Are Deacons Members of the Session?

Summary

R. Dean Anderson Jr. takes up a recurring polity question in this Ordained Servant article: whether deacons belong on the session with the elders. Writing against the drift in some continental Reformed churches toward seating deacons on the ruling body, he traces the French synods from 1559 through Nimes in 1572, the Belgic Confession’s Article 30, and the Dutch synods from Emden in 1571 to Dort in 1618-19.

The record shows a consistent line: the session consists of elders only, and where deacons did attend (usually because elders were few) they were understood to function as assistant elders, not as deacons, and almost certainly without a vote.

Anderson concludes that a mixed session is not a continental alternative to Presbyterian practice but a departure from the Reformed tradition itself, one that would need solid biblical grounds.

Excerpt

Here we see that the French inclusion of the deacons with the consistory was NOT because they viewed the office of deacon as a ruling office, but because they viewed their deacons as called at the same time to be assistant elders. Here they were evidently able to give some “after the fact” justification of their actual practice, while at the same time being careful not to blur (theologically) the Scriptural distinction between the office of elder and that of deacon. Nevertheless, this Synod still did not permit deacons to take part in discussion of discipline cases.

Are Deacons Members of the Session?

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