Why I do not cross myself

A recent Tweet by an Episcopalian expressing regret that some members of their congregation did not cross themselves led to a number of comments from other Episcopalians sharing this regret, suggesting that refusal to make the sign of the Cross was an unfortunate, lamentable left-over of a low church, Protestant Episcopalian culture. I admit that the Tweet and subsequent comments did immediately bring to mind Trollope's words concerning Archdeacon Grantly (a sound High Churchman): "He certainly was not prepared to cross himself". 

The Twitter exchange, however, did lead me to consider the theological, liturgical, and devotional case for not making the sign of the Cross. To be very clear at the outset, this is not an argument against Anglicans crossing themselves. We should heed the wisdom of C.S. Lewis:

One meets people who are perturbed because someone in the next pew does, or does not, cross himself. They oughtn't even to have seen, let alone censured. "Who art thou that judgest Another’s servant?"

This post is, however, an attempt to offer a rationale for those of us Anglican who do not cross ourselves, a rationale that does not condemn those who do cross themselves but which seeks to give a coherent case for those who do not, a case that cannot be dismissed as either sectarianism or unitarianism.

'Quiet Discipline': the Prayer Book's ceremonies

The ceremonies retained in the Book of Common Prayer were, Cranmer declared, a "quiet Discipline", in contrast to the "great excess and multitude of them" in the pre-Reformation liturgy. The Prayer Book's small number of ceremonies serve "a decent Order and godly Discipline": the surplice, kneeling to receive the holy Sacrament, the Cross at Baptism, the ring at Matrimony. Or, as Henry Leslie, Bishop of Down and Connor, said in a 1636 sermon:

Now the Ceremonies enjoined by our Church, have all these conditions. For number, they are few, as ever was in any Church; for observation, easy; for signification, worthy; for quality, grave, decent and comely; for antiquity, reverend; The worship of God is not placed in them, neither are they pressed upon the consciences of people, as things in themselves necessary, like the Commandments of God: we ascribe no merit, remission of sins, nor other spiritual effects unto them.

Those of us who do not cross ourselves regard the Prayer Book's modest ceremonies as sufficient. They do what ceremonies should do: they edify without making claims to spiritual efficacy, they provide what Cranmer termed a "common order" without obscuring the truth that "Christ's Gospel is not a ceremonial law". And they do not require of the soul more than a charitable acceptance of that "common order".  As Jeremy Taylor states:

Ceremonies and rituals and gestures and manners of doing outward actions cannot be made to be any thing but obedience: they are neither fitted by God, as Counsels Evangelical are, nor yet by nature, as the outward actions of virtue are, to become religion; nay they are separated from being religion by the word of God, by the coming of Christ, by his death upon the Cross ... and external observances are now both by God and by nature remov'd far from being anything of the Christian, that is, of the Spiritual religion.

I do not use the sign of the Cross in the liturgy because I desire to abide in the modest, wise, unfussy "common order" of the Prayer Book's ceremonies. It is not so much a rejection of a particular ceremonial gesture as it is gratitude for a "quiet Discipline".

'Honourable Badge': the Sign of the Cross at Holy Baptism

The sign of the Cross is by this Office appointed to be used in Baptism according to the ancient and laudable custom of the Church.

So says a rubric in 'The Ministration of Publick Baptism of Infants' in the Church of Ireland BCP 1926, echoing Canon XXX of the 1604 Canons: "The Church of England hath retained still the Sign of it in Baptism". This can prompt the question, should such use of the Sign of the Cross in the Sacrament of Baptism not encourage making the sign of the Cross during the liturgy and devotions?

The Sign of the Cross in Holy Baptism, while it "doth neither add any thing to the Vertue or Perfection of Baptism", has a particular purpose for the beginning of the Christian life:

following therein the Primitive and Apostolical Churches, and accounting it a lawful outward Ceremony and honourable Badge, whereby the Infant is dedicated to the Service of him that died upon the Cross, as by the words used in the Book of Common Prayer it may appear.

Being signed with the Cross at Baptism is to have this "honourable Badge" bestowed in the immediate aftermath of being sacramentally received "into the Congregation of Christ's flock". The "badge" has been given; we are thus solemnly marked. To repeat this many times over one's life can obscure the solemnity and meaning of it being bestowed once, in the Sacrament "that representeth unto us our profession" ('The Ministration of Baptism to such as are of Riper Years'). As Hooker states, retaining the Sign of the Cross at Baptism is "the meane which is vertue" (LEP V.65.20). In other words, I do not cross myself precisely because I have solemnly received the Sign of the Cross at Holy Baptism.

'Orderly reading': inhabiting the liturgy

For both Hooker and Taylor, the reading of Common Prayer has particular significance. Hooker, challenging his opponents and their exaltation of preaching, asked "is not reading the ordinance of God?" (LEP V.22.13).  Reading the service he regarded to be a key strength of Common Prayer: "The book requireth but orderly reading" (V.31.3).  And he therefore defended the ordination of presbyters who lacked the ability to preach because this ensured that they could "serve to performe the service of publique prayer" (V.81.5).

Taylor similarly emphasised that reading the liturgy was a habit derived from and shared with our approach to the Scriptures:

But yet the Holy Ghost is the Authour of our faith, and we believe with the Spirit, (it is Saint Paul's expression) and yet our belief comes by hearing, and reading the holy Scriptures, and their interpretations. Now reconcile these two together, Faith comes by hearing, and yet is the gift of the Spirit, and it saies that the gifts of the Spirit are not extasies, and immediate infusions of habits, but helps from God, to enable us upon the use of the meanes of his owne appointment, to believe, to speake, to understand, to prophesie, and to pray ...  why should the spirit of prayer be any other than as the gift and spirit of faith (as Saint Paul calls it) acquired by humane meanes, using divine aides? that is, by our endeavours in hearing, reading, catechizing, desires to obey, and all this blessed and promoted by God, this produces faith.

Reading and hearing: this is how I inhabit the liturgy, how I am drawn by it in heart and soul into prayer. When the Absolution is pronounced, when the Blessing is said, I read and hear: thus do I receive the assurance of God's forgiveness, the assurance of God's abiding. I need no action to accompany this beyond kneeling, the posture which I have already assumed for public prayer. 

To cross myself at a particular point in the Absolution or the Blessing detracts from my reading and hearing, and also seems to inevitably emphasise particular words over the whole. The same principle applies to the many crossings which can be encouraged, for example, at the end of the Creed and Gloria, at the Words of Institution, at the Gospel canticles (which, it might be gently suggested, sits oddly in Cranmerian Morning and Evening Prayer, which have alternatives to the Gospel canticles, and in which the Gospel canticles performing a different function than in the Roman office), and at the Grace concluding Morning and Evening Prayer. Not crossing myself at these points in the liturgy is not to somehow fail to recognise their liturgical importance. It is, rather, a way to quietly, attentively inhabit the liturgy and, by doing so, to discern the liturgical significance of particular moments in Common Prayer.

Let me again reiterate that this is not an argument against Anglicans crossing themselves. Hopefully, however, it does represent something of a coherent account of why Anglicans need not cross themselves. The "quiet discipline" of the Prayer Book's ceremonies, the solemnity with which we are marked with the Sign of the Cross at Holy Baptism, and the reading and hearing by which we inhabit the liturgy: these provide a rich, meaningful theological, liturgical, and devotional context in which I find crossing myself to be an unnecessary and unhelpful gesture. 

It may be regarded by others as a 'low church' stance, but I think a good case can be made that it flows from a traditionally high church understanding of the Prayer Book's ceremonies, of the Sacrament of Baptism, and of the workings of Common Prayer. This might, of course, confirm that Old High is indeed - as I have previously suggested - the 'New Low'. Irrespective of how it is described, my hope is that this post may aid an understanding that those of us Anglicans who do not cross ourselves are motivated neither by sectarianism nor unitarianism, but by a reverence for Common Prayer.