Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 14
July 19, 1962
NUMBER 11, PAGE 7

The Strides Of Error

Jesse G. Jenkins

Those who run the institutional children's homes have made great strides in their thinking relative to these homes. For years they argued that the "orphan home" was a parallel to the Bible classes. Guy Woods argued this is his debate with W. Curtis Porter in 1956. For years the men engaged in the operation of these homes freely admitted that the "orphan home" was far inferior to the private home. Dillart Thurman told me that he heard Gayle Oler, superintendent of Boles Home, say that he would be glad to see the day when the institutional "orphan home" could go out of existence, A few years later Woods and others decided that the "orphan home" was not parallel to the Bible classes at all, but that it was parallel to the private home; they said that the "orphan home" was now a divine institution. If the "orphan home" was a divine institution, surely it was now as good as the private home which is a divinely appointed institution. Thus in their thinking the "orphan home" had progressed from a systematic arrangement of the church to a divine institution — at least as good as the private home.

In the February, 1962, issue of the Maude Carpenter HOME JOURNAL we read: "Children's homes are not orphanages. They are 'homes,' just as the name implies." For years the operators of these homes called them "orphan homes," and most members of the church still refer to them as such. But another stride has taken place in the thinking of the operators of these homes. Now they are not to be thought of as "orphan homes" for this would relegate them to an inferior position. And this would never do! For in the same issue of the HOME JOURNAL we find: "Many will be surprised to know that children who live in a Christian Children's Home are among the most fortunate children on earth. (Emphasis mine, JGJ). So now they claim that the institutional children's home is superior to the private home!

Some strides indeed: first a systematic arrangement of the church, then a divine institution, and finally superior to the private home is divinely appointed by God! I wonder what they will come up with next, in an effort to elevate their human inventions.

In conclusion let me state that of the "many" who "will be surprised to know that children who live in a Christian Children's Home are among the most fortunate children on earth," I suspect that the children who live in them will be the most surprised. I recall reading a short article that was written by one of the children in Tipton Home some months ago in which he listed several reasons why he would never drink. One of the reasons why he would never drink was that he did not want his children to have to be reared in an institutional home! I just suspect it would be quite a task for the superintendent of one of these homes to convince this little fellow that he is so "fortunate."

— Fort Worth Texas