laudable Practice

Though we have already either in the Morning Prayer, or Litany, or both, prayed for the King's Majesty, yet the Communion being an office distinct from them, and originally performed at a different hour, it was proper that a prayer for the King should be inserted here likewise, and the Church has for the sake of variety provided us with two Collects, either of which may be used. With these words John Shepherd - in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume II (1801) - turns to another distinctive provision in BCP 1662, the praying of the Collect for the King before the Collect of the Day. He notes how both of the Collects provided include petitions for the Sovereign's duty "to defend in the exercise of true religion": In these Collects the subject of petition is nearly the same; but this distinction may be observed, that in the latter we pray exclusively for the King, while in the former we pray both for King and people, that is, fo...

The words that define our age reek of menace: conspiracy, polarization, mass shootings, trauma, safe spaces. We’re enmeshed in some sort of emotional, relational, and spiritual crisis, and it undergirds our political dysfunction and the general crisis of our democracy. These words by David Brooks are very appropriate reading for today, Accession Day. Brooks is, of course, referring to the United States: the article is entitled ' How America Got Mean '. For those of us in the realms of King Charles III, however, his words will also resonate. "The words that define our age reek of menace". While a report by the think-tank British Future and the pressure group Labour Together has stated that "we do not have culture wars in Britain", it accepted that "we do have culture clashes ... To those who live here, Britain feels more divided than it should be". Some of us might think that this is rather too optimistic. 'Culture clashes' in the UK have...

On 9th December 1775, Crown forces engaged Patriot troops in the Battle of Great Bridge. It was the first engagement of the Revolutionary War in Virginia. Only weeks later, on 1st January, the Royal Navy bombarded Norfolk, Virginia, with British landing parties being confronted by Patriot militia. The confrontation resulted in the town being burnt to the ground. On the eve of the shelling of Norfolk, and ending the tumultuous year of 1775, David Griffith - then rector of  Shelburne Parish in Loudoun County, northern Virginia - entered the pulpit of Bruton Parish Church, Williamsburg.  Griffith had previously publicly indicated his support for the Patriot cause. Now from the pulpit, amidst the realities of armed conflict and political confrontation, preached on a scriptural text at the heart of Anglican political theology, and often invoked by Loyalist clergy, Romans 13:1&2:  The powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth ...

In the week of 4th July last year, laudable Practice considered how English, Irish, and Loyalist Anglicans responded to the 'American War' , perceiving it as an unjust rebellion against the liberal constitutional order secured by the Revolution of 1688. This year, in the week leading up to 4th July, we turn to those colonial Anglicans who sided with the Patriots. Their understanding of the Revolutionary War was encapsulated in a resolution of the Maryland Provincial Convention on 25th May 1776 : Whereas his Britannic majesty King George has prosecuted, and still prosecutes, a cruel and unjust war against the British Colonies in America, and has acceded to acts of parliament, declaring the people of the said colonies in actual rebellion: and whereas the good people of this province have taken up arms to defend their rights and liberties, and to repel the hostilities carrying on against them ... As the resolution continued, it demonstrated how it had a particular relevance for A...