The development of eucharistic liturgies in the Anglican church of Australia. Part 2: A case study in multiformity - 1995 to the present

This article examines the multiformity of eucharistic theology in the development of eucharistic liturgies in the Anglican Church of Australia from 1995 to the present. This article follows on from a previous article which examined the development of eucharistic liturgies in the Anglican Church of Australia up to 1995, the year in which the present Australian Anglican prayer book, A Prayer Book for Australia, was published. The article begins by reconsidering the multi form nature of Anglican eucharistic theology which varies between realist and nominalist philosophical assumptions and goes on to provide a detailed account of both the draft and final form of eucharistic liturgies in the 1995 A Prayer Book for Australia. The article provides extensive analysis of the eucharistic theology in this prayer book as well as comments on its development and goes on to consider some of the reactions to that book. The article concludes with a detailed examination of the published liturgical responses to A Prayer Book for Australia from two dioceses within the Anglican Church of Australia. The alternative liturgical products reflect the realist assumptions of the Anglican Catholic Diocese of Ballarat and the nominalist assumptions of the Anglican Evangelical Diocese of Sydney. Consideration of liturgical products from the Diocese of Sydney include alternative prayer books published in 2001 and 2012. The article concludes by observing that there is considerable multiformity of eucharistic theology in Anglican Church of Australia, due in part to the entrenched diocesanism which characterises this province of the Anglican Communion.