How Does This Look?
Brother Robert M. Alexander who is desperately trying to make the keys of the colleges fit the doors of the churches, like the keys of the kingdom do, shudders at the thought of what and where the churches would be "if we had not had Christian schools turning out preachers of the gospel during the past fifty years"! He thinks the churches ought to pay for the services the school has rendered them. Now, I'm not at all inclined to deny the schools any of the glory due them for the good they have done. It is admitted that up to now they have done a fairly good job, with some exceptions, without fastening themselves on the churches. They have up to now been classified as educational institutions with the same right to operate as the Gospel Advocate, the Firm Foundation and the American Christian Review. Brother Showalter might suddenly develop a case of shakes over what would have been the results to the church had the Firm Foundation not rendered the service it did in teaching the brethren and staying the tide of digression in Texas, "during the last fifty years." What would have happened had it not been for the Gospel Advocate and its valiant fight, when Lipscomb and his staff of able writers battled with the forces of digression? I have an idea that the churches owe as great a debt to the papers as it does the schools. They have always disavowed any intention of being church papers." They have not divided the brotherhood into districts, called mass meetings and the like and requested or demanded that churches as such support them. They could have called attention to the far greater circulation of some denominational papers, insisted that the welfare of the cause demanded that "we" match them in circulation, and campaigned to get into the budget of the churches. They didn't. I do not think they will. Personally, I do not think, and I fervently hope the schools will not get by with it. There is too great a principle involved. The Baptist and Reflector is the official organ of Tennessee Baptist organized work. It nestles comfortably and safely in the budgets of Baptist churches. The Baptist Convention does not hesitate to set quotas for churches and tell them what they ought to do, even if they do not tell them they have to. We do not have any official organs. I think Brother Alexander would like to have one, but my candid judgment is he would not know how to play on it if he had it. As long as papers and schools keep their places, and churches attend to their business, and all of us behave ourselves fairly well, things will move along all right. What we cannot do within the simplicity of New Testament teaching, but have to imitate the Baptists or some of the other nations around us, to get done, we would do well to just let alone. By the way, it has occurred to me and some others that Brother Alexander and the schools recommend themselves a little too highly anyhow. They might profit by some of the humility the New Testament recommends to the churches.