2019 Book of Common Prayer

The formation of the Anglican Church of North America was one of the epic stories in Christianity of the first part of this millennium. Fighting a church with a stronger hold on its parishioners than its “church of the frozen” reputation would indicate and a propensity for litigation to keep its properties, historical and otherwise (an over USD40,000,000 propensity which isn’t done with,) creating a new Anglican province in North America out of the composite efforts of several orthodox provinces was no mean feat, but in 2009 it was done.

Now we have what every Anglican province should have but, up to now, the ACNA hasn’t: its own prayer book. The 2019 Prayer Book’s distance from the founding of ACNA says a great deal about how difficult the task really was. As was the case with the 1662 and 1928 books, Positive Infinity is please to offer this for download, and is glad that the ACNA has followed the tradition of the 1928 Book (at least, the situation with the 1662 one is a little more complicated) of making its release general from a rights standpoint.

The origin of the Church of England and Anglicanism is a messy business. The CoE went through several prayer books (to say nothing of ordeals like Queen Mary and Oliver Cromwell) before arriving at the 1662 book. It may not be universally accepted, but it’s an effort for which we should be grateful, even if we don’t agree with everything that’s contained therein.