Sure and Certain Hope: Death and Burial in the Book of Common Prayer

The celebration of the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer has helped to stimulate a renewed interest in its teaching and fundamental contribution to Anglican identity. Archbishop Cranmer and others involved in the English Reformation knew well that the content and shape of the services and doctrine set out in the Prayer Book were vital ways of teaching congregations biblical truth and the principles of the Christian gospel. Examining how a society views its dead is an important way of viewing how that society negotiates social and religious change and development. This work examines the impact of the Reformation on traditional medieval views of the dead and how the Book of Common Prayer encapsulates these developments, offering the Anglican Evangelical minster today a robustly biblical and Protestant platform for pastoral care and teaching.