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and liturgy has sought to attend to this neglect, and recent decades have seen a
whole revision and examination of liturgy and rites in the Roman Catholic and
10
Anglican churches. Liturgical revision in the Anglican Communion moved
towards a recovery of the worship of the Primitive Church. 11
The recovery of the eschatological dimension of the Western
Eucharistic rites is considered to have been a focus in the twentieth century.
Paul Bradshaw considers the renewal of biblical theology in modern times as
connected to this recovery. Interestingly, it seems this recovery has been
12
concerned not simply with an “other-worldly” experience but with ‘pointing to
the church’s mission in this world, as it seeks to identify and bring into
existence the values of God’s kingdom here and now’. Although, should this
13
be taken to suggest a theology of progress, or the Kingdom of God as a utopian
goal of social evolution, C.H. Dodd provides a necessary caution. Despite
being an earlier voice to the revisions mentioned here, we must always
remember that our Gospel ‘not does speak of “progress”, but of dying and
rising again’. It is interesting then that Rausch chooses to first emphasize the
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fullness of the Kingdom of God in its social aspects: ‘according to the biblical
vision, the long-awaited messianic age would be realized in its completeness,
with justice for the poor and afflicted, freedom for captives, peace, the
resurrection of the dead, and the renewal of creation’. Certainly, our theology
15
must include a necessary caution against either personifying or objectifying the
Kingdom of God. Indeed, this is where the strength and power lies in liturgy, in
its capacity to draw the gathered assembly into the worship of God, to be
partakers in the life of the risen Christ through the Spirit, and so receive from
God’s goodness the pledge of future blessings in his kingdom. There is perhaps
a deep truth at the heart of the Orthodox: that the life of the believer is to live
in the life of the Church, which is to live the life of liturgy (a liturgical life).
Accordingly then, it is important that we are attentive to our liturgy.
This chapter intends to examine the Anglican Eucharistic rite,
particularly to consider what the liturgy tells us about what it believes of the
final destiny of humankind and the world. In other words, how the

10 See Bradshaw, Paul. F, and Johnson, Maxwell. E., The Eucharistic Liturgies (SPCK 2012), pp. 318-336
and Rausch, Eschatology, Liturgy, and Christology, pp. 6-28.
11 Bradshaw and Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies, p. 318.
12 Bradshaw and Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies, p. 344.
13 Bradshaw and Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies, p. 345.
14 Dodd, The Apostolic Preaching and its Developments, p. 95.
15 Rausch, Eschatology, Liturgy, and Christology, p. 141.

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