This article is taken from PN Review 13, Volume 6 Number 5, May - June 1980.
Dame Helen Gardner
The Church of England is still by law the established Church of the country and there seems at present no desire to alter its status. It is, therefore, unique among the churches of the country in its responsibility for the nation's historic religious inheritance. It possesses as a treasure for the whole nation its wonderful parish churches which have, in addition to their architectural and historical interest, a deep religious significance in their witness to the faith and piety of generations, reminding those who worship in them of the union of the dead and the living in Christ. The Book of Common Prayer and the Authorised Version of the Bible are equally treasures of the English people. For four hundred years their language has been a part of common speech, as well as an inspiration to poets and writers, often used by many who are unaware that it is to the Bible and Prayer Book that they owe familiar and pungent sayings. Their use in worship, like the use of music, makes of public worship, as distinct from private prayer, an offering of beauty to the Creator of all beauty. While welcoming the provision of alternative services, and recognising that in some places (e.g. the Pauline epistles) the Authorised Version is obscure, I regard with dismay the tendency to abandon the Prayer Book and the Authorised Version and to make the new services the only available services and the New English Bible the only version of the Bible that congregations will hear read. Neither the services nor the New English Bible show sensitivity to the idioms and rhythms of English prose. The services are an uneasy compromise between formal and informal language and show little feeling for the distinction between what can be said by an individual and what can be said in unison. The language of the New English Bible is unmemorable, to put it mildly, and often seems to embrace change of vocabulary and sentence structure for its own sake. It is painful to hear its version of well known texts, which is often no clearer but infinitely flatter than the version in the Authorised Version. I cannot believe that it will inspire musicians as a text to set to music, as the Authorised Version and the Coverdale Psalter have inspired musicians for four hundred years. I write not as a professional teacher of English Literature but as a member of the Church of England who believes that to allow these treasures of the Church to fall into desuetude in its public worship is to impoverish the religious sensibility of future generations.
-HELEN GARDNER
-HELEN GARDNER
This article is taken from PN Review 13, Volume 6 Number 5, May - June 1980.
