A diversity of gifts

Edward Dommen writes about the origins of Quaker committees in the Reformation

The original designer of the committee structure adopted by the Reformed Churches and, I believe, in due course by the Quakers was a figure from the early sixteenth century: Martin Bucer, who was born in Sélestat in 1491 and died in Cambridge in 1551. He toyed endlessly with ideas on the subject.

The fountainhead was the concept of the universal ministry of all believers, which Martin Bucer absorbed from the general atmosphere of popular revolt against the Catholic Church as an institution. John Woolman captures its theological essence from a Quaker point of view and stresses that it extends to everyone regardless of belief:

There is a principle, which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in different places and ages hath had different names; it is, however, pure, and proceeds from God. It is deep, and inward, confined to no forms of religion, nor excluded from any, where the heart stands in perfect sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root, and grows, of what nation soever, they become brethren.

- From A Journal of the Life, Gospel Labours, and Christian Experiences of that Faithful Minister of Jesus Christ, John Woolman, 1774

For Martin Bucer the key point was that ministry is above all a community matter, collective rather than being personalised in individuals.

The Holy Spirit is given to the whole community; it is therefore the community that receives the gift of the variety of talents that provide the opportunity for particular ministries. In so far as they exist and if the Holy Spirit inspires them (through vocation) it is because the community needs them; that is what justifies them. It follows that the obligations of pastoral responsibilities fall on every member of the community.

The Spirit

Experience had been quick to show that although the Spirit confers the ministry on the community as a whole, people have different gifts. It is sensible to distribute different functions among them accordingly, albeit under the guidance of the entire community.

Martin Bucer thus evolved the idea of specific ministries under the universal one. Each ministry is an expression at once of the ministry of the community and of a personal vocation. These different forms should both stimulate and correct each other:

There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the [good] of all.

- 1 Corinthians 12:4-7, New King James Version, adjusted

Martin Bucer produced various lists of particular ministries. Indeed, he considered it proper that their number and nature depend on the conditions of time and place. He gave various job descriptions to elders. Here is one which will sound familiar to Quakers: to ‘warn, recall, exhort, correct, exclude’.

John Calvin

The rabble-rousing preacher Guillaume Farel prevailed upon John Calvin to interrupt a journey to Strasbourg and stay in Geneva because he was a lawyer and therefore better equipped to establish a new ecclesiastical institution. Calvin was twenty-seven when he arrived. He threw himself into the task with the enthusiasm, impatience and the intolerance of youth. As a result Geneva expelled him a couple of years later. Martin Bucer encouraged him to complete his interrupted journey and come to Strasbourg.

There he applied his lawyer’s mind to codifying Martin Bucer’s fertile ideas on the variety of ministries. When he was called back to Geneva he presented a list of four ministries in his Geneva Ecclesiastical Ordinances of 1541: pastors, teachers, elders and deacons:

• Pastors preach and distribute the sacraments. Pastors may not accept civic responsibilities.
 
• Teachers teach.
 
• Elders, a sort of morality police, keep a watchful eye on the morals of the faithful, including the pastors. Somewhat to John Calvin’s regret, but in line with the Strasbourg model, elders were appointed by the civil authorities. They thus have a dialectical role with respect to the pastors.
 
• Deacons look after the poor and the sick.

Incidentally, these ordinances display an early instance of the separation of powers so important to democracy, both between the Church and the civil authorities and within the Church.

Some trace the origins of the function of deacon to Acts 6:1-3, where it is described rather disparagingly. Indeed, the word has a Greek root, diakonos, which some see as associated with stirring up the dust and thus related to the busy-ness side of the function. Whatever its etymology, the Greek word means ‘servant’. Since in Geneva, as in Strasbourg, the social services had been taken over by civic institutions and were being competently run, little was said about deacons – or Helfer (‘helpers’) as Martin Bucer classified them.

If one takes a deeper definition of the function as a ministry of compassion there remains, however, an essential role for a humane ministry in that vein.

The Quaker version

The Quaker committee structure broadly fits Martin Bucer’s model, including its pragmatism. Since Quakers take the universal priesthood of all believers literally, the pastors correspond to a committee of the whole: every member of the community is a member of it.

The committees that Quakers have traditionally called elders and overseers form the core of the selective committee structure. Quaker faith & practice contains a paragraph in the spirit of Martin Bucer’s recommendations:

If a Local Meeting wishes to adopt an alternative method of providing pastoral care, it should take time to work out how the responsibilities would be shared… Meetings need to give careful consideration to the best way of attending to pastoral care without neglecting any of the responsibilities of eldership or oversight.

- Quaker faith & practice 12.15, sentence order rearranged

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