THE ORDER OF DEACONS
IN ANGLICANISM
____________________________________________________________________________________
A SURVEY
By Richard T. Nolan
“It is evident unto all men, diligently reading Holy Scripture and ancient Authors, that from the Apostles’ time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ’s Church – Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.” This statement is the opening portion of the “Preface” to the Book of Common Prayer’s Ordinal, “being the Form of Making, Ordaining, and Consecrating Bishops, Priests, and Deacons” (p. 529). This threefold ministry is a basic theological principle held throughout the Anglican communion, the churches stemming from the Church of England and continuing in communion with the See of Canterbury. Though some subtle theological differences exist among Anglicans, such as the degree of necessity of this polity to the Church, there is a consensus regarding its positive contributions and desirability for a truly catholic people of God.
The order of deacons, being one of the three ordained ministries in Anglicanism, is best understood theologically through the Book of Common Prayer and, further, through Canon Law. Although national Anglican churches have slight variations in the Ordinal, all versions share the essentials of the diaconal office. Canonical regulations vary, too, not only among national churches, but also on some relatively minor points from diocese to diocese.
The Prayer Book and Canon Law in use in the Episcopal Church in the United Sates of America reflect the spirit and general understandings of the whole Anglican Communion’s uses of the order. This is not to imply that all of the American ideas and practices can be found in every Anglican diocese, but rather, generally speaking, whatever can be found in any area of the communion is reflected somewhere in American Canon Law and the Prayer Book. Therefore, for the purpose of setting a perspective for the subsequent essays in this chapter, this survey will refer to the American versions.
Within the service for the “Ordering of Deacons,” there is a public examination of the candidate; this precedes the actual laying on of hands. “The questions put to the ordained concern: (1) his calling to the Ministry, both inwardly by the Holy Spirit and outwardly by the Church; (2) his faith in the teaching of Holy Scripture; (3) his readiness to undertake the duties of the Diaconate – liturgical, catechetical, and pastoral; and (4) his manner of life, both private and official.”1 An attempt to understand the order might be best begun by reading how the Prayer Book Examination lists the diaconal duties.
It appertaineth to the Office of a Deacon, in the Church where he shall be appointed to serve, to assist the Priest in Divine Service, and specially when he ministereth the Holy Communion, and to help him in the distribution thereof; and to read Holy Scriptures and Homilies in the Church; and to instruct the youth in the Catechism; in the absence of the Priest to baptize infants; and to preach, if he be admitted thereto by the Bishop. And furthermore, it is his Office, where provision is so made, to search for the sick, poor, and impotent people of the Parish, that they may be relieved with the alms of the Parishoners, or others.2
As has been noted in one study, “The powers of this Order are distinctly limited. The Deacon may neither celebrate the Holy Communion nor pronounce God’s Absolution or Benediction, though he may assist in the administration of any Sacrament.” 3 Some undefined areas of diaconal prerogatives yet remain; for example, in some states a deacon may officiate at a solemnization of matrimony. Problems that arise in this case include: Can a deacon rightly use the blessing of the Prayer Book Service? Is a substitution of this blessing with another form in keeping with the rubrics? Similar problems arise with the blessings in the “Order for the Burial of the Dead.” Though many of the duties are quite clearly stated in the Prayer Book, there are questions yet unanswered officially, and others can be raised, even regarding the appropriateness of certain of these duties for deacons in the contemporary Church.
The formal preparation for this ministry in the American church is spelled out in detail in Canon 34.4 Highlights of this canon have been summarized as follows:
To become a Deacon a man must be a baptized and confirmed communicant of the Church, at least twenty-one years of age. Before his ordination he passes through the preliminary stages of Postulant and Candidate for Holy Orders, during which time he fulfills the requirements of the Canon Law as to his studies, examination, and general preparation for the Ministry. After his ordination to the Diaconate, he normally remains in that office a year5 before being admitted to the higher Order of Priesthood.6
It should be noted that there are men prepared fully for advancement to the priesthood who decide to remain Deacons (see Dr. Cherbonnier’s essay). This is a sort of limbo state, so far as the Prayer Book and Canon Law now provide.
The second general use of the diaconate is set by Canon Law; this is often referred to (unsatisfactorily) as the “perpetual diaconate.” Canon 34, Section 10, sets the tone for this use as follows: “A man of devout character and proved fitness, desirous to serve in the capacity of a Deacon without relinquishing his secular occupation and with no intention of seeking advancement to the Priesthood, may be accepted as a Postulant and admitted as a Candidate…” Conditions placed thereon include an age requirement of not less than thirty-two years and fulfillments of modified academic requirements.7 The practical limitations are designated in this Section:
A Deacon ordained under the provisions of this Section shall exercise his Ministry as assistant in any parish or parishes to which, at the request of with the consent of the Rector and Vestry, he may be assigned by the Ecclesiastical Authority. As such assistant he may execute all the functions appertaining to the Office of a Deacon8 …. He may not be transferred to another jurisdiction except upon the express request in writing of the Ecclesiastical Authority thereof.9
Prior to the General Convention of 1964, the clause “he may not in any respect act as Minister on charge of a congregation” was contained in the above quoted Section. A change made in 1964 permits deacons to become ministers-in-charge of parishes and missions in the absence of rectors.10 Thus, the so-called “perpetual diaconate” seems to be emerging as an order in its own right, distinct from the waiting period for priesthood, and utilized for specifically diaconal tasks.
At one point, however, the Prayer Book seems to support only the transitional diaconate, for in the collect before the benediction in the ordination service these words are said: “…that they, having always the testimony of a good conscience, and continuing ever stable and strong in the Son Christ, may so well behave themselves in this inferior Office, that they may be found worthy to be called unto the higher Ministries in thy Church….”11 This is hardly an implication or incentive for a man to remain a deacon.
Although it is not to be denied that variations on the above themes are in practice within the Anglican communion, it can be assumed that the general provisions for the order, as have been discussed above, are at least possible within the Canons and Prayer Books of the national churches. Therefore, this introductory essay, though focusing upon American sources, offers the reader a feeling for the theology and uses of the order of deacons in Anglicanism.12
DEACONS AS “INTERNS”
By Theodore P. Ferris
When we speak of an intern we normally refer to a young man or woman who has recently been graduated from a medical school and is now a resident member of the medical staff of a hospital. During his internship he works under the direction of experienced doctors, is in immediate contact with the patients, but does not take the full responsibility for the decisions made or the action taken. He learns how to apply the principles and theories he studied in medical school; he begins to see that to know what a principle is and to know how to practice it are two quite different things. He is a doctor, but still an intern. He makes decisions under the advisement of a more experienced man, and is relieved of the full responsibility if the decision should be wrong.
No one, most likely, would want to be under the care of a doctor who had not had this kind of training. No matter how fine a record a man might have in medical school, this period of internship is universally required of him before he begins to practice medicine on his own.
The same thing cannot be said about the preparation for the Christian ministry. In our branch of the Anglican Communion a man usually does “field work” while he is in theological studies. This means that he spends a part or all of Sunday, and sometimes Saturday as well, in a parish. He does the things a layman can do, like teaching a church school class, leading a young people’s fellowship, making parish calls, and, if he has a lay reader’s license, he often reads part of the service to help the rector, but chiefly to gain confidence and experience in leading public worship. The amount of time he can give to this part of his work varies, but at best it is limited, and through no fault of his own, he is not yet prepared to do much more than any other willing layman can do.
In addition to this “field work,” he usually spends one or two summers in “clinical training.” During this period he has the advantage of not being divided between his academic responsibilities and his clinical work. Working under supervision in an institution which cares for those who are mentally or physically disabled, he comes in close contact with human beings, and begins to realize that the Christian Gospel, while it is given and, in a certain sense, fixed and final, must nevertheless be flexible enough to reach every conceivable variety of human ailment and need.
In most cases he is graduated from the theological school, ordained to the diaconate, and then either assumes the full responsibility of a mission or a small parish, or becomes an assistant or curate to the rector of a large parish. Whichever he does, he is virtually thrown into the rough waters of the ministry to sink or swim without much help from anyone. If he is in charge of a mission or small parish, there is no one to give the help; and if he is a curate, the rector is usually too busy to help him.
These two facts stare us in the face: there is nothing in the training of a priest comparable to the internship in the training of a doctor, and nothing is more greatly needed by priests, as well as doctors, than this period of guided work in which a man has all the authority of his profession and at the same time has someone to turn to in time of doubt, and someone to report to at the end of the day. The result of this situation can be disastrous. A man well trained in the seminary can go into a small parish and, with the best intentions in the world, can ruin it in six months. He knows the theories, but he does not know people. He does not know that his convictions and beliefs cannot be imposed upon anyone, no matter how correct they may be.
He studies canon law in the seminary but he has no opportunity there to learn how the canons can best be administered. A wise rector, for example, rarely, if ever, goes into a vestry meeting with a copy of the canons under his arm, nor does he begin a meeting of the music committee by announcing that the rector has complete authority over the music of the church. He knows that he does have such authority, but he also knows that the music committee consists of human beings, and he can best exert his authority by sharing the responsibility with them and taking them into his confidence.
Likewise he studies theology in the seminary. He learns that human nature is not so pure as people once thought it to be, that there is such a thing as original sin, and that the accent on judgment is needed to balance the accent on love. Knowing these things, however, is no assurance that the student knows how to apply this knowledge when he is face to face with an individual in trouble. One person may already be so overladen with guilt that what he needs most is the assurance of forgiveness, not judgment. Another person may be so unaware of his shortcomings that he needs his conscience awakened, and if necessary, shocked into life.
Lacking this experience in the application of what he has learned to specific situations, he makes mistakes and, because he is alone, he must take all the consequences of them. Sometimes he is never aware of the mistakes and, if he is, has no idea how to repair the damage. Nine times out of ten he resorts to his authority as a deacon or priest of the Church and thereby magnifies the mistake.
In other communions serious attempts have been made to meet this situation. Some interdenominational theological schools are willing to release a student for a year’s internship in a parish. After that year he returns to the school and finishes his training. I am in no position to make any judgment on this plan inasmuch as I have not been involved in it any way. When I first heard of it, two questions came to my mind at once. First, what will it do to a student to pluck him out of an academic atmosphere, plant him temporarily in the confusion of a busy parish, and then put him back in the cloisters of thought, meditation, and speculation? Second, how much help will such a man be to the minister of a parish who, in most cases, is not prepared to give much time to the perplexities and questions of the intern? The few ministers I happen to know who have worked with the “intern” plan confirm my doubts about it. Granted that it is better than nothing, it is, in some ways, comparable to letting a medical student practice on patients before he has finished his professional training.
The question that the Anglican communion must face is what if the relationship between this crying need for a period of internship and the diaconate? Speaking only for the Episcopal Church in the United States, and only as I see it through my own limited vision, I would say that, at present, there is virtually no connection between the two. There are rare parishes where the deacon is, in fact, an intern. The staff is large enough so that he is not pressed into responsibilities he is not ready to assume, and the rector is not so pressed that he cannot assume the responsibility for guiding and directing the work of the deacon.
It will be admitted by most of our clergy that these instances are relatively rare. The deacon is more often like a diver on a springboard, shifting his weight, getting his balance, waiting for the moment to make the final plunge. His diaconate is a six-months’ waiting period in which he sometimes impatiently longs for the time when he will be the real thing.
The basic problem of the internship is not a question of orders; it is a question of finding parishes prepared to do the training. At the present moment there are not many of them. There could be more if the bishops and the deans of seminaries insisted on this as part of a man’s preparation for the ministry, and the Church made some financial provision for this undertaking. If the places could be found where this kind of training could be given, it does not seem to me that it would make much difference whether the intern were in the lesser order of the diaconate or in priests’ orders. It is conceivable, however, that if the diaconate were widely recognized as a period of internship, and the deacons were not treated as premature priests, the fact that the intern had been truly “set apart” for the ministry, yet not ordained to all the privileges and obligations of the priesthood, might be the most suitable conditions under which a valuable internship could take place.
FULL-TIME PASTORAL MINISTRY
By George H. Emerson
The perpetual diaconate had long been in my contemplation. For a number of years before I made application for admission as a postulant, my own inclinations, reinforced by the urgings of my rector, had turned more and more toward this much-to-be-desired goal. My lay involvement in the work of the Church, like that of so many perpetual deacons, had become increasingly greater with the years: vestryman, junior warden, senior warden, lay reader, canvass chairman, building committee chairman, and various aspects of diocesan service. The demands and accomplishments of that work, even when hindered by the clamorings of a busy law practice and upper-echelon’s service club work, proved to be most satisfying. However, the diaconate, as an objective, had to remain in the realm of the theoretical, since the diocese in which I was then resident made no provision for the ordination of perpetual deacons.
When I finally closed my law offices and retired, my family and I moved to a suburban area south of San Francisco. To escape the Satanic mischief for idle hands, I sought a Church affiliation where my free time and my experience might be of help. This I quickly found in the thriving Saint Andrew’s Mission, in Saratoga.
I was given the position of administrative associate, which was created for the purpose. My assignment, working with the vicar, was to take care of the various problems incidental to the temporal affairs of the mission: overseeing maintenance; coordinating purchases; handing legal problems attendant on the acquisition and operation of Church property; questions of insurance; and the usual business details arising in the day-to-day operation of a growing church. In addition, I served as lay reader-chaplain, conducting worship services in chapel for our Sunday School, and later organized and trained a corp of chaplains to take over this work when we had three sessions of Sunday School each Sunday.
Only a few months after this move, Bishop James Pike made known his active encouragement of those men who might want to study for the perpetual diaconate. With the moral support of m former rector and the vicar, I quickly took advantage of this unexpected opportunity. It held out to me, in my new-found leisure, the possibly of my ultimately being of greater service to my Church in holy orders than I could reasonably expect, serving as a layman.
To implement his program for the development of the perpetual diaconate within his diocese, Bishop Pike named a priest, the Reverend John A. Luther, who was sympathetic to the plan, to develop and present a course of study and training for the fifteen men who formed the first formal class of postulants. We were called together early in 1960 and our curriculum was laid out for us. We met twice a month during the balance of the year, through November, for lectures by various priests, several of whom were members of the Diocesan Board of Examining Chaplains. We were assigned a course of outside reading paralleling the subjects of the lectures. In December there were a dozen of us who sat for examinations. We had a half-day written quiz on Bible content. The second day we had written examinations on Bible exegesis, Church history, theology, liturgics, ethics and practical theology, and canon law. We had a third day of oral examinations in all fields. We were told afterwards that the examinations given to us were the same as those given to the seminary graduates. The examining chaplains were supposed to be slightly more lenient in grading our examinations. In any event, all of this class of twelve were successful. Eleven of the class were ordained in Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, on Dec. 24, 1960, by the Right Reverend James A. Pike, then bishop of California.
The one remaining member had to wait a couple of months for the passage of the six-months’ candidacy required by Section 10 (b) of the National Canons (Canon 34) before he could be ordained. After a breathing spell of a couple of months, our class, again under the tutelage of Mr. Luther, and with the approval of Bishop Pike, started a course of study, extending over a year or so, leading to our being licensed to preach, after passing further examinations.
The thought of the possibility of greater service to the Church, which was the motivating factor originally impelling me to seek ordination as a perpetual deacon, I held in only the most general, if not actually vague, form. The realities of my service were much broader and far-reaching than I had at first imagined.
After ordination I was immediately delegated to read the Ante-Communion at our celebrations of the Eucharist. As a matter of fact, our class was ordained on the morning of Christmas Eve and all of us then participated in Christmas Eve services in our several churches. Also, with my ordination, I rotated with the two priests in our mission, as it then still remained, in officiating at morning prayer. I regularly administer private Communion, particularly to the older members of the parish. With three priests now on the staff, I’m not called on to perform baptisms, solemnize marriages, nor serve at the burial of the dead. Neither am I am called upon to preach more than two or three times a year.
Our parish last year organized a mission for the diocese and, serving in rotation with the other parish clergy, I officiated at services of morning prayer until the mission called a vicar. With the other parish clergy, I regularly participate in instructing Confirmation classes and at sessions of adult schools of religion. With the other associate clergy, I am ex officio a member of the vestry, but without a vote, and I am clerk of the vestry and parish. I also serve as chancellor of the parish, handling all the legal problems that arise, the drafting of contracts and other necessary documents, and the correspondence that forms an integral part of such matters. The requirements here are not insignificant in a parish such as ours with an ambitious, but necessary, program of land acquisition and building. All questions relating to all phases of insurance are also a part of my responsibility. Some few months after my ordination, our mission successfully made application for admission to parish status. I took care of all legal work necessary for incorporation as a parish and the subsequent development of the parish structure. It is my privilege to serve as a sort of unofficial chancellor of the Deanery of Santa Clara, advising various of the priests from time to time.
Not infrequently I am called upon to counsel members of the parish, and even members of other parishes and missions of the deanery when their problems are law-related. I must confess that, in many instances, I find my function here little different from the counseling I offered my clients during my thirty-two years of active law practice. Strange as it may seem to those prejudiced few who look upon practitioners of the law with jaundiced eye, I find that my legal experience is of great value as I counsel with our parishioners and those from other deanery churches.
I think it safe to say that a large part of, my substantially full-time service arises out of my years of practice in civil law, and the practical and varied business experience and insight which every lawyer must absorb if he is to represent his clients adequately.
As to my acceptance by the laity, I find a divergence of view. Among not a few of those who have been Episcopalians for many years, particularly those who were members of the parish before I was ordained, I would seem to inhabit a kind of ecclesiastical half-world, no longer lay, but not quite wholly clerical. Those who are younger, either chronologically or in their Church affiliation, seem to be able to accept me as one of the clergy – albeit of a substratum that is somewhat mystifying to them, and one which is most difficult for them to comprehend.
From my observation, there appear to be some few obstacles of greater or lesser degree, to the full effectiveness of the ministry of the diaconate. This is particularly true for those persons who, as long-time Episcopalians, are so familiar with our forms of service as to recognize the departures from the norms of usage whish those diaconal impediments require. The difficulties in point are necessarily inherent in the office of deacon, through restrictions imposed upon, or privileges withheld from, him at his ordination.
The fact that at morning or evening prayer the deacon must use a substitute for the absolution, or nothing at all, and must use the minor benediction, does not appear to me to be too formidable. However, when a priest is present and prefers to pronounce the absolution and to dismiss the congregation with the major benediction, there may be to some in the congregation an appearance of cumbrousness. Again, I should not consider this as other than minor. Of greater significance, however, is the administration of private Communion from reserved sacraments. There the forms of service which the deacon is allowed to use are necessarily so widely divergent from the familiar forms of the Prayer Book as, quite possibly, to make such services objectionable to one who, through ready familiarity with the accustomed forms, finds the substituted forms of service something less than acceptable. While this additional point to me is wholly theoretical, since I have no occasion there to function, the requirement in this diocese that the deacon substitute a different form for the priestly blessing in the services of baptism, marriage, and burial is, to some, an obstacle to their functioning.
These problems I enumerate without any attempt to advance a solution, since any practical remedy would result in the elimination of the distinctions between the functioning of the deacon and the priest in the conduct of our services. We would then be left without any diaconate. It is certainly to be preferred that the diaconate function with its slight handicaps than not to function at all.
My relations with my rector are of the best. He gives me his complete support, encouragement, and endorsement. He is heartily in favor of the concept of the perpetual diaconate, both in the abstract and the concrete. He is as enthusiastically convinced of the merits of the services rendered by the perpetual deacons as are the deacons themselves. My rector freely makes use of such of my services and talents as to him appear of value, probably to the maximum permissible canonically. It must be admitted, however, that I sometimes have to call upon all the humility of which I am capable as I am required to take a position subordinate to a young curate, recently out of the seminary. However intelligent, able, and energetic he may be, he is lacking in experience and, incidentally, had not yet been born at a time when I was already established as a successful lawyer. That exercise in humility, however, is good practice, and it helps to maintain one’s sense of proportion more nearly in balance, and to keep one’s ego properly deflated.
My contacts with our ordinary and our suffragan have been most satisfactory, indeed gratifying. Each of them has shown me the utmost consideration and graciousness. I am not alone in this experience and reaction. From my conversations with the two dozen or so other perpetual deacons, it is made abundantly clear that they all feel the same. Bishop Pike has appointed me to four diocesan positions: to the chancery, the marriage committee of the chancery, the convention committee on canons, and the division of voluntary ministry. [Editor’s Note: By virtue of amendment of the diocesan canon and election of diocesan convention upon the nomination of Bishop Pike, the Ven. George H. Emerson has added to his ministry the responsibilities of Archdeacon of California.]
As a part of the development of the perpetual diaconate in this diocese, it has been very carefully spelled out for us in writing what we may not and what we may do and, as to the latter, how. This clarification of what, otherwise, could well be a shadowy and troublesome area is of obvious benefit.
It is to be recognized that opinions among the priests of the diocese as to the value of the perpetual diaconate are rather definitely divided. While some have not made up their minds one way or the other, most of the priests are either opposed to the whole concept, in varying degrees of opposition, or they favor the idea, again with some gradation of approval. Those priests who have perpetual deacons assisting them are among those more earnestly in favor of this aspect of the third order of clergy. It may be argued, as with the hen or the egg, whether these latter priests favor the diaconate because they have deacons assigned to them, or whether they have deacons assigned to them because they are favorably inclined to such assistance. It appears more reasonable, however, to conclude that the latter premise is the more logical, since, if a priest were opposed to the perpetual diaconate, he would hardly take the affirmative action required of him in the first instance to launch on his way the applicant for postulancy.
It has been a source of considerable gratification to me (I pray, unselfishly) that I have, with my ordination, been able to devote my energies more deeply and, I hope, more effectively, in the work of our Savior than in the past in my lay capacity. Then, too, my additional study, both before and since my ordination, has broadened my knowledge and understanding, and has given me a greater appreciation of the depth and significance of the teachings of Jesus Christ; and in recognition of the overwhelming exploration still to be made, it spurs me on to further study in the search for even fuller insight.
What, then, is my message to those laymen who have been engaged in Church work over the years? We are faced constantly with the crying need for more clergy to serve the Church. How better to help meet that need than to do it yourself! Predicated upon my own experience, where my legal training has proved to be of such benefit when coupled with my service in holy orders, I would postulate as a general rule the statement that any man’s experience gained in earning a living would stand his Church in good stead when taken in combination with his work as a perpetual deacon. I would not limit this to the so-called learned professions: to the lawyer, doctor, engineer, architect, accountant, and teacher. Any executive, administrator, salesman, musician, social service worker, a member of any of the skilled trades, and so on ad infinitum, would find his secular experience called into play in the most unexpected ways as a part of his service in the diaconate. Such services are rendered to the Church at no expense, a saving to his Church as against its having to call on one earning his living in such a calling and, in most instances, with a degree of interest and of concern seldom found in one not in close relationship to his Church.
Even in our own thriving parish the fact that the services of a perpetual deacon are available substantially full time makes possible activities and practices to a greater depth and detail than would be possible were those services not there, except at a considerably greater burden on the three priests now serving. This is not a unique situation. It is a matter of simple arithmetic equal applicable in any parish.
All of the two dozen perpetual deacons in the diocese are serving actively, to the extent that their free time permits, although the others are not so fortunate as I in being able to devote full time. Our activities are manifold, varying from parish to parish as different needs are met, but serving we all are, well, truly, and happily, and to the relief and even joy of the priests with whom we are associated, and without monetary compensation. We all feel that the joy of the service is adequate recompense for what we so gladly offer.
The potentialities for the services of perpetual deacons are infinite. In a parish or mission where the load is too great for one priest, but where the financial burden attendant upon the calling of a second priest is too much to assume, a perpetual deacon is the obvious answer.
If there be need for the establishment of a new mission in an area not adequately served by an existing parish or mission, but where, because of financial limitation, the expense of a vicar is, for the moment, out of the question, a perpetual deacon can be assigned to that mission at its organization to serve until its finances improve to the point where it can support all or the necessary major part of a vicar’s compensation.
Again an existing mission may, for a variety of reasons, find itself in financial difficulty, and the diocese, because of other commitments, might be unable to assume the expense the vicar’s compensation. Rather than close the mission, the diocese could move the vicar to another location where he was needed and assign a perpetual deacon to the mission until its prospects brighten.
Theses examples are patently not intended to be all-inclusive. They are but parts of a theme, the variations of which are infinite.
As to the value of, and the need for, the services of perpetual deacons, I am, admittedly, not without prejudice and something less than wholly objective. I feel impelled to say, somewhat categorically, that the experience in the diocese of California, under the guidance of our bishop, has proved conclusively that the need for a substantial perpetual diaconate is a great and continuing one. It is, indeed, a need which cannot readily be met, whether in California or any other diocese in our Church, in any other way except at a burdensome, if not insuperable, cost.
A DEACON’S “RAISON d’ETRE”
by Edmond La B. Cherbonnier
Some years ago, following a church service in which I had taken part, the rector’s wife was heard to remark, “To look at that young man, you would never suspect that he could not qualify for the priesthood.” This essay provides me, at long last, with an opportunity to reply, and to explain why one might remain a deacon, not from incompetence, but by choice.
Historically, of course, the diaconate needs neither justification nor apology. It was once a recognized order of the ministry, with distinct functions of its own. To this day, in some branches of Christendom, the deacon still retains his separate identity. In the Episcopal Church, however, the diaconate has atrophied. The Prayer Book itself is partly responsible. In the service for the ordering of deacons, one of the prayers expresses the hope that they “may so well behave themselves in this inferior office, that they may be worthy to be called unto the higher ministries (p. 535).” Small wonder that the diaconate is regarded as merely a stepping stone to the priesthood, an apprenticeship to be discharged as quickly as possible.
My own reasons for remaining a deacon, however, would probably not satisfy the stickler for canon law. They are based, less upon historical grounds, than upon contemporary circumstances. They are similar to the reasons which have prompted churchmen like Bishop Robinson to call for a radical re-thinking of traditional Christian belief and practice. Most of these arguments point, in one way or another, to one insistent fact: the ministry, as presently conceived, has lost its effectiveness. This is most obviously true in the vast urban areas, where Christian influence has dwindled to insignificance. It is less obvious, but equally true, in the suburbs, where church membership is impressive, but where a veneer of Christian forms and symbols conceals an underlying culture-religion which if often indistinguishable from paganism.
Consider first the Church’s abdication from the modern metropolis. A dramatic example is the parish of Woolwich, in Bishop Robinson’s own diocese. It is a run-down parish in a depressed area of greater London, with a total of 12,000 people. For the past five years a blue ribbon team of four dynamic young clergymen have labored night and day to breathe life into the remains of this once flourishing congregation. Their accomplishments are summarized, in the following words, by the rector:
We have tried to pray and to love. We have tried to be humble and sensitive. We have played every card in the pack… We have done everything we set out to do. We have raised a fortune and spent it. But we have achieved virtually none of the modest things we had hoped for. If each priest on our staff had persuaded ten people each year to join the church, we should have had a congregation of 400. Yet the regular members of the congregation have increased from about fifty to 100, mostly from socially superior areas outside our working class parish. We have quite obviously failed.13
Here is proof positive that the priesthood, as currently conceived, can no longer make contact with the realities of the twentieth century. No one can say that the four priests failed for lack of talent, or dedication, or effort, or training, or money. They failed, either because Christianity itself is passé, or because the ministry in its present form does not mediate the Gospel. Those who deny the latter explanation must be prepared to accept the former.
In the suburban churches, the picture is quite different, at least on the surface. Church membership is at an all-time high, at least in the United States; “religion” is becoming an increasingly popular subject in colleges and universities, in magazines and moving pictures, and even at cocktail parties; and even the perennial shortage of clergy has become less acute. Nevertheless, the upsurge of interest in “religion” does not necessarily mean a revival of Christianity. It could, in fact, spell the opposite. For the real danger to Christianity has never been atheism, but some rival religion, and the threat is most deadly when the rival masquerades in Christian garb.
Today’s impostor has been unmasked by a self-critical group of Christian sociologists. Gibson Winter, for example, documents the evidence in The Suburban Captivity of the Churches. Peter Berger does the same in The Noise of Solemn Assemblies. The suburban church, they point out, is not so much a place where consciences are pricked as it is a forum for self-congratulation; less a medium of divine judgment than a mirror for magnifying middle-class values; less a source of renewal than an outlet for romantic sentiment.
All this is scarcely the fault of the individual clergyman. He is rather the victim of the system. He often has a clear idea of what he would like to accomplish, but is prevented by the public image which society fastens upon him. His time and energy are preempted by an endless round of administrative detail, trivial meetings, and ceremonial appearances. Most frustrating of all, the words he uses do not seem to get through. People imagine that they know in advance whatever a clergyman might have to say. If he does not actually say it, they attribute this to inarticulateness on his part. The cutting edge of the Gospel is blunted by the mass of religious clichés with which the modern mind is stuffed. No wonder that, as numerous surveys have shown, a startling number of parish clergy would leave their posts if they could. Their discontent does not betray a lack of faith, but rather the opposite. They are thwarted by subtle pressures which prevent them from putting their faith into practice.
Like a twentieth-century monarch, the priest is the prisoner of society’s expectations. Like the monarch, he too has been progressively shorn of his powers. He was once the best educated man in town; today his educational advantage is often hard to detect. He was once an arbiter of manners; today he is a favorite subject of caricature. His was once a vocation for sons of the nobility; today he must often overcome parental opposition. He was once a prize catch for the town belle; today the wife of an English vicar has written a warning to all eligible young ladies never to marry a minister. His plight has been described by O. Hobart Mowrer, the psychologist:
Politicians, union and management executives, scientists are the real prophets today. Social workers and public agencies really deal with the poor, hungry, sick, jailed, orphaned, prostitutes, elderly and delinquent. The psychoanalyst, psychiatrist and clinical psychologist really help troubled, neurotic, guilty lost souls. Unions and secular civil rights groups engage in real social action….No wonder we have trouble recruiting for the ministry! 14
No single reason can be given for this state of affairs. It is the cumulative result of a series of causes historical, sociological, and theological. The theological cause is the one which I want especially to single out, for it is the one which the Church, particularly through its deacons, can most readily overcome. I refer to the psychological chasm which now exists between clergy and laity. That such a chasm exists at all is often stoutly and sincerely denied by a great many priests. But it is not denied by the layman. It can be demonstrated by a simple experiment. Let a clergyman in civilian dress be introduced to a stranger as “Mr. Parker.” Then, after half an hour or so, let it be known that Mr. Parker is a clergyman. The change in the stranger’s demeanor will speak for itself. He will become shy and self-conscious, wondering whether he has said anything to offend. Or he may feel called upon to demonstrate his moral earnestness or spiritual sensitivity. More refreshingly, he may go out of his way to show how profane and cynical he can be. The one thing he will hardly ever do is to remain the same. The priestly presence makes him ill at ease, it puts him on the defensive.
The principal cause of this estrangement is theological. The Church’s teaching has often suggested that the priest lives on a higher plane than other mortals. A recent article in a Roman Catholic magazine says this explicitly. The priest, it insists, is raised above the mundane sphere of time and multiplicity to the loftier realm of eternity, unity, and truth. The layman, belonging to the lower realm. “has not the charism of clear discernment….He does not clearly see; he can, so to speak, only hear and act.” 15 In effect, this means that the clergy give the orders and the laity carry them out. Nor may the priest step down from Olympus to share the layman’s burden or to take responsibility for the fate of the world. The priest who does so “violates his own vocation, laicizes himself in his heart, and ultimately, because of this corruption of values, becomes thoroughly committed to the temporal sphere.” 16
Such a relation between clergy and laity is hardly biblical. In fact, the Bible rejects the natural tendency of so many religions to invest the priesthood with a mystique. The Bible recognizes differences of function, but not of caste, for God is no respecter of persons.
The present chasm between clergy and laity is rather a corruption of biblical teaching. Though its causes are complex, the clergy did at least acquiesce in being put on a pedestal. In so doing, they brought about their own eventual demise. For a pedestal makes a poor base of operations. As medieval womanhood discovered, to be worshipped from afar is to be dependent upon the whim of the worshipper. When the layman finally tired of being a second-class Christian, the priest was by-passed, the object of public praise but private indifference. Having consented to play the role of a man apart, he now finds himself performing to an empty house.
In these circumstances, the deacon may have a special role to play. He is often in a better position than the priest to break out of this ecclesiastical quarantine. Belonging to a less exalted order, he is less conspicuously tarred with the sacerdotal brush, under less constraint to speak for the ecclesiastical establishment (or the entrenchment, as it has been called). The Roman Catholic Church has tacitly admitted as much by agreeing to discuss the possibility of permitting deacons to marry. The proposal itself acknowledges that the deacon has not completely lost his amateur standing. With one foot in the church and the other in the world, he may help to draw both close together.
Exactly how does he does this is a matter for creative experiment. One novel proposal has been made by the rector of Woolwich, with the blessing of his bishop: namely, that the minister would be taken more seriously if he earned his living at a secular job. In the present day, everybody works. Even the millionaire spends the day at his office. Earning a livelihood is part of being human. Yet the minister is an exception, or appears to be. Even though, in fact, he is on call twenty-four hours a day, on a job that requires extraordinary dedication and versatility, he is in the eyes of many people, a parasite. He appears to work at no gainful occupation, and to live off the charity of his congregation. As a result, he is often held in disrespect, as an incompetent who cannot cope with the real world, or he is looked upon as one who stands aloof, who does not share in the common human lot, and who is, therefore, unqualified to deal with the issues of everyday life.
In biblical times it was not so. There was a strong rabbinical tradition, inherited by the early Christians, that the spiritual leader of a community should earn his living at a regular trade. Christ himself was a carpenter, St. Peter a fisherman, and St. Paul a tent maker. With St. Paul it was a matter of pride to pay his own way from city to city by plying his trade.
Before admitting defeat, the rector of Woolwich proposes to apply this apostolic example to his own Church. He plans to appoint a lay bursar to administer the parish, so that the clergy can earn their own living at secular jobs. They will, of course, have far less time to devote to strictly “religious” matters. By identifying themselves with the common lot of all men, however, they may achieve more than they did as full-time parish organizers. The result will be significant for the whole Church.
Nor is it just in impoverished parishes like Woolwich that the minister is handicapped by not supporting himself. His economic dependence is even more of a handicap in the “captive” suburban church, particularly in the discharge of his prophetic function. He can hardly call a spade a spade if, as has been charged, he is the spiritual errand boy of the rich.
In the Middle Ages the post of rector or vicar often carried with it an independent income; this is so even today in parts of England. While this undoubtedly was a temptation to slothfulness and to social conservatism, it did free the rector from the purse-strings of his flock. He could speak the unpopular truth without fear of a cut in salary. The minister of today, by contrast, must reckon with reprisals from vested interests. His position is more like that of chaplain to a medieval nobleman, whose position was secure so long as he confined himself to “spiritual” matters and did not presume to comment upon the master’s private or public affairs.
One thinks, immediately, of the race question, and of the anguish of sincere ministers who must reckon with sub-Christian attitudes among their congregations. Those who take a stand are hounded out of their churches. Others muffle their indignation because of economic responsibilities to their families. In neither case is the word of God proclaimed as it could be if the clergyman were economically independent. As Harvey Cox has recently written:
The only way in which the clergy can ever change the way in which the word they use is perceived is to refuse to play the role of antiquarian and medicine man in which society casts them, but this is difficult, because it is what they are paid for. 17
It is hardly possible (even if it were desirable) to return to medieval practice, but it is quite possible to return to that of the earliest Christians, where the minister’s economic independence preserved him from spiritual captivity. Protected against economic reprisals, he was free to declare the word of God against the status quo. Perhaps that explains why St. Paul could write so frankly to the Corinthians, and also why they took his words to heart: he owed them not a cent.
The rector of Woolwich intends his suggestion for priests as well as deacons. For most priests today, however, secular employment is scarcely a live option. Even if they were willing and qualified, their congregations would object. There are exceptions: the Reverend John C. Danforth, for example, spends the weekdays at his St. Louis law firm, and the weekends with his congregation. To the majority of Christians, however, the thought of a priest of the Church living by the sweat of his brow remains incongruous, if not abhorrent.
For the deacon, however, the obstacles are not do great. His “non-commissioned” rank enables him to hold a secular job without causing so many raised eyebrows. By immersing himself in the real problems of real people, he may help to heal the breach between the Church and the world. Sitting more loosely to vested ecclesiastical interests, he may help the Church to rejoin the human race, and so to recover its original mission.
Not many have chosen this vocation. Perhaps not many should. But it is a plausible approach to one of Christianity’s most pressing problems: the problem of reuniting minister and layman – whom God would join together, but whom man has put asunder. When this problem has been overcome, then this particular deacon will have lost his raison d’être.
The Diaconal Association of the Church of England:
http://www.societies.anglican.org/dace/index.html
North American Association for the Diaconate