A guy at St. Mark's subscribes to the journal "Anglican and Episcopal History", and he gives his copies to the church when he's through with them. So naturally I have taken to reading them, and let me tell you there is some great stuff in this journal. Recently I read an article by Alan Hayes, a professor of church history at Wycliffe College in Toronto, Ontario about tradition in the Anglican liturgical movement (1945-1989). The article traces how the importance of "tradition" developed and became more and more pronounced as time went on in the Anglican liturgical movement. The fruit of all those years of study of liturgy and "tradition" was the radical liturgical changes of the 70's and 80's. But then he goes on to say that confidence in the "tradition" rediscovered by liturgiologists began to erode, as the postmodern/post-liberal understanding of history shows these "liturgical discoveries" to be constructs that reflect more the current state and mind of the church rather than revealing anything "real" about the liturgies of the past. He also argues that the interest in the "inculturation" of the liturgy has helped people see that there is more to liturgy than what "happened" in the Mediterranean in the first four centuries. He talks at length about "lex orandi, lex credendi" and the problems associated with that in this sort of horizon. But I can't say anything about that now for lack of space. In the end, the liturgical archaeologists/scientists succeeded in re-creating Anglicanism based on their faulty and biased presuppositions and research.
When I studied this stuff in seminary (and when I read about it now) - the "Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus", etc. - I always was suspicious of it. How does one take a snippet from one ancient writer and form a whole new liturgy around it? And just because something was done centuries ago in the ancient church doesn't mean that it is right or wise to adopt that practice today. The liturgical movement, like the ecumenical movement, has been nothing but a spectacular failure in my opinion. If people would just leave the liturgy alone and let it organically change and develop like it always has everything would be so much better in the church and in the world.
