Female Deacons: 5th and Final (For Now)

A few months back, I did a series of posts about female deacons. I wanted to offer a few perspectives and make a few points. But I never really rounded off the discussion, never brought it to a close.

So that's what this post is about. I've added links to the earlier posts if you'd like to go back and see what was said there.

The first post, "Why Not Start with Female Deacons?" was about something I think is strange. Some congregations of the Church of Christ are expanding the roles filled by their women; but why is it that they don't appointment female deacons as a first step in that direction? The ordination of female deacons would be, I think, a relatively easy case to make. Yet few congregations seem to be interested in the female diaconate.

In later posts, I mentioned that there seems to be plenty of good evidence that churches of the New Testament age ordained female as well as male deacons. To repeat, this position is consistent with

A. the distinctively-Jewish background of the New Testament (see "Female Deacons, 2")

B. what we know of early Christian history (see "Female Deacons, 3")

C. statements from early leaders of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement (see "Female Deacons, 4")

In this series, I have not dealt with the important New Testament texts, 1 Timothy 3:8-13 (especially v. 11) and Romans 16:1-2. That's mainly because the scriptural pieces of the puzzle are the most accessible. Many people who visit this blog know those passages quite well already, and could comment on them as well or better than I can.

Not as a New Testament scholar (which I'm not), but more as an armchair historian I've added to the discussion what I can. Along that line I want to mention something else for your consideration. In his 1919 book The Model Church, the great G. C. Brewer--not exactly a flaming liberal--included a chapter on "The Diaconate."

Brewer does not refer to any of the corroborating evidence outside the New Testament. But he does point to 1 Timothy 3:11 and to Romans 16:1-2, and expresses his opinion that there probably were deaconesses in the earliest churches. However, he goes on to confess that he doesn't think we can decide the question for certain.

It is perhaps most significant that on this question Brewer declines to use his powerful influence and skill in order to dictate doctrine for the Churches of Christ.

Instead, Brewer's advice is for congregations to determine what they think the New Testament teaches and to act accordingly. In so many words he says, "Have a Bible study and make up your own minds." I find that respect for congregational autonomy both refreshing and instructive.

That most Churches of Christ today never make the time to follow Brewer's advice is not the result of new and better evidence against first-century female deacons. Just the opposite. As the previous posts have shown, the evidence "for" is stronger today, even if it's still regarded as inconclusive.

The problem, as I see it, is that the Churches of Christ don't know what deacons are. As someone said in the comments section of one of the earlier posts, if it is assumed that deacons are some sort of junior elders, then many of our people are naturally going to reject the very idea of female deacons before even considering the biblical evidence.

On the other hand, if deacons are understood as "special servants" commissioned to head up a certain ministry sanctioned and directed by the congregation's elders, then the way should be clear for even more-traditional people in the Churches of Christ to have a genuinely-biblical and clear-minded discussion.

So why isn't this happening?

Female Deacons, 4

Did the earliest Christian communities apppoint female as well as male deacons?

My own study suggests that before the 1860s, writers within the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement gave one answer: Yes. The New Testament churches ordained and employed not only elders and deacons, but deaconesses as well. So, they said, modern-day churches have Bible sanction and should do the same. Take a look:

"From Ro. 16:1 as well as from 1 Tm. 3:11 it appears that females were constituted deaconesses in the primitive church."
Alexander Campbell, "Order," Millennial Harbinger 6, no. 10 (1835), p. 507.
_________

"It is generally regarded, among our brethren, as an essential element in the restoration of the primitive order, to ordain, in every church, both deacons and deaconesses."

W. K. Pendleton, "Discipline, No. 7," Millennial Harbinger 5, no. 5 (1848), p. 292.
_________

"The Phoebes should . . . constitute a part of the diakonoi of every fully organized congregation."

Robert Milligan, "The Permanent Orders of the Christian Ministry -- Of Deacons," Millennial Harbinger 5, no. 11 (1855), p. 626.

Female Deacons, 3

In the previous post on this subject, my goal was a simple one. I wanted to show that there's plenty of evidence to indicate that at least some of the Judaisms in the ancient world recognized female leaders. There were, in fact, women who served as heads of the synagogues. And some synagogues had priestesses.

Again, here's the connection I want to make. More than anything else, it is the synagogue that provides the setting for the establishment and growth of earliest Christianity. Recording the first mission trip, Luke tells us "At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue" (Acts 14:1).

Evidently, Christian assemblies were even called "synagogues." Here I'm referring to the Greek text of James 2:2. Most English translations lose their nerve and say something like, "Suppose a man comes into your meeting . . . " (NIV). But the text quite literally says, "For if a man comes into your synagogue . . . "

When we put the facts together, what seems clear enough is that the earliest Christians wouldn't have blinked at the idea of a female appointee called a diakonos, an official "servant." If we have a problem with the idea, it must be remembered that it is our problem. It certainly would not have been theirs.

One reason I mention this has to do with an objection to my theory. That objection goes something like this: Because Judaism in particular, and the ancient world in general, were so very patriarchal, female appointees among the earliest Christians would have been unthinkable. But in light of the evidence, it should be obvious that this objection survives only by ignoring the facts. To the next point.

I mentioned in the first post that female deacons are known in early Christian history, the New Testament foreground. The earliest and best support for this view can be found in an ancient letter.

In the year 112 A.D., less than two decades after the death of the Apostle John, a Roman governor named Pliny (the Younger), wrote to his boss, the Emperor Trajan.

What I find especially interesting about their correspondence is that Pliny asks what he should do about one of the many odd and suspicious groups in the province he now governs. What should he do with people publicly accused of being Christians?

Trajan had previously sent Pliny to serve as governor of a rough and rebellious part of the Empire, the Province of Bythinia, a region where strange and superstitious clubs were common, one of them being the church. Pliny wants to know if the way he has handled things so far is the right way, or if there something more the Emperor can tell him regarding interrogations, trials, and sentencing.

In one section of his letter, Pliny explains that, in order to enforce his prohibition of political associations (here we must remember that the expression "Jesus is Lord" would have been heard by Romans as political, rather than religious, speech), Pliny had found it "necessary to extract the real truth" from the Christians. He had done this, he says, "with the assistance of torture, from two female slaves, who were styled deaconesses."

The significant Latin word in this passage, of course, is ministrae, rendered "deaconesses" in the standard English translation of the correspondence, and rightly so. Had Pliny wanted to say that these two women were simply members or were a part of the Christian community, he could and certainly would have said so without using what can only be understood as a sort of technical term: ministrae, which means "ministers" or as I would call them, "deaconesses."

Thoughts? Comments? Criticisms?

A Bit of Bibliography:

I do not currently have access to a copy of the standard text of Pliny which is found in the Loeb Classical Library. The Loeb series is so nice because you get the Latin or Greek text on one side of an opening, and translation into English on the opposite side. To read, in the Loeb edition, the letter quoted in this post, you would need to get this volume of the series.

In this post, I have quoted from an English translation of Pliny that I found on-line. You can read the letter I'm referring to here.

Female Deacons, 2

In the first post on this subject I hinted that in my view the New Testament speaks of female deacons. I also mentioned that this view is apparently consistent with

(1) NT background
(2) early Christian history
(3) the views of early reformers in the Restoration Movement

Not wanting to drag this out or make anyone's eyes glaze over, I do want to identify a few bits of evidence that might jump start your own thinking. Consider the first item: the New Testament background.

I begin with the assumption that the most significant aspect of NT background is the Judaism(s) leading up to and including the time of Jesus and the earliest Christians. And what do we see when we examine the synagogues of that period? Plenty to suggest that females in official roles would have been nothing new to those folks:

1. For example, a Greek inscription discovered at Smyrna (Izmir) and that dates from the early Christian centuries reads as follows:

"Rufina, a Jewess and head of a synagogue (Greek: archisynagogue), built this tomb for her freedmen and her house-slaves . . . "

2. Another text comes from Myndos (in Caria, western Turkey) and reads as follow:

[The beginning is lost] . . . . "of Theopempte the head of a synagogue
(archisynagogue) and her son Eusebius."

3. A third comes from Kisamos (on the island of Crete):

"Here (lies) Sophia of Gortyn, an elder (presbytera) and female head of a synagogue (archisynagogissa) of Kisamos. (May the) memory of (this) just woman (be) forever. Amen."

As heads of synagogues these women would have been, in the words of rabbi and scholar Shaye Cohen, "responsible for supervising the services, specifically for deciding who should read the Bible, lead the prayers, and give the sermon. The archisynagogue was something between a president and a rabbi."

In addition to the three quotes given here, there is inscriptional evidence from the same period indicating that at least some Jews of that time recognized certain women as priestesses. Impressive indeed. But it's my goal here simply to show that, if the earliest Christian communities appointed female deacons, this would have been no break with the Judaism of that time.

Source: Cohen, Shaye J. D. "Women in the Synagogues of Antiquity" Conservative Judaism 34 (November-December 1980), pp. 23-29.

Reactions? Comments? Criticisms?

Why Not Start With Female Deacons?

Among the Churches of Christ in the United States, it's increasingly common for congregations to study and consider questions that typically come under the heading "Women's Role in the Church." (For reasons I have a hard time articulating, "Women's Role in the Church" is not my favorite expression. But it communicates. My friend and brother Dale Pauls has spoken of "Women in the Church at First").

In some cases (not many), these congregations wind up making practical changes. Said changes usually show up in worship assemblies. Women begin taking on roles previously filled only by men. They lead public prayers, preside at the Lord's Table, etc.

Now, from what little I've seen and heard, Scripture study and practical changes along this line are accompanied by a congregational disclaimer and explanation that goes something like this:

We're not reacting to the rise of feminism, at least not primarily. We are still (in fact, more than ever) a people of the Book. So, if caving to the culture is not what this is about, then what is it about? The results of better Bible study. When we read the Bible not as a flat constitution, but rather as a collection of occasional documents which must be interpreted in the light of context, we come out with different conclusions. And when it comes to our consideration of "Women's Role in the Church" those different conclusions have led us to different ways of thinking and acting.

Now, if and when preachers and elders and the congregations they lead say something like that, I have no good reason to doubt them. I'm neither a mind reader nor a heart discerner. And I'm certainly not the judge of someone else's servant.

However, what I wonder about is why all of this has, from what I can tell, by-passed the question of female deacons. The fact is, the female diaconate does not have two apparently-restrictive passages to climb over (1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and 1 Timothy 2:9-15). Instead, the female diaconate has two apparently-supportive passages going for it (Romans 16:1-2 and 1 Timothy 3:11).

The only person in the New Testament who is called a diakonos of a particular congregation is sister Phoebe, apparently a deacon of the church at Cenchrea (Romans 16: 1). And, a comparison of what Paul says regarding "deacons" (in 1 Timothy 3:8-13) with what he says regarding "the women" (in verse 11 ) seems to indicate that the two groups are parallel. Furthermore, the female diaconate is supported by both the New Testament background and early Christian history, not to mention that at least the idea, and sometimes the practice, has had wide support in the history of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement.

At any rate, in addition to the questions raised here, my explicit question is, If going with the Bible is what's driving current changes, then why all the neglect of what is a comparative no-brainer, the ordination of female deacons?