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Alternative Service Book
The Alternative Service Book 1980 (ASB) was the first complete prayer book produced by the Church of England since 1662. Its name derives from the fact that it was proposed not as a replacement for the 1662 Book of Common Prayer (BCP) but merely as an alternative to it. In practice, it was so popular that the various printers had to produce several editions very quickly and churches which retained the BCP drew attention to this fact as something to be noted. The Prayer Book Society soon complained that it was becoming hard to find a church which used the old prayer book and that theological colleges were not introducing students to it. It has now been replaced by Common Worship.
Following the failure of the attempts to introduce a new prayer book through Parliament in the 1920s, liturgical reform had idled.
Some Anglo-Catholic parishes used the English Missal, a version of the BCP which included the prayers of the Roman Missal both in translation and in the original interspersed with prayers from the prayer book; most used either the BCP or the 1928 Prayer Book, which though it was never approved has continued in print until the present with the warning "The publication of this book does not directly or indirectly imply that it can be regarded as authorized for use in churches." As time passed and liturgical scholarship proceeded, it became clear that a new attempt should be made to provide orders of service for the church. In an attempt to break the deadlock, Dom Gregory Dix, in his book The Shape of the Liturgy published in 1945, proposed that his own thinking about the Eucharist, using what he called the "Four Action Shape", be the basis of a rite. He suggested that such a rite be produced by a number of bishops, too many for them to be victimised but not so many so as to suggest rebellion, who would allow such a rite to be used in their own dioceses but who would not protect parish clergy from legal challenge if they used it. Dix's ideas were very influential but no one took up the suggestion.
Only in 1955 did the church set up the Liturgical Commission and ten years later the Church Assembly passed the Prayer Book (Alternative and Other Services) Measure 1965. A series of books followed, most becoming authorised for use in 1966 or 1967: the Series 1 (formally "Alternative Services Series 1") communion book scarcely differed from the 1928 book (as was the case with its wedding service). Series 2, issued at the same time, put forward a form which followed the Dix formula: offertory, consecration, fraction, communion. This was a pattern which was to be widely influential in countries which had used the BCP.
Series 3 was less dependent on and, by implication, more reflective of criticism of Dix. It was also published as a collection of individual booklets for different services, between January 1973 (Holy Communion) and November 1977 (Marriage). The evidence for the offertory had been challenged from left and right by liturgical scholars such as Colin Buchanan and Ronald Jasper: it had been championed by the adherents of the Liturgical Movement but came to be regarded as suspect not only by evangelicals. In his Durham Essays and Addresses, Michael Ramsey had warned against a "shallow Pelagianism" which it seemed to betoken. Eric Lionel Mascall asked "what can we offer at the Eucharist?". (Contrary views were expressed by people such as Donald Gray and Roger Arguile, partly on the ground that, following the writings of St Irenaeus, the goodness of the natural order and its relation to the Eucharist was an important element; the offertory brought the world into church). The fraction, or breaking of the bread, was criticised on the grounds that it was not nearly as significant as the consecration or administration; it was largely a practical act. Other services were less controversial and some scarcely surfaced, including the funeral service, which never went beyond the draft stage. The baptism service, allowing more responses from the godparents and being considerably less wordy than the BCP, became popular.
In 1974, the Worship and Doctrine Measure, passed by the new General Synod allowed the production of a new book which was to contain everything that would be required of priest and congregation: daily Morning and Evening Prayer, Holy Communion, initiation services (Baptism and Confirmation), marriage, funeral services, the Ordinal, Sunday readings, a lectionary and a psalter. Once again, after a gap of nearly fifteen years, parishes which did not want to use the Book of Common Prayer had in their hands all the words, including readings ordered according to themes and with a two-year cycle.
Discussion in General Synod was lengthy. Hundreds of amendments to the initial proposals were debated on the floor of the chamber. Debate about the significance of the communion was taken up again. Since very many more parishes had, following the influence of the Parish Communion movement, already adopted the Eucharist as their main service, debates about it became even more pertinent.
The book was very variable in the degree to which it departed from the Book of Common Prayer. The Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer provided alternative canticles and all were now ecumenically approved translations, the so-called ICET texts (English Language Liturgical Consultation), but the form was conservative. In addition, a shorter order was provided for weekdays.
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Alternative Service Book
The Alternative Service Book 1980 (ASB) was the first complete prayer book produced by the Church of England since 1662. Its name derives from the fact that it was proposed not as a replacement for the 1662 Book of Common Prayer (BCP) but merely as an alternative to it. In practice, it was so popular that the various printers had to produce several editions very quickly and churches which retained the BCP drew attention to this fact as something to be noted. The Prayer Book Society soon complained that it was becoming hard to find a church which used the old prayer book and that theological colleges were not introducing students to it. It has now been replaced by Common Worship.
Following the failure of the attempts to introduce a new prayer book through Parliament in the 1920s, liturgical reform had idled.
Some Anglo-Catholic parishes used the English Missal, a version of the BCP which included the prayers of the Roman Missal both in translation and in the original interspersed with prayers from the prayer book; most used either the BCP or the 1928 Prayer Book, which though it was never approved has continued in print until the present with the warning "The publication of this book does not directly or indirectly imply that it can be regarded as authorized for use in churches." As time passed and liturgical scholarship proceeded, it became clear that a new attempt should be made to provide orders of service for the church. In an attempt to break the deadlock, Dom Gregory Dix, in his book The Shape of the Liturgy published in 1945, proposed that his own thinking about the Eucharist, using what he called the "Four Action Shape", be the basis of a rite. He suggested that such a rite be produced by a number of bishops, too many for them to be victimised but not so many so as to suggest rebellion, who would allow such a rite to be used in their own dioceses but who would not protect parish clergy from legal challenge if they used it. Dix's ideas were very influential but no one took up the suggestion.
Only in 1955 did the church set up the Liturgical Commission and ten years later the Church Assembly passed the Prayer Book (Alternative and Other Services) Measure 1965. A series of books followed, most becoming authorised for use in 1966 or 1967: the Series 1 (formally "Alternative Services Series 1") communion book scarcely differed from the 1928 book (as was the case with its wedding service). Series 2, issued at the same time, put forward a form which followed the Dix formula: offertory, consecration, fraction, communion. This was a pattern which was to be widely influential in countries which had used the BCP.
Series 3 was less dependent on and, by implication, more reflective of criticism of Dix. It was also published as a collection of individual booklets for different services, between January 1973 (Holy Communion) and November 1977 (Marriage). The evidence for the offertory had been challenged from left and right by liturgical scholars such as Colin Buchanan and Ronald Jasper: it had been championed by the adherents of the Liturgical Movement but came to be regarded as suspect not only by evangelicals. In his Durham Essays and Addresses, Michael Ramsey had warned against a "shallow Pelagianism" which it seemed to betoken. Eric Lionel Mascall asked "what can we offer at the Eucharist?". (Contrary views were expressed by people such as Donald Gray and Roger Arguile, partly on the ground that, following the writings of St Irenaeus, the goodness of the natural order and its relation to the Eucharist was an important element; the offertory brought the world into church). The fraction, or breaking of the bread, was criticised on the grounds that it was not nearly as significant as the consecration or administration; it was largely a practical act. Other services were less controversial and some scarcely surfaced, including the funeral service, which never went beyond the draft stage. The baptism service, allowing more responses from the godparents and being considerably less wordy than the BCP, became popular.
In 1974, the Worship and Doctrine Measure, passed by the new General Synod allowed the production of a new book which was to contain everything that would be required of priest and congregation: daily Morning and Evening Prayer, Holy Communion, initiation services (Baptism and Confirmation), marriage, funeral services, the Ordinal, Sunday readings, a lectionary and a psalter. Once again, after a gap of nearly fifteen years, parishes which did not want to use the Book of Common Prayer had in their hands all the words, including readings ordered according to themes and with a two-year cycle.
Discussion in General Synod was lengthy. Hundreds of amendments to the initial proposals were debated on the floor of the chamber. Debate about the significance of the communion was taken up again. Since very many more parishes had, following the influence of the Parish Communion movement, already adopted the Eucharist as their main service, debates about it became even more pertinent.
The book was very variable in the degree to which it departed from the Book of Common Prayer. The Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer provided alternative canticles and all were now ecumenically approved translations, the so-called ICET texts (English Language Liturgical Consultation), but the form was conservative. In addition, a shorter order was provided for weekdays.