This book - Centro de Estudos Anglicanos

CHANGING TIMES 147Anglicanism viewed his election as an important step toward greater opennessand inclusiveness, that would benefit all members of the Episcopal Church. 57 Butboth Archbishop Williams and Bishop Griswold had to work strenuously in thedays that followed to prevent a major schism.TRADITIONALIST RESURGENCEIn the wake of the many changes and upheavals that occurred in the late twentiethcentury, the Episcopal Church became almost as fractured as American societyat large, with numerous conservative groups forming to counter what theyperceived to be the prevailing liberal tendencies of their denominational leadership.While many Americans undoubtedly joined the Episcopal Church becauseof its relative openness to contemporary attitudes and ideas, even more peoplebecame disenchanted with it because they were offended by the progressive socialand theological positions it adopted after the mid-1960s. As one particularly acerbiccritic complained, the motto of the modern Episcopal Church had essentiallybecome “trendier than thou.” 58The first major traditionalist organization to be formed during this period wasthe Society for the Preservation of the Book of Common Prayer (now known asthe Prayer Book Society of the Episcopal Church). As its name suggests, thissociety was founded to impede the attempts of Episcopalians to revise the Bookof Common Prayer. Although the original American Prayer Book of 1789 hadundergone minor revisions in 1892 and 1928, liturgical scholars recognized asearly as the 1940s that more thorough changes were going to be needed. Theybelieved that the 1928 prayer book was no longer adequate for the modern church:its archaic sixteenth-century language confused more people than it compelled,and emphases in many of its services and prayers did not reflect either contemporaryChristian theology or the ideas of the twentieth-century liturgical movement.Between 1967 (when the General Convention approved an updatedeucharistic rite for trial use) and 1979 (when the new edition of the Book ofCommon Prayer was officially adopted), parishes in the Episcopal Church experiencedmuch liturgical experimentation and—in some cases—heatedcontroversy. 59Although many Episcopalians were pleased with the revisions that were introducedin the late 1960s, others objected strenuously to changes that occurred bothin the order and in the language of their familiar Sunday morning services. Justas the shift from Latin to contemporary English had shocked American Catholicsafter Vatican II, so the use of contemporary rather than Elizabethan English inworship profoundly troubled Episcopalians. As one church member remarked,“now we are asked to speak to God in the same impertinent inflections we usewith . . . our telephone operators.” That fact, he complained, was not only offensivein itself but also indicative of an “effort to weaken the faith.” 60 Resentmentagainst the ongoing revision of the 1928 prayer book inspired a group of Episcopaliansto gather in May 1971 on the campus of the University of the South,