CONGREGATIONALISM is being “silently endorsed” within the Church of England, a latest report warns, since the leaders of latest worshipping communities (NWCs) are writing eucharistic texts for his or her communities without the theological support of the broader Church.
The Communion Dilemma: The challenges of leading eucharistic New Things draws on a survey of 63 NWCs across 20 dioceses. It reports that 39 per cent of them are using texts not authorised by the General Synod.
“The problem just isn’t just [that] latest things are breaking the foundations, but they’re in search of to exist outside of the ecology of the broader Church, by which all could be profit and learn from each other,” the report says. One way forward could be to designate some New Things as “centres for liturgical experimentation”.
The report is by the Revd Dr Joshua Cockayne, director of the Bede Centre for Church Planting Theology at Cranmer Hall. The term “New Things” was utilized in an earlier report by the Centre, which found that dioceses had jettisoned the usage of the word “church” in describing the varied latest worshipping communities being established of their parishes (News, 16 August 2024).
The latest report describes a “radical shift” within the Church of England’s ecclesiology over the past 30 years, entailing what the previous Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Williams described as a “careful loosening of the structures” to enable the expansion of Fresh Expressions.
It criticises a failure to accompany this with “any serious reform of eucharistic practice”. Despite an expectation that Fresh Expressions would grow to be sacramental, there was “no provision offered to assist them engage with authorised liturgical texts, or advice about how they were to rejoice the sacraments”.
The report says that the “perennial criticism” that New Things are typically non-sacramental just isn’t backed up by data. Only nine of the 63 gatherings surveyed never celebrated holy communion, while 74 per cent held a eucharist no less than monthly or weekly (many gathering just once a month). Almost two-thirds of the respondents disagreed that the eucharist made worship less accessible.
Almost two-thirds (63 per cent) of those holding a eucharist used authorised types of sevice — mostly Common Worship.
Fifty-one per cent, nonetheless, said that authorised liturgies weren’t suitable for his or her context, “noting specifically the difficulties of long, formal texts in informal contexts with low levels of education and literacy. . . On the entire, these respondents desired to grow eucharistic communities and cared deeply in regards to the place of sacraments within the mission of the Church but felt that the resources that they had been supplied with were insufficient for this purpose.”
Dr Cockayne writes: “Many of the services that are represented by these contexts shall be very informal, drawing in numerous voices into community, and on the lookout for opportunities to translate theological ideas into the vernacular. To rise up and skim 700-words of formal liturgical prose in such a context is certain to feel ‘alien’.”
The report suggests that there are few consequences to the usage of unauthorised liturgies. The proven fact that one respondent was unable to differentiate between an authorised liturgy and the “Celtic liturgies” getting used of their setting “speaks to the extent of liturgical literacy in the broader church”, it says.
One Fresh Expressions leader told a “confused” archdeacon that, when it got here to the eucharistic prayers, “we write our prayers.” Another archdeacon told a community: “I want to let you know off annually about your use of liturgy, then I won’t mention it again.”
It is a “common misconception”, Dr Cockayne writes, “that the Canons on liturgy permit clergy to create latest services” in New Things contexts. “Unlike the provisions for a Service of the Word, the liturgies offered for Holy Communion lack the identical degree of flexibility.”
Some confer with Canon B5, which mentions “occasions for which no provision is made”. But New Patterns for Worship, which was drafted by the Liturgical Commission, provides a piece example that “flatly denies this interpretation”. It states: “Canon B5 can’t be stretched to cover services of Holy Communion even in the event that they are for specific occasions, age groups, or places not specifically provided for.”
The important problem just isn’t that clergy are violating the guarantees made within the Declaration of Assent, Dr Cockayne argues (“that is a difficulty for private conscience and/or clergy discipline”); neither is the issue only that rules are being broken, although many would “profit from engaging more seriously with the query of what it means for them to be Anglican”.
His chief concern is ecclesiological: “The current practice within the Church of England of unenforced and widely disregarded liturgical rules is that we’re quickly becoming congregationalist in practice. . . In a context where the liturgical rules are stringent, but by which there are not any real consequences for ignoring these rules, then inevitably, liturgy is decided locally and with no wider profit for the church.”
The risk is twofold, he writes. “First, contexts don’t profit from the church’s wisdom and historic tradition; there isn’t any theological corrective offered, and contexts risk liturgies with problematic and even heretical content.
“And, second, the broader church doesn’t profit from the teachings which have been learnt on this context about liturgy and celebration of the eucharist. There isn’t any mechanism by which the actual act of worship on this community can feed back into the lifetime of the church as a regional or national body. The Church of England is a fundamentally un-congregationalist church, and to proceed operating in this fashion liturgically is deeply problematic.”
The report draws attention to a commitment within the Church’s Vision and Strategy document to starting 10,000 NWCs by 2030. If the “dilemma” set out is ignored, the report says, this will be a “flawed endeavour”.
Alongside a call for brand new liturgical resources, and the designation of some New Things as “centres for liturgical experimentation”, the report emphasises the necessity for “robust theological and liturgical training”. It warns: “Without the resources and structures to equip latest contexts to interact sacramentally with communities, we’re implicitly stating that sacraments are of no real relevance to the duty of mission today.”
For information on a webinar discussing the study, to be held on 21 October, visit: cranmerhall.com
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