Book Review: Anglican Spirituality: An Introduction by Greg Peters
Greg Peters, Anglican Spirituality: An Introduction. Cascade Book, 2024. 108 pp.
For many of us, the look and feel of being Anglican is as attractive as anything else it has to offer. Prayer Book spirituality is marked by modesty and calm, and methodical ways of speaking and thinking. There is a commitment to a discipline and practice that goes beyond merely feeling great things for God as often as possible through any means necessary. In short, there’s a plan. This plan consists of the Book of Common Prayer, the Bible, and its supports. The ethos is hard to describe but inspiring to witness. This Anglican spirituality is what Greg Peters seeks to introduce readers to in his new book, Anglican Spirituality: An Introduction.
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At only 108 pages, the work aims to provide a very concise overview of the major points. In it, Peters adapts his lectures given at the Reformed Episcopal Church (REC) diocesan synod, so each chapter is easily readable in one sitting, if not the whole book.
Peters sets out to explain and apply what he calls the “Threefold Vision of Anglican Spirituality.” The idea is that the Daily Office, the Holy Eucharist, and the personal devotions form this three-part way of life for every Anglican Christian. It draws on the now-standard idea of the Threefold Regula, popularized by Martin Thornton, but tracing back, supposedly, to Michael Ramsey’s “Benedictine Triangle” and other articulations in the last century or so.
The Threefold Vision
I must confess that I regularly skip introductions after a brief skim, but I do not recommend doing so with this book. After all, it is technically chapter 1, as well. After a brief definition of Anglicanism and spirituality, one of the most helpful pieces of the book comes in Peters’ articulation of the “balance” in Anglicanism. He lists three such dialectics:
- Anglicanism is subjective and objective. God calls, God acts in the sacraments, and God speaks in Scripture. This is the objective truth. Yet we are to respond in faith, to obey, and to receive all God offers. We should be filled with joy and affection toward God. This is the subjective element. Neither cold formalism nor wholly interior emotionalism will do. The Anglican way has always articulated a balance for this “lively faith.”
- Anglicanism balances immanence and transcendence. Maintaining an appropriate view of God requires seeing him as set apart from his creation, completely unlike anything else: holy. Yet, it will also require us to see him as near and intimately involved in the world. Anglican spirituality has always tried to strike this balance. It resists a distant Deist view, as well as a too-familiar or heretical understanding of God’s work in the world. Anglicanism teaches both healthy reverence and a bold approach to worship.
- Anglicanism is individual and corporate. Sometimes the institution of the church is emphasized to the point that a mere association with it is taken as Christianity. At other times, personal faith is emphasized to the extent that the church is pushed aside altogether. Anglicanism is again concerned with striking a balance. The institution of the church as a body with ordained ministers, approved patterns of worship, and governing laws, is held together with personal faith and individual Christian responsibility.
A Comprehensive Spirituality
Chapter 2 establishes that fixed prayer times (e.g., morning and evening) constitute a biblical and historical pattern. It began with the Old Testament sacrifices and continued in the daily prayers of Acts 2; the early Christian Documents of the third and fourth centuries continued to preserve it. By the sixth century, the Benedictine order was established, and daily prayer took off. Peters argues that the Daily Office is monastic in origin and that this fact informs our understanding of Anglican spirituality. That is, comprehensive Bible reading was pursued for the purpose of godliness.
Because of this, the Daily Office is that piece of the threefold vision most concerned with the systematic and comprehensive intake of Scripture. At this point, I would quibble with Peters’ articulation of the doctrine of Illumination as related to Baptism specifically, but his main point is well-taken: that God instructs us in the Daily Office through the regular reading of his Word.
Ironically, I would have liked to hear more from Peters about the role of prayer in daily life. A passing word is said of our sacrifice of praise and the role of remembering the gospel and our conversion at each office. Nothing is said of the request for everything that we and our world need, nor of the Psalms. When you look at pure time spent, the Bible readings generally take less than a third of the Office. The psalms, praise, and prayers take up the rest. Although I agree that Scripture is the focus of the Office, rather than the Eucharist and personal devotion, the remainder of the Office still needs to be addressed if we are to be fully introduced to it.
The Goal of Holy Communion
Chapter 3 covers the Holy Eucharist, also called Communion or the Lord’s Supper. This chapter examines the key Anglican distinctives and summarizes them effectively. Peters lays out the Anglican belief that receiving the body and blood of Jesus in the holy Eucharist is central to participation in the life of Christ.
Thus, the holy Eucharist is the center of the life of the church, and it is that to wish the daily office prepares from which personal devotion flows.
With a particular view to the spirituality of it, Peters reminds us that the goal of communion is just that: unity with one another and God. It should stir us up to virtue and godly living. It also works invisibly to strengthen us and to give us grace, and as we receive that grace by faith, it transforms us. The theology of the Eucharist is summarized in the Prayer of Humble Access, a prayer of thanksgiving that acknowledges God’s mercy in giving us every spiritual blessing in Christ. Drawing on the poetry of George Herbert, Peters ends the chapter by laying out the various effects the Eucharist can have at the borders of our lives. It speaks of our need for humility, acknowledgment of sin, and transformation; our heavenly converse with God; and our incorporation into him.
The Inner Spiritual Life
Lastly, Chapter 4 deals with private devotion. At this point, the average reader may think of something like personal devotions at a coffee shop, where you listen to worship music, try to feel strongly about God, and journal. These private devotions are additional practices, prayers, and exercises that augment the corporate rule of life laid out. These include further study, soul care, fasting, giving alms, and other spiritual disciplines. The goal is the transformation of life that is in accord with the commandments of Christ and the vision of the Scriptures.
In short, to be Christians, Jesus’s followers are to attend to their inner spiritual lives through outward, physical actions.
These actions arise from the church’s corporate life. One striking comment says personal asceticism,
as an essential component of Spiritual growth, is the voluntary abstention from the lesser goods of this life (For a period of time or permanently) for the purpose of maintaining inner attentiveness to God and achieving union with God.
Anglican Spirituality in Action
In this final chapter, Peters begins to address a needed corrective for mission and evangelism. Building on the earlier chapters, he adopts a more instrumental view of the sacraments, treating them as effective in giving the grace that is incorporated and sustained in the life of faith. In this way, I think the catholic stream of Anglicanism tends toward the kind of formalism that Peters hopes to avoid.
Peters otherwise seems right in line with a long tradition of sacramental articulations. It takes an attentive pastor in this tradition to guide their people into active faith and away from checking the liturgical box each week. It is also important for clergy and parishioners in this tradition to know that “just doing the liturgy” is unlikely to grow the church. We need certain practices beyond the liturgy and personal devotion to actually be on mission.
This is what Peters is saying in chapter 5. The threefold vision of spirituality prepares us for mission. The liturgy sends us out each week as Eucharistic people to love our neighbor and to shine a light of godliness through good works that is attractive. Peters warns,
I think there is a way in which a person can be formed spiritually through the daily Office, Holy Eucharist, and personal devotion and not engage in mission.
Amen. We must be intentional about engaging in the mission outside the church’s services every day with our neighbors and families. Peters concludes by reemphasizing that our fundamental purpose is to make disciples through evangelism and edification.
When finished, the reader will have a good understanding of the basic shape of Anglican Spirituality as classically conceived through its monastic roots and the Book of Common Prayer. That intangible feel of being Anglican finds its roots in such things, and the Threefold Vision of Anglican Spirituality is a dependable way of growing into Christ.
Image: Anglican Spirituality: An Introduction, © 2024 Cascade Books.
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