Report on the Diaconate

John L. Girardeau, Robert L. Dabney, and Thomas E. Peck, three of the leading Southern Presbyterian theologians of the nineteenth century, wrote this unanimous committee report for the 1884 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. It answers a single question: should deacons discharge the strictly temporal functions of the church’s executive agencies, such as serving as treasurers of the Assembly’s committees?

Arguing yes, the report dismantles three contrary positions in turn: that the higher office of presbyter includes the deacon’s, that the deacon’s work is restricted to care of the poor, and that his functions stop at the bounds of his own congregation. It closes by recommending that the Assembly formally approve appointing deacons wherever strictly temporal functions arise in its administrative policy.