119 - John Calvin: On the Diaconate and Liturgical Almsgiving

John Calvin: On the Diaconate
and Liturgical Almsgiving
By Elsie Anne McKee
Geneva, Librairie Droz S.A., 1984. 309 pp. n.p.

The author's basic thesis is that "Calvin's teaching on the diaconate is a coherent and not insignificant theological development." This hypothesis involves two additional problems, namely, the relation of worship and ethics and the relation of theology and social welfare reform. In attempting to give an "exegetical and historical portrait of a doctrine," the investigation concentrates on Calvin's exegesis of scripture.

The author demonstrates that she is a scholar of great promise, with gifts in language and research as well as a perceptive and inquiring mind. This study is an original investigation of Calvin's work, making use of primary and little known sources. It is carried on with passion and the evident conviction of the writer that it is important for life today.

An extensive examination of almsgiving in sixteenth-century Protestant worship uncovers great diversity. The reformers eliminated the offertory of the late Middle Ages, but they sought to re-integrate the "charitable half" of the people's offering as a part of worship. Refugee churches, especially in London, and French Reformed churches specifically included almsgiving in worship. In some cases, the alms were collected during the service. In other cases, the offerings were placed in a box at the door. Explicit references to charity in benedictions indicate the significant place of alms in worship and in the Christian life.

Calvin's practice is a puzzlement for the author. There is no convincing evidence that Calvin bad an offering as a part of Genevan worship. Yet, on the basis of his exegesis of Acts 2:42 and Deuteronomy 16:16, he should have had an offering as a part of his principal liturgy. McKee makes good use of a little known but excellent essay on the Lord's Supper found in his liturgies of 1542 and 1545 to establish this point.

History is never as rational or as intentional students of history would

120 - John Calvin: On the Diaconate and Liturgical Almsgiving

like to believe. Theology did shape what Calvin did, but what happened in worship in Geneva was in many cases contingent on non-theological and unintended factors.

The study of the exegesis of Acts 2:42 demonstrates the importance of this text in the shaping of Reformed worship. Hughes Old has alluded to Bucer's interpretation of this text in his study of the relation of' Reformed worship to the Patristic Fathers, but McKee's work carries the investigation much further. She finds Acts 2:42 a "formal prescription for the church's public face."

A major section of the book relates almsgiving to recent studies of social welfare reform in the sixteenth century. Over against those who argue that Calvin re-sacralized welfare, that is, moved welfare from state to ecclesiastical control, McKee argues that the Reformed diaconate, especially Bucer's and Calvin's, "was born of scriptural convictions." The function of the ministry of compassion is biblically necessary for the church to perform its mission. The emphasis on function allows some variety in particular forms or offices, but the function is not optional.

The Reformed doctrine of the diaconate is explicated by detailed studies of the Reformed exegesis of Acts 6:16, 1 Timothy 3:8-13, Romans 12:8, and the diaconal role of women in the New Testament.

The third section, on theology, is the briefest and breaks less new ground. It does contain suggestive studies of Calvin's use of such words as pietas, justitia, caritas, and a number of others.

This study has a contemporary relevance in its thesis that the Reformed did associate in a new way almsgiving with the principal liturgy of the church. In America, Presbyterians made a significant liturgical achievement in making the offerings of the people, that is the ordinary members of the church, for the whole ministry of the church a central act of worship. Professor McKee's study reminds us that the theological grounds for placing almsgiving in worship have priority over the corporate and bureaucratic emphases of the contemporary church. The simple insertion of almsgiving in worship is not as important as the theological and ecclesiastical integrity with which this is done.

This study of the diaconate comes at a time when the function of the diaconate is under eclipse in American Presbyterianism. We can hope that McKee's study will stimulate reflection on the need to recover the notion of the deacon as one who cares for the poor and of the diaconate as a necessary function of the church's life. The eclipse of the diaconate is an affront not only to the function of the diaconate as a "mark" of the church in early Reformed ecclesiology, but also to the tradition.

The author has written an unusually able study of our Reformed heritage, and she has done so with passion. Her study ought to be read and used in the renewal of the church in our time.

John H. Leith
Union Theological Seminary
Richmond, Virginia