Isn't confessing your "manifold sins and wickedness" a standard part

[Orangepeel]

of the Anglican liturgy?

I went to an Episcopal church for several years and it sounds really familiar. I think it was a regular part of the service (said during the part where one is kneeling, just before communion).

I'm just curious because the media seem to be making a big deal about Charles and Camilla having to "confess."

Maybe the issue is that they made it part of the wedding service and it usually isn't?

[enki23]

1. i don't doubt it. as a missouri synod lutheran...

i had to flap my gums along to the idea that i, a "poor miserable sinner, confess to you all my sins and iniquities..." on a regular basis in church as part of the liturgy.

i would be surprised if they didn't something along the lines of manifold wickednesses to confess as well. it went along with old, old school church liturgy.

[realisticphish]

15. hey

i've never met a missouri synod lutheran. i always though you guys were a bunch of whackos (i'm ELCA) ;). whats different about the missouri synod, i've never actually looked

[enki23]

16. i'm an atheist. i was raised a missouri sinner

we used the old-school lutheran liturgy (my church still used the old, old hymnal). other than that, we were more conservative than damned near any catholic you'll ever meet. that church was pretty much the pinnacle of theological christian conservatism. no fundamentalist claptrap, thank god, but none of their happy "saved" bullshit either.

the feel of the place was "catholics with a grudge." though i was taught to believe catholics were mostly headed to hell.

[realisticphish]

17. wow

my church is pretty non-political, but we do a lot of poverty assistance stuff, like operation feed and the salvation army.

sorry you had such a crappy experience

[KitchenWitch]

18. Question

Which branch of the Lutheran Church is more conservative? Wisconsin Synod or Missouri Synod?

[enki23]

19. depends on which branch you asked

they acted like it was a contest. to me, they sounded about the same.

[diplomats]

2. Yes, it's a version of the "General Confession"

We Episcopalians say it every week as part of the Eucharist. I thought it was silly of the media to make a big deal about it, too. This was a normal part of the service of Dedication, which is what they celebrated.

[Dem2theMax]

3. Yep. SOP, every week for Episcopalians.

I don't know if they still do it, but back in the 80's, the Episcopalian churches in England were still using the 1928 prayer book. It was wonderful to go to church there and go back in time to my youth.

[Fridays Child]

4. I grew up using the 1945 Book of Common Prayer and, word for word, it's...

...the standard confession, recited before receiving Holy Communion. The hay being made out of this by the press is also the standard--standard bullshit, that is.

[tjwmason]

13. We're not Episcopalians over here, and nothing so modern as 1928

It's jolly well Church of England and 1662 and don't you forget it. ;-)

It's very rare these days, especially for the principle service - though Evensong is still used a fair bit. Alternative liturgies were produced to sit alongside the B.C.P. (altering which would take an Act of Parliament), which strikes me a better than ECUSA which banned previous editions when the new book was brought in in 1979.

[UTUSN]

5. The Funny Part Was Their Response to the "Faithful" Part

Where the question was (something like), "Do you, Charles, swear/promise/something to forsake all others" or whatever the words were "be faithful"---and is what they both said part of the liturgical language? "I do so ------------WITH THE HELP OF GOD!"

Chucky said the words with seeming sponteneity and self-deprecating humor.

I only watched it for comic relief after P.T.S.D. over the past three weeks. Of all the celebrities out there, the royals are the most disposable for their parasitical anti-democracy, but after the media's non-stop harping about what a mess of mistakes this event was going to be, it went off (comparatively) simply and unpretentiously and (I grudgingly say) gracefully.

[yellowdogintexas]

6. For years that was a standard part of the Communion Liturgy

in the Methodist Church as well. I found I still know the entire confession by heart, after having heard/read it once a month for my entire life for 20 years. It was preceded by the open invitation that is part of the Communion Service in all Methodist churches..

That liturgy is still in the United Methodist Book of Worship but it is not often used ..and definitely not at my church which I find amusing since our services are quite "high church formal" in just about every other way. Our weekly Communion services use a much shorter and less formal confession phrase. I find myself wishing that once in a while we would use the old service as it has such rich language .

I have never seen this used as part of a wedding service in the Methodist church, just in Communion Services.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. Yes, I attended an Episcopal church in the 1970s before

the 1979 prayer book was introduced, and we said exactly that general confession every Sunday:

"Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, maker of all things, judge of all men: We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, Which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed, by thought, word and deed, Against thy Divine Majesty, Provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us. We do earnestly repent, And are heartily sorry for these our misdoings. The remembrance of them is grievous unto us; the burden of them is intolerable. Have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us, most merciful Father; for they Son our Lord Jesus Christ's sake, forgive us all that is past; and grant that we may ever hereafter serve and please thee in newness of life, to the honor and glory of thy name though Jesus Christ our Lord."

If they're going to send someone to report on a church service, they really ought to send someone who knows the standard routine and can tell which parts really are unusual.

This Confession was not.

[Merope215]

8. Wow

That's some really great language - very powerful, abject-sinner stuff. And even more intense than the Catholic counterpart, interestingly enough. Cool.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. Well the original Book of Common Prayer is roughly contemporary

with Shakespeare, and those Elizabethans had a way with words.

I don't know if this particular prayer was in that first version.

The most beautifully written contemporary Anglican services are in the New Zealand prayer book. Whoever edited that certainly had a feeling for language. (It's also fun to see the parts of it that are written in Maori.) I don't own one, but I know American Episcopalians who have bought a copy for their private devotions, and one couple I knew in Portland chose to use the New Zealand version of the marriage service.

[Merope215]

10. Interesting

I remember going to an Episcopalian church once in North Carolina, which was striking to me because the service was exactly the same as the Catholic ones I grew up going to, except that instead of praying of "John Paul, our Pope" they said "the Archibishop of Canterbury" instead. It was otherwise indistinguishable.

I do wish in some ways that they wouldn't modernize the church services, since the actual language is one of my favorite parts of the deal. Oh well. (By the way, did you go to grad school at Yale? I'm an undergrad in the College. :hi:)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. Yes, I did, but probably before you were born :-(

For the last couple of years, I attended Christ Church, across from the Co-op.

Otherwise, I lived in HGS for my first two years, and then on various third floors in the Orange-Whitney area.

[tjwmason]

14. There are loads of those here in England

In some of them they don't even bother to switch from praying for the Pope either.

I'm an arch-traditionalist when it comes to liturgics, I dislike the modern English used in both Roman Catholic and most Church of England services (I attend both frequently) and am far more happy with either traditional English or Latin.

[Orangepeel]

11. thanks for the comments, everyone

as I thought, and as usual, the media was creating a "story" out of nothing.