Worship by Faith Alone: Thomas Cranmer, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Reformation of Liturgy

In every age, the church must consider what it means to gather together to worship God. If the church is primarily the people who follow the risen Christ, then its worship should be gospel-centered. But where might the church find an example of such worship for today? In this Dynamics of Christian Worship volume, scholar, worship leader, and songwriter Zac Hicks contends that such a focus can be found in the theology of worship presented by Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury during the English Reformation. Hicks argues that Cranmer’s reformation of the church’s worship and liturgy was shaped primarily by the Protestant principle of justification by faith alone as reflected in his 1552 edition of the Book of Common Prayer, which was later codified under Elizabeth I and has guided Anglican worship for centuries. Here, we find a model of gospel-centered worship through which the church of today might be reformed yet again. The Dynamics of Christian Worship series draws from a wide range of worshiping contexts and denominational backgrounds to unpack the many dynamics of Christian worship-including prayer, reading the Bible, preaching, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, music, visual art, architecture, and more-to deepen both the theology and practice of Christian worship for the life of the church.