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The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography. By Alan Jacobs. Lives of Great Religious Books. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 2013. ix + 236 pp. $24.95 (cloth).
This book is about the history of the Book of Common Prayer, from the beginning of the English Reformation to the present. It leads readers through the changes, and resistance to change, that have been a part of the history of the prayer book since it was first published. Alan Jacobs asserts that the prayer book has dramatically influenced not only Christianity but also social and political issues across the worldwide Anglican Communion.
This book engagingly leads readers through both the British and global history of the Book of Common Prayer. According to Jacobs, the Book of Common Prayer was initially written by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer to unite Britain through common prayer, and to strengthen peoples biblical knowledge by implementing standardized liturgies weaving scriptural sentences with traditional English liturgical prayers and phrases. However, as history progresses, the idea of what constitutes "common" prayer of necessity evolved.
The Book...