To the editors:
I have a number of reasons for having been fascinated by Bryan Miller’s article “Is Nothing Sacred?” [June 9]. Christened into the Church of England, I joined an Episcopal parish when I moved to the United States fifteen years ago. Since then I have attended both St. Paul’s-by-the-Lake, home to many of the most committed adherents to the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, and St. Luke’s Parish, Evanston, which combines incense, a boys’ choir and the Great Litany with an ordained woman on its clergy staff. Throughout, as a student and now a professor of the history of the English language, I have watched the debate over liturgical language with close professional interest.
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Bryan Miller replies:
Although I have not lived in Britain for well over a decade, on a visit a couple of years ago I attended several Sunday services and a half dozen evensongs in various churches (it was Lent, and, as a professional singer, I like to catch other church musicians’ acts). Every one of them used traditional language and music. Maybe I was just lucky.
