It's an odd but quite effective series, writing the biography of a book. In biblical studies we might call that reception history, or more particularly a history of consequences, that is, the effects and influence of a text over its lifetime.
The lifetime of the Book of Common Prayer is quite long! It was first published in 1549, its architect Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. It has gone through numerous revisions, it has been the rope in some intensely contested liturgical, theological and political tugs of war, along with the King James Bible it has shaped the English language and for centuries English speaking culture. It deserves a biography.
Alan Jacobs writes with narrative verve, and as a scholar and literary critic (who is an Evangelical Anglican), he has considerable sympathy with both the history and the content of the BCP. He has chosen key moments in the life of the book to shine a light on it, and those who have criticised it, defended it, loved it and hated it, argued for its revision, or rejection, or conservation as a classic text.
In a digital age, and so much text now read on screens of one kind or another, there's an elegiac tone near the end of the book. With the decline of the use of the BCP, and the advent of Common Worship and other alternative service books (including ASB), the impetus for quality book production, developments of beautiful type-faces, and commitment to ensuring the availability and accessibility of the Book of Common Prayer (note the word 'Book') - is on the wane. Jacobs' last sentence: "While the Book of Common Prayer lives on in so many ways, its association with the crafts of bookmaking and type design may have effectively come to an end." (Page 200)
I've learned from this book, and remain an admirer of the liturgical masterpiece that is the BCP. The conflicted history of the Book of Common Prayer indicates the religious passion and political ambitions that brought it to birth, and inevitably shaped events over the centuries.
As one who stands in the Nonconformist and Dissenting traditions, I sense what has been missed in not living within the rhythms of a liturgical community. At the same time, my spiritual forebears were persecuted on account of their refusal to have their faith shaped and governed by the State using a book as a religious test of political allegiance, and and as an instrument to impose spiritual authority. All of this, Jacobs weaves through the story of a book to which millions upon millions owe spiritual debts, and which remains a classic, perhaps THE classic of English Christianity.
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