for it was not possible that the Author of Life should be holden of corruption – that He might

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be the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep, the first-born from the dead; and that He shall have the pre-eminence in all things.  And ascending into heaven He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high...

In both the shorter and longer forms of the Anaphora of St. Basil there is a doctrine of Atonement which is sadly lacking from the new prayer.

To summarize: All the new Eucharistic Prayers reveal the influence of modern revisionist doctrine.  They are weak or deficient in terms of basic dogma (the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity, the Person of Jesus Christ) and of doctrine (Christ’s Atonement and the covenant of grace).  Further, not only do they set aside the classical, developed Cranmerian Prayer, but also, in claiming to find a pure, original form from the third century, they effectively discount the classical Eucharistic Prayers of the East and the West from the end of the patristic era.  Then they appear to teach that the "community" can make a worthy offering; that oblations are our offering, not God’s gifts; that we aspire to change, but not to perfection (i.e. there is an abandonment here and elsewhere of a stable standard of perfection), and that liturgy is a human work worthy of God’s acceptance and blessing.  So the rites of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper share a common Pelagianism.

For the future, I cannot see how the new Eucharistic Prayers can serve a biblical, orthodox, and dynamic Anglicanism, which must of necessity return to the renewed Common Prayer Tradition, suitably revised from scriptural and patristic sources.  In that renewal and revision I can see that, in a context where Morning Prayer does not go before the Eucharist, it may be appropriate to add to the developed Cranmerian Prayer of Consecra-

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tion a significant reference to creatio ex nihilo by the Father through His Son, the Word made flesh, and also to make clear reference to other mighty acts of God, the Father, through the Son and by the Holy Spirit (e.g. the Parousia or Second Coming of Christ).  Here we can learn from the new liturgies, but in doing so we need to be aware in the modern theological context that references to creation which do not present it as creatio ex nihilo may well hide doctrines of creation which state that God made the world out of something – out of God’s being by emanation, or from already existing matter (panentheism) by a limited God.