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Update 45 pages 8-9.
In Update 45:
Still an issue,
Godparents,
S.E. London,
Perry,
1662 Confirmation,
Funerals,
Liturgy,
Hooker,
Andrews.
Downgrading 1662 Confirmation?
A query to our web site generated the following conversation between us.
“Patrick” e-mailed us through our web site to ask how many baptisms took place using the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) service? Patrick wanted it because they’d had the BCP for their wedding, but he foresaw problems as it wouldn’t fit well into the family service which the church had on Sundays. Maybe a Sunday afternoon was the solution? As usual, Roger Godin circulated the query and collated the responses, which included the following (as well as covering a lot of other ground, which we have no space to print):
“BCP services of infant baptism or marriage are both quite rare in most churches nowadays - two of our clergy representing urban and rural areas say that BCP services of baptism are “almost extinct”. It is actually for the minister to decide what form of service is used. However there are some ”bastions” of the BCP in the C of E, and it is possible there are some parishes where the BCP baptism service is still used as a standard. You ask for a percentage - the C of E does not keep statistics on these things, but we would estimate less than 3% if pushed. One of its disadvantages of the BCP baptism service is that the BCP sees the giving of the Holy Spirit as belonging more to confirmation than to baptism, so the service seems to us a bit inadequate by biblical standards.” (The response continued and discussed the requirement of having baptisms in the main Sunday service, and the possible alternative of a Thanksgiving.)
This produced a rather stern reaction from our president, Colin Buchanan:
“I rise to your letter to ‘Patrick’ because of your point about the BCP baptism service. I cannot think what makes you say that the BCP ‘sees the giving of the Holy Spirit as belonging more to confirmation than to baptism’. The 1662 confirmation service is certainly not susceptible to that understanding, and all the references to two sacraments etc. vitiate your point almost at sight. Is it really your conviction?
What is interesting is that, when they decided to publish Common Worship in both ancient and modern languages, there was no desire for an ancient baptismal service.”
As I was the writer of the original comment which read “the BCP sees the giving of the Holy Spirit as belonging more to confirmation than to baptism,” it clearly fell to me to explain why I thought this:
“The comment comes out of Mark Earey’s article in BI Update 43 page 9 “Anglican Thinking on Confirmation”, where he points out the prayer for daily anointing (p357) marks a shift in CW’s understanding of baptism compared with the ASB’s position. In the ASB (he says) the prayer for the sevenfold Spirit is in confirmation (p256) and not in baptism (missing from p248). Sure enough, looking at the BCP, the same prayer is in the confirmation service (p298), and is missing from all three baptism services.
I think Mark is right that there has been a transfer of emphasis about the Holy Spirit from confirmation to baptism. The grounds for it seem to be (in lay-language) that the Holy Spirit comes into a person when he/she invites Him in, and that’s the same as becoming a Christian, so the sacrament which marks becoming a Christian ought to be the one in which we speak of the Holy Spirit’s entry. It is a point of view which I have argued against, and in fact the whole of my article on confirmation was about the tendency to denude it of any separate significance; but it is the trend of modern liturgical development.
Which service (baptism or confirmation) signifies the giving of the Holy Spirit? If CW has swung the balance towards baptism and away from confirmation (which Mark says it has), then it follows that the balance in the BCP is more towards confirmation than in CW - in other words, the balance is that the Holy Spirit belongs less to baptism in the BCP than it does to baptism in CW. If the liturgists say they are restoring a proper biblical balance, then it must logically follow they thought the balance was defective in the BCP.
You say “the 1662 confirmation service is certainly not susceptible to that understanding”, but surely the Holy Spirit is extremely pronounced in the 1662 service? In a very short (only 4 pages) service, the laying on of hands is both preceded and followed by lengthy prayers explicitly for the sevenfold Spirit (before) and that “thy Holy Spirit ever be with them” (after).”
Colin replied like this:
“You will find the evidence in my Grove Liturgical Study ‘Anglican Confirmation’. It is true that the reference to the sevenfold gift of the spirit (rooted way back in time) is present in each of the three rites you mention, but the real point is that none of them says ‘send down upon them from heaven your Holy Spirit.’ We had something like that in Series II confirmation, and I have been pulling it back from the brink ever since.
I would hardly want to say CW has ‘swung the balance ... away from confirmation’ as Mark does. Confirmation has no distinctive doctrine ... in 1662 the simple prayer at the laying on of hands can be used over anyone at any time. All of the services avoid mention of Acts 8:14-17, which has been the classic Mason-Dix line.”
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