Roll Over,

Earlier this year, three directors of the Society for the Preservation of the Book of Common Prayer filed suit against the Society, seeking access to its list of contributors. Their purpose was to write to the contributors in order to clear up what they considered to be deceptions in the fundraising solicitations, and to tell the contributors why they thought the funds raised by the Society—a million and a half dollars in 1982 and 1983 —had been badly spent, if not wasted. Where this will end is not yet known. The story begins in 1972.

Twelve years ago, the Society for the Preservation of the Book of Common Prayer (known for years by its familiar, if unwieldy, initials, SPBCP) was founded to do battle with Episcopal Church bureaucrats and tin-eared clerics. The goal was to prevent the adoption of a new, newspeak prayer book, and to preserve the “traditional,” historic 1928 version—a version that was, despite a number of revisions, largely unchanged from the time of Thomas Cranmer, its author. The Episcopal Church has no statement of beliefs, no written doctrine, other than the text of its Prayer Book. What you read, and say, is what you believe.

TC

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Thomas Cranmer

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Earlier this year, three directors of the Society for the Preservation of the Book of Common Prayer filed suit against the Society, seeking access to its list of contributors. Their purpose was to write to the contributors in order to clear up what they considered to be deceptions in the fundraising solicitations, and to tell the contributors why they thought the funds raised by the Society—a million and a half dollars in 1982 and 1983 —had been badly spent, if not wasted. Where this will end is not yet known. The story begins in 1972.

Twelve years ago, the Society for the Preservation of the Book of Common Prayer (known for years by its familiar, if unwieldy, initials, SPBCP) was founded to do battle with Episcopal Church bureaucrats and tin-eared clerics. The goal was to prevent the adoption of a new, newspeak prayer book, and to preserve the “traditional,” historic 1928 version—a version that was, despite a number of revisions, largely unchanged from the time of Thomas Cranmer, its author. The Episcopal Church has no statement of beliefs, no written doctrine, other than the text of its Prayer Book. What you read, and say, is what you believe.