I'm from New Zealand, could use help understanding church aspects of my family history

Thanks Pete, that's interesting.

I was asking because four generations of my direct male line have been Freemasons. In relation to the book I am writing on my family I wanted to see how low church people and their descendants would have gravitated towards Freemasonry.

I can see a link in the general desire to help people in need and be part of a group.... I see some parallels in being a member of the Church that also goes out to help people.

Yes the Roman Catholic Church "business model" does not want to have anything around that is out of its total control. Hence they forbid Catholic's joining.

I will tell the story in my book of my fathers lodge involvement, he never went up the chain of officers. He went straight to the job of almoner which he stayed in all this life. Helping people was his priority, not ritual or status of master. I think that he got that ethic from his low church Anglican ancestors for sure.

He told me a story that he remembered from his very early says in the lodge just after WW2..... This event had a big impact in him.

He was in a normal closed lodge meeting in Auckland New Zealand, everything was going along, then something happened that got all the older lodge members visibly shocked and looking at each other in surprise and a little horror.
There had been a loud knock at the door. The knock meant nothing to my young father, but the older Mason's had heard that knock before. It was the distinctive set of very loud bangs that could be nothing other than the arrival and request for entry of the Grand Master of Freemasonry in New Zealand, the top man.

 

Continued.....

Apparently a local Masonic widow had been found living in filth and in very bad way. Looking after the widows of passed Mason's is a big deal and this lodge had somehow failed in its duty to care for this person.
The Grand Master walked about the room in his full ceremonial regalia lambasting the lodge members for there lack of duty and care. Then he left as abruptly as he had arrived.

The impression that encounter never left my father and he spent his life helping those in need through his position as Almoner and in life outside the Lodge.

Bottom line is that he was receptive to this way of thinking because of his up bringing which was heavily influenced by the low church Christian values that were handed down to him although he was not religious himself.

Sorry, once again I am rambling!!

 

The ecclesiastical laws in the Church are called canons. The combined set of all such rules governing the Church is called canon law.

Interesting perspective, and perhaps that's an English aspect that should be studied further. I know that in several ACNA jurisdictions at ordination you make an oath that you are not a member of any secret societies.
(It's a standard catch-all phrase against all societies which do not reveal their member rolls, the Freemasons being one example.)

But it's interesting that you mention Archbishop Rowan Williams making an objection to it. It shows that even in England it is by any means a commonplace. Perhaps it is a contested subject which is why there's no one simple answer here.