On June 10th, D.J. Johnson and Robert Little were ordained to the Sacred Order of Deacons in the Anglican Church of North America. But what exactly does that mean? Many denominations use the term "deacon," but what they each mean can be vastly different. Since so many folks at All Saints are new to Anglicanism, I thought that perhaps a quick primer was due.
What is the Diaconate? As Anglicans, we view the Diaconate as one of the three orders of ministry along with the Presbyterate (i.e. priests) and the Episcopate (i.e. bishops). Every priest is first ordained as a deacon, and every bishop is first ordained as a deacon and then a priest. In the Anglican church, we view ordination as a sacramental act. Thus, the result is not simply functional, but also ontological. A person is ordained as a deacon not simply for a local congregation, but rather for the entire church, and he remains an ordained deacon for the rest of his life. This is because the deacon is under the authority of a bishop rather than a local congregation. In the ordination service, the new deacon confesses, "And I do swear by Almighty God that I will pay true and canonical obedience in all things lawful and honest to the Bishop of ___________ and his successors: So help me God." So even though most deacons serve in a parish, their ministry to that parish is through the Bishop. Thus, a deacon must always be under the authority of a bishop.
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My wife and I had Ephesians 5:21-33 read at our wedding. From our perspective, there is no better description of practical marriage than these verses. But some of our friends were taken aback by this choice. They wondered how we could possibly believe such an outdated, patriarchal, male dominated view of marriage? Twenty-two years later and this section of Ephesians often provokes a similar, if not even more heated, response. However, when we take time to really read and understand what Paul is saying we realize that what may appear at first glance as oppressive is in actuality life giving.
For starters, we need to make sure we don't ignore verse 21, which gives us the full context of what is to follow. Paul says, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." Paul is about to describe a number of different household relationships (husbands and wives, parents and children, slaves and masters), but the underlying principle for all of them is mutual submission. Now this may sound like an oxymoron. When we hear the word "submission," we automatically think of a power differential, of one person imposing his or her will on another person. That was the world Paul lived in, and it is the world we live in today. One of the themes that I heard repeated time and again during the interview process in January was that All Saints was experiencing growing pains. It is pretty amazing to see how far the parish has come since those early days in John Simmon’s living room, and while growth in the church is always a wonderful thing, it usually presents new challenges as well. During my first month as Rector I have tried to sit back and get a sense of things, and I have discovered that while All Saints is really moving into the “large church” category, in many ways we are still operating like a small church. It reminds me of a teenage boy who keeps hitting his head on things because he is trying to figure out how to move around in this larger body. Sure, it may hurt at times, but it is all part of the process of growing up.
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The Rev. Eric ZolnerFather Eric is a 3rd generation Anglican and the Rector of All Saints Anglican Church in Springfield, MO. Archives
February 2021
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