Rev. Dr. Javier A. Viera, President of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, published a recent commentary on UMNews entitled "To revitalize the church, we must invest in deacons." The piece is worth a read, as it intersects with themes from this blog in at least four ways:
1. Viera roots his reflections in the historical example of the deaconess movement and the Chicago Training School for City, Home, and Foreign Missions.
2. Viera is concerned with the missional nature of clergy, especially deacons, a topic that Ben Hartley has written about on this blog.
3. Viera is concerned with changing trends in the composition and supply of clergy. I have written several pieces in recent years on clergy supply.
4. Viera is concerned with the changing nature of theological education, which multiple authors have addressed on this site.
While many are likely to read Viera's piece in light of recent General Conference decisions on sacramental rights for deacons, as the above list makes clear, Viera's reflection on deacons connects to many and wide ranging issues in the church.
President Javier Viera’s article conflates Deaconess lay order with the ordained Deacon’s order in the United Methodist Church.
ReplyDeleteThe origin of the Deaconess movement is the product of the collective and combined efforts. The Minutes (1911) of the Board Meeting of the Woman’s Home Missionary Society records the presence of the representative of the Methodist Deaconess Association, and the clarification offered by Miss Robertson, the General Field Secretary of the Association, in addressing the misconception of the origin of this lay movement to one person.
Further, President Viera’s article confuses the order of ordained Deacons with the lay Order of Deaconess and Home Missioners. The latter is housed within the United Women in Faith. General Conference 2016 decisions regarding this lay order are part of this history.
-- A lay person
Hi David-
ReplyDeleteI too wanted to respond with regard to this article and its relationship to the Order of Deaconess and Home Missioners.
I really appreciated Rev. Dr. Viera's article. It was just missing some things.
He uplifted Lucy Rider Meyer, one of the pioneers of the deaconess movement through her Chicago Training School for City, Home, and Foreign Missions, founded in 1885 to educate Christian laywomen as leaders, social service providers, and evangelists. A few years later, with the help of other leaders in the Methodist deaconess movement such as Jane Bancroft Robinson, the Methodist Episcopal Church established the Office of Deaconess, an office that has persevered now for more than 135 years. Deaconesses were at the forefront of the Social Gospel Movement of the early 1900s, founding hospitals, schools, community centers, and serving at the intersection of faith and justice, as the hands and feet of Christ to the world. And we continue to embody the movement for Christ-centered social justice and impactful ministry today.
I celebrate my deacon siblings in the diaconate call of justice and service, but the history attributed to deacons in the article is that of deaconesses, a fully separate order. The ongoing ministry and legacy of the Order of Deaconess and Home Missioner that is correctly attributed to this history was not mentioned in the article at all.
When deacons were established as an order in 1996, the church also reaffirmed the Office of Deaconess. For more than a century the Office of Deaconess has innovated and expanded to meet the call the church has for us today. Not everyone called to ministry is called to ordination.
Today, our order is thriving. Our order is growing. Our order and the ministry of laypeople deserves to be acknowledged and celebrated, not co-opted and erased.
Several of us have submitted an article to UMNews to this end. We look forward to sharing it with everyone.
Thanks, Katelin. I appreciate your affirmation of the gifts, service, and witness of the on-going Order of Deaconess and Home Missioner.
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