Letter: Common Prayer

Sir: Monica Furlong (Faith and Reason, 28 November) writes that she loves the 1662 Prayer Book and believes that clergy might be encouraged to study it, and that 'if the Prayer Book Society did not seem to represent a package of backward-looking interests', all might join it.

Ms Furlong has obviously never studied the aims and policies of the Prayer Book Society, because its stated aims are: to encourage the use of the British Book of Common Prayer as a major element in church worship, to spread knowledge of the BCP and to encourage its use for the training of ordinands and confirmands. Precisely the programme Ms Furlong recommends.

As for 'backward-looking interests', the only one Ms Furlong specifically attributes to the Prayer Book Society is opposition to women's ordination. Here again she has clearly not studied the society's literature, because while individual members have strong views (both ways) on this, the society has refrained so far from adopting an official stance.

Yours faithfully,

MARGOT THOMPSON

Honorary Secretary

The Prayer Book Society

London, EC4