'Chastened devotion': Prayer Book piety, Remembrance Sunday, and our fractured times

They seemed to him to be in an entirely different tone from any of the prayers of the Church of England. They were, in his opinion, far too political, far too polemical, for too epigrammatical. They had nothing, as it seemed to him, of that chastened devotion which the Liturgy of the Church of England had derived in the earliest times of the Christian Church.

Words from the then Bishop of Oxford's speech in the 1858 House of Lords debate on 'Political Services of the Church of England' - that is, the 1662 state services - may seem like an odd place to begin to reflect on the place of Remembrance Sunday services in Anglican piety. 

The Bishop's critique of the state services, however, does have relevance. Consider some of the language used in those services:

cruel and bloody men ... violent and blood-thirsty men ... sons of Belial (30th January); 

ungodly and cruel men ... deceitful and wicked men (29th May); 

Popish treachery ... hellish malice of Popish conspirators (5th November).

Such was not the language that would bind up the wounds of a divided kingdom, a kingdom which - as Charles II and his wise Chancellor Clarendon knew all too well - included a significant proportion of subjects who had fought for the Parliament in the late wars and in which the King's wife was a Roman Catholic. By the time of the post-1688 'Rage of Party', these commemorations became sources of faction, variously deployed by Whig and Tory clerics for partisan and sectarian ends. In the late 18th century they seemed antiquated, firstly in the midst of Georgian constitutional stability and then in the face of the dangers posed Revolutionary France. This sense only intensified after the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts and the enactment of the Roman Catholic Relief Act. It was then the case that such language recalled old hatreds quite out of place in the peaceable constitutional order embracing the Victoria's Roman Catholic and Nonconformist subjects.

By contrast, the language of the Prayer Book was that of - as the Bishop of Oxford said in the 1858 debate - "chastened devotion", not fiery controversy: 

the author of peace and lover of concord ... may pass our time in rest and quietness ... to inspire continually the universal Church with the spirit of truth, unity, and concord ... Take away all hatred and prejudice ...

It is such "chastened devotion" of the Prayer Book - neither partisan nor triumphalist, but cautious and reserved before Almighty God - that has shaped what has become a fixed part of Anglican piety in many places: the Act of Remembrance. At its heart are the words of Binyon:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: 

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

As Sir Roger Scruton said, here we see "the influence of Cranmer on Laurence Binyon". This explains why the verse from 'For the Fallen' "now occupies a more or less official place in the Anglican liturgy":

having supplied a need that could not be met by the Prayer Book - the need to face up to a slaughter so vast and so senseless, that even the Civil Wars had provided an intelligible precedent.

It stands radically apart from the partisan and divisive phrases of the state services. Rather, here is "chastened devotion", making no divisive claims before or upon God Almighty. It is quiet, modest remembrance of the Fallen. Scruton described how Binyon's words were heard in his local parish church:

Those words are spoken every Remembrance Sunday in Garsdon Church, as we stand to face the plaque on which the names of the fallen are written - names of farming families round about. They are words with the same simple and incontrovertible nature as the words chosen by Cranmer: words that do not merely bear repetition but that are made to be repeated ...

Scruton demonstrates why the Act of Remembrance, with Binyon's lines, has become embedded in Anglican piety: it flows from, echoes, and coheres with the Prayer Book's modest, reserved piety. The Act of Remembrance is not partisan, sectarian, or polemical. It carries no judgements about the conflicts. No nationalistic pronouncements are made. No assumptions are made about divine sanction providing victory. It remembers the Fallen with the understated dignity of Prayer Book piety.

This is also seen in the sparse character of the National Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph: silence, Last Post, collect, 'O God, our help in ages past', Lord's Prayer, blessing, National Anthem. 

Something of this ethos has been captured by a Royal Mail stamp issued for Remembrancetide (see below). The parish church; a cross of remembrance; heads respectfully bowed; a poppy wreath, speaking of Flanders' fields. Dignified, but no - to use words from Cranmer - "excessive multitude of Ceremonies". And no "excessive multitude" of words. 

Chastened devotion.

Scruton's account of how modest, reserved Prayer Book piety has shaped Remembrance Sunday also points to why this ethos of Remembrance has renewed significance. There are loud, garish, self-indulgent alternatives, whether defined by nationalistic zeal, or by a fevered civilisational and national self-loathing. Both are entirely lacking in the modesty, reserve, and understated dignity of Binyon's words, bringing us to fall silent before the memory of loss and sacrifice. 

Recently, Sir John Rutter suggested the cultural significance of BBC 3's Choral Evensong broadcast in an article entitled 'Choral Evensong is a beacon of hope in our disordered society':

I cherish the institution of Choral Evensong in itself, and I applaud the BBC for maintaining this strand of its output in a hectic, disordered and largely secular and multi-faith society. 

The same can be said of the Act of Remembrance, shaped by Prayer Book piety. There are, of course, some Anglicans and other Christians haughtily dismissive of cultural presence: it is not, we are told, 'real Gospel'. Whether from the ecclesial Left or Right, they seek something 'sharper', more 'prophetic'. There is, however, little, if anything, 'prophetic' about being merely an echo of other harsh, sectarian culture war voices. What is different is offering the modesty, reserve, and understated dignity of Prayer Book piety at a solemn, profound moment of national remembrance of immense loss and sacrifice. This calls us to hear sparse words and then be silent before the One who is our Creator and Redeemer, not to flaunt whatever great insights or edgy takes we might claim, not to indulge in emotional outbursts, whether of nationalistic bombast or the latest fashionably progressive anti-imperialist cause. 

Our disordered, fractured times need the chastened devotion of the Act of Remembrance.