John N. Collins
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195396027
- eISBN:
- 9780199852383
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195396027.003.0015
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
This chapter examines whether “diakonia” is a suitable designation for the churches' responsibility to redeem the oppressed and the dispossessed. Related to that by reason of today's prevailing view ...
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This chapter examines whether “diakonia” is a suitable designation for the churches' responsibility to redeem the oppressed and the dispossessed. Related to that by reason of today's prevailing view of the diaconate is the question of which direction the study ought to take us in if we are to arrive at defining more satisfactorily the character and role of ordained diaconate today. Next, on the broader scene of ministry, are some reflections on the relationship between ministry and charism. Closer to the nub are the succeeding considerations as to where ecumenism now stands on its already long journey towards an agreed understanding of ministry. This discussion also considers the ultimate question of just what early Christians considered that ministry to be without which a group of Christians did not constitute a church. Finally, the chapter asks whether today, according to that early Christian view, women can take up that kind of ministry.Less
This chapter examines whether “diakonia” is a suitable designation for the churches' responsibility to redeem the oppressed and the dispossessed. Related to that by reason of today's prevailing view of the diaconate is the question of which direction the study ought to take us in if we are to arrive at defining more satisfactorily the character and role of ordained diaconate today. Next, on the broader scene of ministry, are some reflections on the relationship between ministry and charism. Closer to the nub are the succeeding considerations as to where ecumenism now stands on its already long journey towards an agreed understanding of ministry. This discussion also considers the ultimate question of just what early Christians considered that ministry to be without which a group of Christians did not constitute a church. Finally, the chapter asks whether today, according to that early Christian view, women can take up that kind of ministry.
John N. Collins
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195396027
- eISBN:
- 9780199852383
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195396027.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
Interest in the Greek word “diakonia” is largely attributable to an earlier emphasis on linguistic research in the study of the Bible. Since the 1930s, the great mass of lexical information suddenly ...
More
Interest in the Greek word “diakonia” is largely attributable to an earlier emphasis on linguistic research in the study of the Bible. Since the 1930s, the great mass of lexical information suddenly within arm's reach of any student of early Christian literature tended to encourage the delineation of themes and theological conceptualizations among a variety of the ancient authors. Theology has been enriched in the process but at certain points also it has certainly been distorted. Those who first spoke of “diakonia” were not the linguists or theologians of our day but Lutheran churchmen of 19th-century Germany. Lack of canonical recognition did not prevent the spread of houses of deacons and deaconesses. Various opinions about the role of the early deacon and the language by which he was designated are born of the little linguistic work on the matter that has been done independently of Wilhelm Brandt and W. H. Beyer, and it must be seen as working against the tendency, set in motion by them in the 1930s, towards a diaconate of service.Less
Interest in the Greek word “diakonia” is largely attributable to an earlier emphasis on linguistic research in the study of the Bible. Since the 1930s, the great mass of lexical information suddenly within arm's reach of any student of early Christian literature tended to encourage the delineation of themes and theological conceptualizations among a variety of the ancient authors. Theology has been enriched in the process but at certain points also it has certainly been distorted. Those who first spoke of “diakonia” were not the linguists or theologians of our day but Lutheran churchmen of 19th-century Germany. Lack of canonical recognition did not prevent the spread of houses of deacons and deaconesses. Various opinions about the role of the early deacon and the language by which he was designated are born of the little linguistic work on the matter that has been done independently of Wilhelm Brandt and W. H. Beyer, and it must be seen as working against the tendency, set in motion by them in the 1930s, towards a diaconate of service.
John D. Early
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813040134
- eISBN:
- 9780813043838
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813040134.003.0029
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Social Groups
This chapter describes the Catholic effort of inculturation, the attempt to develop a Catholic theology and church based upon Maya culture instead of the western imposed forms that presently exist. ...
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This chapter describes the Catholic effort of inculturation, the attempt to develop a Catholic theology and church based upon Maya culture instead of the western imposed forms that presently exist. Bureaucratic Catholicism slowly began to wrestle with the problem of inculturation at Vatican Council II and the conferences of Latin American bishops. In the Maya area, groups composed predominantly of Maya Catholic priests met to make explicit an already existing Maya theology. Some Maya parishes have established the permanent diaconate as a hopeful step toward a married Maya priesthood. The question is: Will these efforts be fully recognized and allowed to advance by bureaucratic Catholicism so that a distinctively Maya Catholicism will be fully integrated and accepted as orthodox Catholicism?Less
This chapter describes the Catholic effort of inculturation, the attempt to develop a Catholic theology and church based upon Maya culture instead of the western imposed forms that presently exist. Bureaucratic Catholicism slowly began to wrestle with the problem of inculturation at Vatican Council II and the conferences of Latin American bishops. In the Maya area, groups composed predominantly of Maya Catholic priests met to make explicit an already existing Maya theology. Some Maya parishes have established the permanent diaconate as a hopeful step toward a married Maya priesthood. The question is: Will these efforts be fully recognized and allowed to advance by bureaucratic Catholicism so that a distinctively Maya Catholicism will be fully integrated and accepted as orthodox Catholicism?
Norman Doe
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198262206
- eISBN:
- 9780191682315
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198262206.003.0008
- Subject:
- Law, Comparative Law, Constitutional and Administrative Law
The diaconate and the presbyterate are ministries of service: deacons and priests are treated theologically as called by God to work as servants and shepherds to the faithful. Legal arrangements in ...
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The diaconate and the presbyterate are ministries of service: deacons and priests are treated theologically as called by God to work as servants and shepherds to the faithful. Legal arrangements in the Church of England reflect both this and the idea that the ministries of priests and deacons are shared with those of the bishop and the laity in partnership. This chapter examines the process of ordination, ministerial appointments, and functions, which vary depending on the position held, pastoral care for clergy, ministerial discipline, and termination of ministry. There are many parallels with the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church: in both churches, as a general principle, the ministry of priests and deacons is subordinate to that of the episcopate; all aspects of their ministry are in the keeping of the bishops. It is within the framework of the canonical ministry of priests and deacons that the use of supplementary executive norms operating at diocesan level is most evident.Less
The diaconate and the presbyterate are ministries of service: deacons and priests are treated theologically as called by God to work as servants and shepherds to the faithful. Legal arrangements in the Church of England reflect both this and the idea that the ministries of priests and deacons are shared with those of the bishop and the laity in partnership. This chapter examines the process of ordination, ministerial appointments, and functions, which vary depending on the position held, pastoral care for clergy, ministerial discipline, and termination of ministry. There are many parallels with the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church: in both churches, as a general principle, the ministry of priests and deacons is subordinate to that of the episcopate; all aspects of their ministry are in the keeping of the bishops. It is within the framework of the canonical ministry of priests and deacons that the use of supplementary executive norms operating at diocesan level is most evident.
Peter McDonough
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199751181
- eISBN:
- 9780199345076
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199751181.003.0012
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapters looks at FutureChurch—and along the way Call to Action (CTA) as well as VOTF. All of these organizations challenge, to varying degrees, the doctrinal orthodoxy as well as the behavioral ...
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This chapters looks at FutureChurch—and along the way Call to Action (CTA) as well as VOTF. All of these organizations challenge, to varying degrees, the doctrinal orthodoxy as well as the behavioral and institutional customs of Catholicism. Founded in the bicentennial year 1976 under the auspices of the American bishops, CTA soon broke away to press for women's ordination, optional celibacy for the priesthood, and similar causes. Sr. Christine Schenk founded FutureChurch in the Cleveland area in the 1990s and has concentrated on promoting the “female diaconate”—that is, allowing women to be ordained as permanent deacons, a step just below the priesthood in the Catholic hierarchy. Schenk's agenda opens up a gray area between permissible and expressly forbidden change. Her advocacy inside the church is analogous to the liberalization that John Courtney Murray sought decades earlier in the relations between church and state.Less
This chapters looks at FutureChurch—and along the way Call to Action (CTA) as well as VOTF. All of these organizations challenge, to varying degrees, the doctrinal orthodoxy as well as the behavioral and institutional customs of Catholicism. Founded in the bicentennial year 1976 under the auspices of the American bishops, CTA soon broke away to press for women's ordination, optional celibacy for the priesthood, and similar causes. Sr. Christine Schenk founded FutureChurch in the Cleveland area in the 1990s and has concentrated on promoting the “female diaconate”—that is, allowing women to be ordained as permanent deacons, a step just below the priesthood in the Catholic hierarchy. Schenk's agenda opens up a gray area between permissible and expressly forbidden change. Her advocacy inside the church is analogous to the liberalization that John Courtney Murray sought decades earlier in the relations between church and state.
John N. Collins
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199367573
- eISBN:
- 9780199384617
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199367573.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology, History of Christianity
In these papers of the last twenty years, John N. Collins rounds out his engagement with issues stemming from his initial research of the 1970s into the nature of early Christian ministry. The first ...
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In these papers of the last twenty years, John N. Collins rounds out his engagement with issues stemming from his initial research of the 1970s into the nature of early Christian ministry. The first group of three chapters provides historical background to semantic investigations into diakonia and illustrates the place widely accorded to this Greek term in contemporary ecclesiology. The next seven chapters, mostly from Collins’s earlier books Are All Christians Ministers? (1992) and Deacons and the Church (2002), describe uses Greeks made of diakonia and related terms in Classical and Hellenistic periods. The discussion attracts cross-reference to Collins’s more technical treatments in Diakonia: Re-interpreting the Ancient Sources (Oxford University Press, 1990), but in this form does not require knowledge of Greek. Issues include diakonia as constituting the mission of Jesus, ministry as office and charism, and how ancient usage enables us to appreciate processes implied by a ministry of the word. The final four chapters reopen twentieth-century questions about ministry for re-examination in the twenty-first century in the light of the revised semantics and of dramatically increasing demands upon ecclesiology. Critical issues include the legitimacy of the concept of ministry at play within ecumenism, the capacity of a church to endow lay people with ministry without destabilizing a concept of ordained ministry, and the need to reassess the pastoral potential of the new diaconates. Collins invokes a warning from Fustel de Coulanges: “Getting the meaning of a word wrong can lead to great mistakes.Less
In these papers of the last twenty years, John N. Collins rounds out his engagement with issues stemming from his initial research of the 1970s into the nature of early Christian ministry. The first group of three chapters provides historical background to semantic investigations into diakonia and illustrates the place widely accorded to this Greek term in contemporary ecclesiology. The next seven chapters, mostly from Collins’s earlier books Are All Christians Ministers? (1992) and Deacons and the Church (2002), describe uses Greeks made of diakonia and related terms in Classical and Hellenistic periods. The discussion attracts cross-reference to Collins’s more technical treatments in Diakonia: Re-interpreting the Ancient Sources (Oxford University Press, 1990), but in this form does not require knowledge of Greek. Issues include diakonia as constituting the mission of Jesus, ministry as office and charism, and how ancient usage enables us to appreciate processes implied by a ministry of the word. The final four chapters reopen twentieth-century questions about ministry for re-examination in the twenty-first century in the light of the revised semantics and of dramatically increasing demands upon ecclesiology. Critical issues include the legitimacy of the concept of ministry at play within ecumenism, the capacity of a church to endow lay people with ministry without destabilizing a concept of ordained ministry, and the need to reassess the pastoral potential of the new diaconates. Collins invokes a warning from Fustel de Coulanges: “Getting the meaning of a word wrong can lead to great mistakes.
John N. Collins
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199367573
- eISBN:
- 9780199384617
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199367573.003.0014
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology, History of Christianity
A servant paradigm has controlled the basic understanding of the diaconate across denominational lines in modern times. This paradigm has determined much of what is expected of deacons in churches ...
More
A servant paradigm has controlled the basic understanding of the diaconate across denominational lines in modern times. This paradigm has determined much of what is expected of deacons in churches today. The paradigm’s Protestant roots mark a divergence from the ancient diaconate as represented in Orthodox tradition, while within Roman Catholic experience the modern servant model has tended to crowd out more broadly pastoral initiatives. The overriding ideology remains the nineteenth-century German concept of Diakonie as loving service. In none of its many reincarnations today has the diaconate been fully aligned with the alternative re-interpretation of diakonia (Collins 1990). The situation raises the question whether the pastoral potential of the diaconate can be realized without confronting the confusion surrounding the identity of this ministry.Less
A servant paradigm has controlled the basic understanding of the diaconate across denominational lines in modern times. This paradigm has determined much of what is expected of deacons in churches today. The paradigm’s Protestant roots mark a divergence from the ancient diaconate as represented in Orthodox tradition, while within Roman Catholic experience the modern servant model has tended to crowd out more broadly pastoral initiatives. The overriding ideology remains the nineteenth-century German concept of Diakonie as loving service. In none of its many reincarnations today has the diaconate been fully aligned with the alternative re-interpretation of diakonia (Collins 1990). The situation raises the question whether the pastoral potential of the diaconate can be realized without confronting the confusion surrounding the identity of this ministry.
John N. Collins
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199367573
- eISBN:
- 9780199384617
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199367573.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology, History of Christianity
Since Tyndale’s New Testament of 1526, churches have experienced the impact of translation upon the diaconate. The diaconate of charity recognized by sixteenth-century Reformers failed to flourish ...
More
Since Tyndale’s New Testament of 1526, churches have experienced the impact of translation upon the diaconate. The diaconate of charity recognized by sixteenth-century Reformers failed to flourish until the emergence in the 1840s of a renewed emphasis upon diakonia as loving service. Although this did not accord with specialist linguistic comment, diaconal pastoral practice inspired the development of a specifically Christian lexicography of diakonia, culminating in twentieth-century churchwide social services designated by the German neologism Diakonie. This semantic shift also effected a broadening of the concept of ministry itself as churchwide and deriving from baptismal charisms. The 1990 semantic study Diakonia (Collins) claimed the new servant model rested upon a misunderstanding of diakonia. Recognized as a correction in 2000, and supported by further semantic studies, the Collins re-interpretation encourages new thinking about diaconate and ministry.Less
Since Tyndale’s New Testament of 1526, churches have experienced the impact of translation upon the diaconate. The diaconate of charity recognized by sixteenth-century Reformers failed to flourish until the emergence in the 1840s of a renewed emphasis upon diakonia as loving service. Although this did not accord with specialist linguistic comment, diaconal pastoral practice inspired the development of a specifically Christian lexicography of diakonia, culminating in twentieth-century churchwide social services designated by the German neologism Diakonie. This semantic shift also effected a broadening of the concept of ministry itself as churchwide and deriving from baptismal charisms. The 1990 semantic study Diakonia (Collins) claimed the new servant model rested upon a misunderstanding of diakonia. Recognized as a correction in 2000, and supported by further semantic studies, the Collins re-interpretation encourages new thinking about diaconate and ministry.
