8 comments

1. Dr. Clark,

   Do you have any thoughts on the Convent of Wesel’s (1568) allowance for women to be admitted to the office of deacon “in those places where it is convenient”?

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   • Hi Neil,

     The first thing we should remember when consider the language of Wesel is the language of the Belgic Confession (1561), which the churches had just adopted at Antwerp and again at Wesel (1.8), which required, regarding the examination of ministers,

     Furthermore, he shall be asked whether he is in complete agreement with the doctrine, which is publicly maintained in the church, and in accord with the confession of faith first presented to the King of France by the ministers of the churches in that kingdom, and after being translated into our language, was dedicated and presented to the King of Spain and the rest of the government officials of nether Germany, and finally also contained in the catechism.

     Here the churches at Wesel refer to the French Confession and to the Belgic Confession.

     This is significant because Belgic art. 30 stipulates:

     There should also be elders and deacons, along with the pastors, to make up the council of the church.

     By this means true religion is preserved; true doctrine is able to take its course; and evil men are corrected spiritually and held in check, so that also the poor and all the afflicted may be helped and comforted according to their need.

     By this means everything will be done well and in good order in the church, when such men are elected who are faithful and are chosen according to the rule that Paul gave to Timothy.

     The council is composed of “faithful and pious men” (viri fidelis ac pii). There was no provision for females on the council. So, whatever role “deaconesses” played, it was not magisterial (ruling or teaching).

     I have before me the Acts of the Synod of Wesel (1568). There are a couple of very helpful essays attached to it by way of introduction. In the second (I can’t easily see the authorship but it may belong to Richard De Ridder, who edited the translation from which I’m working) it says,

     the “Diacones” (deacons) were particularly in the larger cities, divided into two classes. The first had the duty to gather and distribute the alms; the other to teach and comfort the sick, the wounded and the prisoners (Wessel, V:5,6). The Walloon synod of Antwerp (May 1, 1564 art. 12–19) assigned to these deacons identical “spiritual and physical care.” Also, women of known experience and piety, provided they were of age, might be admitted to this work of deaconship (Wessel, V:10). Later on this was no longer considered proper (Acts of the Synod of Middleburg, Q. 56)

     Ch. 9, art. 5 of Wesel says:

     It would, however, be helpful if especially in the larger localities, two kinds of deacons would be established, one of which shall apply itself to the gathering and distribution of the alms, and at the same time see to it that, in case there are any goods that have been bequeathed to the poor these will be claimed from the heirs in a lawful way and distributed faithfully to those for whom they had been intended at the bequest.

     9.6:

     the other kind will in the main care for the sick, the wounded and the prisoners; these deacons ought to be gifted, not only with faithfulness intelligence, but also with a gift of comforting and a better than average knowledge of the word; and they must diligently inquire from the elders if in their district there are perhaps sick or infirm people who are in need of comfort and encouragement.

     Ch. 9, Art. 9 of Wesel says:

     it shall, therefore, be the calling of the deacons carefully to inquire from the elders and other members of the church, if by any chance, travelers or strangers have arrived in town, who are believers so that the benefit of hospitality may be conferred upon them and, further, that faithful and Christian assistance may be given. And in case they are indigent, they shall be given what they need. It is furthermore beyond doubt that their career belongs to the first kind of deacons.

     It is evident that the female deacons or deaconesses were restricted to works of mercy and restricted from teaching or exercising authority.

     This is what Middleburg (1581) said in Q. 16 (not 56):

     Whether it would be advisable to reintroduce the office of deaconess? Answer: No, because of various inconveniences, which might follow therefrom. But in times of pestilence or other diseases, if there is any service to be done for sick women, not fitting for [male] deacons, they shall provide it by their wives or by others qualified for this.

     De Ridder adds the word male in brackets but it could be argued that misses the point. The assumption at Middleburg was that deacons are male. To add that adjective in brackets is to imply that it was ambiguous.

     It seems the deaconesses in Geneva were essentially nurses who worked in the hospital. This is what Wesel seemed to have in mind but even that limited role was eliminated at Middleburg.

     Reply ↓

     • Thank you!

       Reply ↓

2. “At the heart of the issue is a single word: authority.”

   “…it is difficult to maintain that the office of deacon lacks authoritative character.”

   “The title deaconess carries implications of leadership and authority that Scripture consistently associates with ecclesiastical office.”

   At the risk of violating Paul’s admonition to “avoid striving about words” (2 Tim. 2:14), I would submit that Jesus’s teaching about “authority” is generally avoided and also that the words “office” and “ordination” are loaded, post-New Testament terms which couch and condition much of the thought, discussion,  and conclusions on the topic of female deacons. I’m no historian, but I suspect all three terms only became common during the “Romanization” of the church under and following Constantine.

   I was an officer in the U.S. Army, with “authority over” lower ranks (like the Roman centurion in Mt. 8:9). We commonly speak of police officers, probation officers, the office of the President, etc. In each case it is someone having authority or command over others. It was surely this civil-government mindset which led the King James translators to insert “the office of a bishop” into I Tim. 3:1 and “the office of deacon” into I Tim. 3:10. There is no basis in the Greek for “office” in either verse, but it likely set the tone for discussion down to the present.

   Yet Jesus flips the hierarchy and forbids his followers from “exercising authority over” (Mt. 20:25-26 – katexousiazo; Lu. 22:25-26 – exousiazo) one another in the way appropriate and necessary for civil-military-government officers. That has been a common temptation throughout church history, as Jesus foreknew and too often has been manifest. We are rather to minister to and serve (diakoneo) one another. In this respect the kingdom of God is not top-down, but bottom-up. As Jesus said, all authority has been given to Him. Where in the New Testament does He delegate ousiazo back to any of his followers?

   Is the restaurant waiter an “officer” having “authority over” those he or she serves? As an elder in the RPCNA, I want to be known as “one who serves” (Lu. 22:26), rather than as Major Adams. Like many of the overseers in ancient and colonial times of slavery, I am a fellow slave striving to lead by example (I Pet. 5:2-3).

   The RPCNA has had female deacons since 1888, well before the rise of modern feminism. Our deacons have no authority over others, for we state in our Directory for Church Government that “The board of deacons has no legislative or judicial powers; its work is wholly administrative, subject to the direction of the session and sensitive to the counsel of the congregation.”

   Addendum: In the chapter on the Apostolic Fathers in his excellent church history 2000 Years of Christ’s Power, Scottish historian Nick Needham makes the following comment – “Women were not allowed to be bishops or presbyters in the early Church, but they were equally eligible with men to be chosen as deacons.” (Vol. !, p.69)

   Reply ↓

   • Renwick,

     The history of the RPCNA re deaconesses is more complex than you indicate. There was a period when the RPs were less confessional than they became or than they are now. The RPs typically today recognize that the adoption of deaconesses belongs to that period.

     Further, though I admire Nick’s history I disagree with assessment of the ancient church. The main argument rests on the female “servants” who were arrested and tortured by Pliny the Younger c. AD 114. The noun is sometimes translated deaconesses but that translation is not necessary. The were more likely household servants.

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   • It’s not just the RPCNA. It should probably be noted in this regard that the Pilgrim church in Leiden, before about half of it emigrated to found the Plymouth Colony in New England, had an elderly deaconess. The 1648 Cambridge Platform, the “church order” of New England Congregationalism, allowed for elderly widows, following the model of Paul’s list of widows over 60, which implemented the Leiden deaconess model.

     And, of course, there’s the Korean Presbyterian model of not only deaconesses (gipsanim) but also kwonsanim, who were originally elderly widows over sixty but today can be women, married or widows, over 50.

     I add this so people understand that John Calvin’s model of deaconesses as older women serving younger women in roles where men could not do the work with propriety didn’t just die out in Geneva, never to revive again in the Reformed world.

     Deaconesses in the Reformed world predate modern feminism, not just by decades but by centuries.

     A case can be made that introducing a formal office or function or title of “deaconesses” today is a bad idea because of feminism. I think the case is beyond dispute that any women who is qualified to be a deaconess (servant) will do the work regardless of title, and any woman who cares about the title isn’t qualified.

     But it simply isn’t true that all who advocate deaconesses are feminists.

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     • Fully agree. Great comment

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       • Thank you, Ben.

         The issue of women deacons or deaconesses has so clearly been abused by modern feminists as a wedge to get women elders and women pastors that we forget that women were in those roles long before anyone thought of ordaining women.

         There are arguments against women in the diaconate. The best ones are based on legitimate practical considerations, noting that women are going to be serving regardless of whether they have the title of “deaconess.”

         If we’re going to have women in the diaconate, we need to make sure they’re not in authority over men, and that is a problem in a number of Reformed denominations which have deacons serving with elders on a church council. That’s part of why I prefer the term “deaconess” in English, and, like Calvin in Geneva, having a separate category for women doing actual service to women. I don’t think it’s prudent, given modern feminist issues, to have women serving with men as voting members of a formal board of deacons.

         The “elephant in the room” in the PCA’s debate over women in the diaconate is that all of the PCA’s Korean presbyteries already have them. Hundreds of churches and probably thousands of deaconesses.

         That ship has sailed. The PCA leaders knew what they were doing when they accepted those churches. Throwing out hundreds of churches is not going to happen, and I think the PCA leadership understood that long ago when Korean churches started asking to join the PCA and to have their own presbyteries.

         I’ll leave it to the future historians to decide why the decision was made.

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