The following was printed in Lehre und Wehre, 63 (1917), p. 130.
“Auxiliary pastorate” of deaconesses. The Committee charged with revising the constitution of the Methodist Episcopalians reports: “The chapter on the deaconess issue has been completely rewritten and frequently changed and expanded. The necessity for this arose from the peculiar way in which the deaconess issue is developing in the English-speaking part of our church. There appears a general inclination to shift the focus of deaconess work — unfortunately at the expense of deaconess nursing — to wider and higher areas of service. All kinds and degrees of teaching, social work, holding society and other meetings, evangelism, thus a kind of auxiliary pastorate, and the like come to the fore.” This need of the Methodists with their deaconesses, says the Lutheraner, “probably has its basis in the fact that it is thought that this, too, belongs to the emancipation of women, that such words as: ‘Let your women be silent among the congregation’ (1 Cor. 14:34) and: ‘I do not allow a woman to teach’ (1 Tim. 2:12) are no longer held as God’s Word, but as the hateful words of a bachelor hostile to women.” F. B.
Today, were he still alive, Bente would surely write against the LCMS on this matter. For it says concerning “Deaconess Ministry”: “LCMS deaconesses are women who are professional church-workers, trained to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ through a ministry of works of mercy, spiritual care, and teaching the Christian faith.” Thus the LCMS, too, considers the Word of God to be merely “the hateful words of a bachelor hostile to women.”
Altlutheraner 