From time to time, I refer to “formularies” of the Anglican Church, particularly of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. These are the Church’s binding, agreed teachings and practices. And I might mention the “twice round” process to add to or alter the formularies. Each time, I might add a short explanation about what “formularies” mean and also give a quick summary of the “twice round” process. I have now created a page explaining these points here. This means that whenever formularies come up, I can simply put a link – those who don’t know the details can check by clicking through the link; those who are clear about formularies won’t have the information, in future, unnecessarily cluttering up the blog post.
The Page on formularies also highlights the recent half a century of confusion about authorising services in our Church. For half a century, our Church had “experimental services” without any licitness. Our own rules, which the Church writes for itself, are confused and confusing. It is difficult to find out what our own rules are. And even those in our highest levels of leadership and governance cannot be clear what is required, what is allowed, and what is forbidden.
The 2020 publication of a book entitled A New Zealand Prayer Book He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa has only added to the confusion. It is not the book of the same name mentioned in the Church’s Constitution, rather, it is a binding together of some worship resources – some of which are formularies of the Church and some of them not.
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