Liturgy for Living

By Charles P. Price and Louis Weil. Revised edition. Harrisburg, Pa.: Morehouse Publishing, 2000. vii + 245 pp. $21.00 (paper).

Two events punctuated the fall term of my second year of seminary. The first was our placing of self-adhesive panels in our chapel prayer books declaring that these books were now the Prayer Book of the Episcopal Church rather than the proposed Prayer Book. The second was the unveiling of Charles Price and Louis Weil's Liturgy for Living.

For many of us this book put into perspective the spiritual and theological underpinnings of the "new" Prayer Book. The language was fresh and clear, the organization helpful in exploring our new liturgical norm. Together with its companion volumes in the Church's Teaching Series, Liturgy for Living provided us with a comprehensive and thoughtful curriculum for lay education.

Almost twenty-five years later Morehouse has published a revised edition, introducing a new generation of readers to this work. The chapters are organized around the divisions and topics of the 1979 Prayer Book with theological and historical reflections. The "Glossary of Liturgical Terms" (pp. 213-230) and "Bibliography for Further Reading" (pp. 234-238) are very helpful. The latter includes references to several useful websites for students and other interested parties.

It had been my hope that this new edition would bring a revision reflecting the developments of the last two decades. However, it must be said that the revised edition has not fulfilled those hopes.

First, the book remains firmly "ECUSA"-centric in its approach. This could be justified if the purpose was solely to introduce the liturgical books of the Episcopal Church. However, in the preface we read that the purpose is to offer "a basic book on the liturgy that would be useful to laity and clergy of the church with regard to the history and theology of Christian, and specifically Anglican, worship" (p. vi). One might, therefore, expect some references to liturgical rites and developments elsewhere in the Communion, especially the reports of the International Anglican Liturgical Consultation regarding Christian initiation, inculturation, and eucharist. We might also expect some references to the liturgical books of other Anglican provinces that have appeared in the years following 1979.

Second, the revised edition is silent on liturgical issues that have emerged in the decades since the publication and authorization of the 1979 Prayer Book. For example, no mention is made of recent supplemental materials prepared to address concerns for more inclusive and complementary language in liturgical rites. Nor is the contentious issue of so-called "seeker" worship mentioned. No comment is made on the debate among North American Anglicans as to the necessary relationship of baptism to the reception of the eucharist.

There are some editorial errors. Despite the fact that all the hymns cited in the book save one are in The Hymnal 1982, the references are all to The Hymnal 1940. Many of the patristic references are to English translations that have been supplanted by more recent translations, even at the time of the book's first edition.

One is left with the impression of a work in progress left bereft by the death of Dr. Price. Readers who might have been searching for the mature reflections of two eminent scholars on their work two decades later will be disappointed. The revised edition serves more as a retrospective introduction to the motivations and insights of the generation of pastors and scholars who labored to produce the 1979 Prayer Book. Consequently, the present edition of Liturgy for Living will be a useful resource primarily to those congregations whose liturgical repertoire is firmly rooted in the present Prayer Book. Seminary faculty who choose to use this text in introductory courses will need to augment it with more recent publications such as Ruth Meyers's A Prayer Book for the Twenty-First Century and Paul Marshall and Lesley Northup's Leaps and Boundaries.

Richard G Leggett

Vancouver School of Theology

Vancouver, British Columbia

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