Although the Protestant Reformation may seem historically far removed from the modern church, the reformational nature of Anglicanism is crucial to understanding its practice. The Reformation has incredible effect upon how Anglicans practice liturgy, the sacraments, and prayer.
The Falls Church Anglican (TFCA) Rector Sam Ferguson spoke on doctrinal reforms and expounded upon the history and practice of the English Reformation at History and Hope: Reformed Theology in the Anglican Tradition. The February 4 Reformed Theological Seminary collaboration with TFCA focused on the reformational roots of Anglicanism and its doctrinal convictions. (Readers may access part one History (English Bibles, Refuted Clericalism, and Reformation Anglicanism) here and part two, Scripture in Reformation Anglicanism, here).
Book of Common Prayer
The Reformation led to Christianity being practiced through the Book of Common Prayer. Compiled by Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, it made prayers and liturgies accessible and available to common people in their vernacular.
While the Medieval Church performed liturgies in Latin, and prayers were said on behalf of the congregation, the people did not understand the words. For the Reformers, it was crucial that both the Bible and church liturgies were in the vernacular. Through the prayer book and worship, God’s people were able to hear His voice in a language that they understood.
Additionally, liturgies set out in the Book of Common Prayer allow flexibility in worship. Article 34 from the 39 Articles articulates the normative principle of worship, allowing various expressions of Anglican worship across “diversity of countries, times, and men’s manners, so that nothing be ordained against God’s Word,” once again emphasizing the wide-tent expression of the Anglican tradition.
Sacraments
As Protestant Reformers moved from the doctrine of transubstantiation, the nature of the Lord’s Supper was hotly debated. Cranmer and other Reformers believed that Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper was a dynamic spiritual presence that was effective when participating in faith. When administered in the vernacular, both the liturgy and the sacrament preached the gospel.
Ferguson noted that communion liturgy in the Book of Common Prayer speaks of this dynamic spiritual presence of Christ.
During the communion liturgy, the celebrant states “The gifts of God for the people of God. Take them in remembrance that Christ died for you, and feed on Him in your hearts by faith.”
Likewise the post-communion prayer states,
“Almighty and Ever-living God, we thank you for feeding us in these Holy Mysteries with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of your Son Jesus Christ.”
This liturgy and these prayers speak of the dynamic spiritual presence of Christ. The Reformers’ understanding and reform of the nature of Christ in the Lord’s Supper is not an intangible idea but affects how Anglicans understand the nature of the Lord’s Supper.
Prayer
The Reformation also impacted the Anglican tradition’s understanding and practice of prayer. The Book of Common Prayer was created to guide Christ-followers in prayer. Most laity in the Reformation era could not understand the Latin prayers of the church. While religious leaders prayed on behalf of the congregation, lay persons did not pray on the same level as religious leaders.
Cranmer wanted prayer to be for everyone, not primarily for priests and monks. Crucial to this goal, the Book of Common Prayer guides through prayer that involves the whole of life. It assumes that people could read Scripture and pray through the prayer book. Daily morning and evening office made a layperson’s home into a prayerful monastery with accessible scripture, meditation, and lay services dedicated around the average work day. Cranmer made it possible for the regular secular person to enter a biblical rhythm of prayer for “whole life discipleship.”
Liturgy
Cranmer changed the church liturgy to prioritize grace. He moved confession to collective worship. After the priest announced the absolution of sins, he recited to the congregation “comfortable words” from scripture.
Ferguson ended his talk with several of these “comfortable words”:
“Come to me, all ye, who trival and are heavily laden, and I will give ye rest.
“For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
“This is a trustworthy saying, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”
Comment by Colin ross on March 13, 2025 at 12:12 pm
Funny, I don’t really want to take any lesson from falls church about being moral…considering all the recent scandals. How is a church founded on the values of king Henry VIII supposed to tell anyone anything?
Comment by Lindy Walker on March 14, 2025 at 9:20 pm
Could the opening of the Book of Common Prayer section be amended to specify that it was the *English* Reformation that led to a practice of Christian faith shaped by the BCP? As it is, I am uncomfortable with the emphasis on “Reformational roots of Anglicanism” when the English Church was alive and well centuries before Henry VIII sought independence from the Pope, and asserted that his position of authority justified dissolution of the monasteries and dispersal of all their inhabitants (including women who would have few options for life or community outside the monasteries,) confiscation of wealth, looting and defacement of devotional artwork, destruction of ancient architecture and monastic records of community life of centuries, as well as execution of clergy who, reluctant to swear allegiance to a monarch so clearly motivated by personal ambitions, were executed cruelly for treason. The beginnings of this destruction were later furthered by Cromwell and his Parliamentarians who were profoundly anti-Catholic, as many Reformed Protestants remain. I must add that I wholeheartedly support the introduction of vernacular Scriptures that transformed education for all, but am also grateful for the centuries of unifying Latin in which Scriptures were preserved for us, and worship structure in the monasteries was perpetuated in beauty. One can hardly read Bede, for example, or listen to Gregorian chant, and imagine the monasteries were places where the Word of God was obscure and dulled.
Comment by Lindy Walker on March 14, 2025 at 9:51 pm
I should clarify the fact that Henry VIII’s move was a very political one, much more than a move of conscience. In the dissolution of the monasteries, he (and subsequently his son) sought to deny and destroy any conscience that opposed him. Others saw an opportunity to extend and impose iconoclastic tendencies. The beginnings of Anglicanism were not irenic. Insinuating that Anglicanism is “Reformed” with a capital R, that is, more Calvinistic than embracing non-Calvinist faithful as equals, is disingenuous, and I think dangerous to the unity of the Church.
Comment by Lindy Walker on March 14, 2025 at 10:42 pm
Would it not be more accurate to say that the Anglican Church has but *one* root, that of the one, holy catholic Church, going back for centuries to the Early Church, saints, martyrs, Church fathers, monastics and the common faithful; the variants we have among us are but branches formed and grafted in. Thus, for example, as sapper branches (like indulgences etc) were pruned off the trunk, a strong branch grafted in with DNA from Calvin’s followers sought to have the tree identified with its particulars, but other strong branches were grafted in as well, all contributing life to the tree? We owe our lives to the Christians who preserved the Scriptures and the teaching of the Gospel — the one root of our family tree — through centuries before the Reformation.
Comment by Colin Ross on March 16, 2025 at 7:05 pm
I definitely don’t owe my life to Christian’s who preserved scripture…that might be the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. When Christians held total power we had the dark ages. The story we tell is America was founded on people escaping religious persecution and then those same people burned teenage girls alive for witchcraft. Growing up in the episcopal church…or as I like to say the worlds most pointless country club, taught me that there is nothing further from a man who told everyone to sell everything they had and the world would end 2000 years ago than organized religion. It’s all a scam. I couldn’t imagine anyone more useless than an episcopal bishop. What charity needs nine figures on overhead
Comment by Tim Ware on March 17, 2025 at 12:36 am
Truest words I’ve heard on here ever…that organized religion is a scam. A big scam with lots of people drawing very good salaries and pensions and having plenty of opportunities to stoke their egos and delude themselves into thinking they’re important. And all the while, they’re trying to fool themselves that they’re following Jesus. Talk about being deceived…!
I really like the phrase “pointless country club”!
Comment by David Gingrich on March 18, 2025 at 7:20 am
This article is a fine example of what the stock market guys call “pitching your book”.
Cranmer seems to have been a fine man. For the REAL reformation, study the lives of Jan Hus and Martin Luther.