Churches And Colleges
Shall churches contribute to the support of "Christian colleges" by cash on hand, by pledges, or by including some college in their "budgets"? That is the question. What is your answer?
Men are frequently unconsciously influenced in their thinking by their own interests. All agree that colleges and schools are human institutions and no man can make me believe that churches are dependent upon colleges for their existence. Colleges can be useful, or they can be a curse. A big endowment fund looks attractive to the worldly minded schemers; and such men can make great pretentious to soundness of faith and practice. Vultures will gather wherever there is much money.
As an individual I can give or not give to a college—that is strictly my own personal affair; but there is something wrong with a man's thinking when he thinks a church is at liberty to do the same thing. If I am a member of a church that has made a pledge to a college, or has the college in its budget, I am forced to contribute to the college, or refuse to contribute anything on Lord's days. Also it might be that the college the church is supporting might be such that I could not support. Besides, I cannot see that any group of elders has any right to pledge the members to support any college.
Many years ago the Foreign Christian Missionary Society began to tell each church how much it should give for missions. After that plan got going full-blast, I had a talk about it with A. D. Rogers. He, of course, favored the plan; but no church was bound to give the amount designated—that churches could give or not give, just as they pleased. (That sounds very much like what has been said about churches giving to colleges—give or not give just as they please). I made reply to A. D. about as follows: There are different ways to force people to do things—they can be surrounded by such conditions and circumstances that they have no choice but to fall in line or be counted out. Human organizations become more and more centralized and powerful. If one of your preachers fails to encourage the church where he preaches to send in its assessment, he will incur the displeasure of the higher-up, and will soon have no place to preach. He will have to toe the mark, or be counted out. And A. D. has lived to see that I was right. Some time ago a prominent preacher said that, if a church has a preacher that opposed including some Christian college in its budget, that church should get another preacher. If all the colleges develop that attitude, their students will go out with the same spirit. If that spirit is not checked, the colleges will become the rulers of the churches and preachers.
Even now a lot is being said about "—college trained preachers." A man who will not preach unless he can be "college trained" is not fit to preach, no matter how much college training he has. And I do not like to hear it said the churches are dependent on Christian colleges for preachers. That puts colleges above churches, or does it make colleges the foundation of churches? — (From Firm Foundation).'