Eve of Gloriana Day: why a certain nostalgia for the Elizabethan parish church can be a good thing

It is the eve of Gloriana Day, the discreet commemoration of the birthday of Elizabeth I (7th September, marked by the obscure St. Evurtius) introduced to the BCP Kalendar in 1604. As such, it is a day to rejoice in and give thanks for the Elizabethan Settlement, the Reformed Catholic order of Elizabeth's Church: its episcopally-ordered ministry, the decent rites of the 1559 Prayer Book, the modestly Augustinian Articles of Religion, and the quiet, sober dignity of the Elizabethan parish church.

And it is to that quiet, sober dignity of the Elizabethan parish church that our thoughts turn on this eve of Gloriana Day, aided by a sermon by of one the pillars of the Elizabethan Settlement, John Jewel, preached in the presence of the Queen. In the sermon, Jewel referred to David's joy in the return of the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem:

Therefore when the Tabernacle was restored; when the Arke was fet home from Obed-edom, and set in the mount Sion; when religion Revived, which through the negligence and malice of Saul was forsaken; when he saw his Nobilitie, his Bishops, his Priests, & all his people willing & forward, he could not refraine himselfe, but brake out and sang, This is the day which the Lord hath made, let us be glad and rejoyce in it: Let us be merry, and joy, that ever we lived to see it. 

Here, of course, Jewel was quite deliberately echoing the joy of Elizabeth's accession. As if to ensure that the comparison was not lost, Jewel explicitly proclaimed the significance of the accession:

Your Grace, when God sent you to your inheritance & the right of this Realme, found the Church in horrible confusion: & in respect of the true worship of God a Church of brick; or rather, as Ezechiel saith, daubed up with unseasoned morter.

With the Elizabethan Settlement, the English Church became like unto the faithful of Israel before the Tabernacle and in the Temple:

therein stood the shew & worthinesse of that holy place, that Gods truth and law was opened and proclaimed in it; and the Sacraments & ceremonies so used, in such forme & order, as God had commanded them to be used, and the people receaved them obediently, & lived thereafter.

It was this which was given expression in the quiet, sober dignity of the Elizabethan parish church: 

Therefore have we Temples & Churches, places to resort unto all together; to honour, to worship, and to acknowledge him to be our God; to joyne our hearts and voices together, and to call upon his holy name. In such places God hath at all times used to open his Majestie, and to shew his power; In such places God hath made us a speciall promise to heare our praiers, whensoever wee call upon him: Therefore are they called the dwelling place and house of God; In such places all godly men set their greatest pleasure; & thought themselves miserable, when they were secluded or put off from the same.

We might regard Jewel at this point as partly echoing 'An Homily for repairing and keeping clean, and Comely adorning of churches': 

when Gods house the Church is well adorned, with places conuenient to sit in, with the Pulpit for the preacher, with the Lords table, for the ministration of his holy supper, with the Font to Christen in, and also is kept cleane, comely, and sweetly, the people are more desirous, and the more comforted to resort thither, and to tarry there the whole time appointed them.

Such were parish churches fit for the decent rites of the Prayer Book, for divine service, for sermons expounding the Scriptures, for the sacraments of a Reformed Catholic church.

The plain simplicity of the Elizabethan parish church - white-washed walls, images removed, a wood Table in place of a stone altar, the parson in surplice, not vestments, the 1559 Communion Office replacing the Latin Mass - will not be to the taste of many contemporary Anglicans. Such bracing plainness and simplicity, however, was required for a stripping away of what the Church of Ireland's 1870 Declaration describes as "all those innovations in doctrine and worship, whereby the Primitive Faith hath been from time to time defaced or overlaid". It was required in order for what would become Anglicanism to receive from and to be shaped by a rich, vibrant Reformed Catholic inheritance. 

This being so, amidst a certain odd nostalgia amongst some Anglicans for the pre-Reformation English parish church as described by Eamon Duffy's The Stripping of the Altars, we need to hear Jewel's robust critique of the unreformed parish church:

The Gospell of Christ is the fountaine of light and of knowledge: It cannot be maintained by ignorance and darknesse; these be the props of their kingdome, which take away the Scriptures; which hold the people in blindnesse; which fly the light; which have their Common-prayers, administer the Sacraments, marry, bury their dead in a strange tongue, that the people may understand nothing; which make a famine of hearing the word of God; which stop up the springs of the water of life; which take away the keyes of the kingdome of heaven ... which say, ignorance is the mother of devotion; and the Church is then in best order, and the people most devout, when they are hood-winkt, and blinded, & see nothing.

We ourselves would not, of course, desire to use such uncharitable language, hurting our brothers and sisters in Christ and damaging cherished ecumenical relationships. That said, Jewel's words are a perhaps necessary rejoinder to a nostalgia for the pre-Reformation parish church, encouraged by Duffy's famous work. 

Critics of this post might respond by suggesting that in place of nostalgia for the pre-Reformation parish church, I am encouraging nostalgia for the Elizabethan parish church. And, indeed, I am, for nostalgia is not necessarily to be avoided; it is not always a negative pursuit. As  Andrew Rumsey - author of Parish: An Anglican Theology of Place - has stated:

Contemporary nostalgia ... is not ridiculous, nor is it bound to become morbid and dysfunctional: indeed, at times of accelerated change, a little "living in the past" can be a vital means of regaining one’s bearings, as well as consoling and creative.

A certain nostalgia for the Elizabethan parish church can be a means of Anglicans regaining our bearings, helping us to encounter afresh the essentials of the Elizabethan Settlement, the foundations of what would become known as Anglicanism (national episcopal churches, Prayer Book liturgy, modestly Reformed  Articles of Religion). Such nostalgia can be creative, drawing us to engage with the riches of Reformed Catholic theology. And, yes, I would also unapologetically contend that it is consoling, for in a culture constantly bombarded by the visual, colours, and imagery, the quiet, sober dignity of the Elizabethan parish church could be a place of refreshment and renewal through a stripping away of the constant distractions.

As we give rejoice on Gloriana Day, therefore, let us particularly give thanks for that quiet, sober dignity of the Elizabethan parish church; decently ordered for the rites and ceremonies on a reformed liturgy; a fitting context for the faithful proclamation of the Word and the due administration of the Sacraments; a house of prayer in which to "assemble and meet together to render thanks for the great benefits that we have received at his hands, to set forth his most worthy praise, to hear his most holy Word". 

May such nostalgia for the Elizabethan parish church draw us to heed the words of Jewel's sermon:

Let us continue rooted and built in Christ, and stablished in the faith: let us have care for the house of God.