I’m a member of the Episcopal church in the United States, part of the Anglican Communion,(at least until we maybe get kicked out )
In some of our upcoming services during the summer, my congregation will be “exploring alternative liturgies and traditions, including those from the Australian and New Zealand Book of Common Prayer.”
My question, for anyone who knows what the differences are, is, well, what difference*** is** * there betweeon your BCP’s and ours in the USA? Different prayers, tunes for chanting? I imagine that when asked to pray for civil authorities it would be for you respective Prime Ministers or something, where here in Kansas we would say “We pray for George our President, Kathleen our governor, and William our mayor”
I’m an Episcopalian in the US. In my Episcopal parish in New Jersey we used the liturgy from the Australian church last summer. It was slightly different from the US BCP. It was close enough to what I’m used to be familiar, yet with enough small changes in wording to make me think about the content of the liturgy.
This summer we’re using the service from the Anglican Church in Scotland.
I’ve been to Anglican services in Australia, and found them to be similar to Episcopalian services in the US.
Thanks CBCD. I appreciate your response. I’ll keep my eyes open for the next few services. I know what you mean about familiarity, I’ve got to where I don’t have to use the BCP most of the time, the responses are so familiar.
During services my congregation uses the older, more familiar form of the Lord’s Prayer 99% of the time, but on the odd occasion when the contemporary version is used it’s a little amusing to hear the hissing sound and people still involuntarily say “this day” rather than “today”, when the daily bread petition comes around!
Any Australians or New Zealanders notice differences when in the US?
The “new” New Zealand BCP (I’m not sure how old it is, but a few years) has some remarkable and far different from Cranmer liturgies. Whether they’re the standard liturgy or an alternative version, I don’t know. Perhaps a NZ Anglican (or someone who used to be one) can speak more about their BCP?
Since no Anglicans from Australia have replied yet, I’ll have a go. I’m a Catholic, not an Anglican, so I can give you only an impression rather than an “expert” view. I haven’t attended Anglican services in Australia but I have read through the Australian Prayer Book (sorry if that’s not its official title). I also had a thorough look through the prayer book in the Episcopal cathedral in New York when I was there on holidays last year - you can tell I’m a liturgical geek. It looked pretty similar to he Australian one, so I don’t think you’ll find many significant differences Baker.
I do know that Anglican services in Australia vary quite considerably depending upon the parish and the diocese. Some parishes/dioceses are very “high”. Others are notoriously “low”. The Anglican parishes close to me offer sevices as diverse as the 1662 BCP and charismatic adaptations of the Australian Prayer Book. I don’t think there are too many hard and fast rules.
I can’t comment too much on musical differences, since all of my liturgical music experience has been from the Catholic viewpoint. I suspect though that the hymns, psalms etc wouldn’t differ greatly from what you’re used to in America.
As to praying for civic leaders: traditionally-minded Anglicans pray for the Queen (Australia’s head of state). I don’t know whether anyone prays for an elected official. That would be very un-Australian.
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