Towards an Anglican Eucharistic Ecclesiology, with special reference to Common Worship Eucharistic Prayer B

Abstract

Through a semiotic analysis of Common Worship eucharistic Prayer B, this thesis illustrates how the Eucharist shapes the Church’s participation in the life of God in its relation with the rest of creation. In doing so it argues for and displays the complementarity of Anglican Evangelical and Anglican Catholic approaches to eucharistic theology.
This thesis begins by highlighting the hallmarks of Anglican ecclesiology and the emphases of Anglican Evangelical and Anglican Catholic eucharistic theologies. It then offers an analysis of the development of the Church of England’s eucharistic liturgies, arguing that Anglicanism’s moderate approach to the eucharistic use of language permits a multi-layered interpretation of the sacramental bread and wine.
Using Daniel Hardy’s insights as the theological framework for the analysis of eucharistic Prayer B, this thesis suggests that Anglicanism’s multi-layered eucharistic use of language occurs in the context of the transformation of language through worship as an instance of ‘abductive’ reasoning. Worship ‘moves’ language beyond its capacity to categorise, instead enabling it to become a means of drawing together the fragmented ‘extensity’ of the things of creation into the unitive ‘intensity’ of their creaturely relation to God. In facilitating such a relationship with creatures, language enables the Church’s participation in the life of God in its relation with the rest of creation.
The semiotics of John Deely provides the technical framework for the analysis of eucharistic Prayer B. The latter illustrates how the Eucharist can be understood as a focal instance of participating in the life of God, interpreting the prayer as the ‘interpretant’ with respect to which creatures become ‘sign-vehicles’ of their Creator, with whom they are caught up in covenantal relation. The thesis ends by locating this approach to the Eucharist within Anglican eucharistic theology and highlighting its impact on the mission of the Anglican Communion.

Date of Award	2016
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	King's College London
Supervisor	Susannah Ticciati (Supervisor) & Oliver Davies (Supervisor)