Orphan Home Defender Blasphemes God!
It is amazing to view the lengths to which brethren will go in order to sustain and uphold unscriptural practices. In the field of caring for orphans this characteristic is very noticeable, as those who would place orphans in an asylum for the rest of their minor years often resort to wild statements, and often appeal to emotions rather than to reason from God's word.
As a case in point, I have before me some statements made by someone trying to defend the Central Kentucky asylum for orphans. The author of the statements is not identified, and I guess that is just as well. Notice his words:
"1. We contend that the homes (orphan homes JDT) perform a service more effective than the average private home in developing habits of work and industry
"2. We contend that the homes do a more effective work teaching good, moral behavior than the home
"3. We contend that the homes are more successful than the average private home in making Christians of the young people
"This statement is no indictment of the private home. It is the best organization in the world!"
What duplicity! What artifice! The man has the gall to impeach God's arrangement, then turn right around and say God's arrangement is the best after all, and all the while maintaining that God's arrangement cannot work such wonders as man's arrangement — the orphan asylum!!
If he were speaking only of homes in which there were no Christians, he might have a point, but the fact is that his remarks were addressed to members of the church, many of whom are frustrated in their attempts to adopt children — frustrated by professional "orphan keepers."
Surely God had the good sense to know that only in the "private home" would a child receive the proper amount of love, affection, and individual attention and discipline which is necessary to develop a stable, balanced personality. The orphanage cannot do this properly. It is a physical impossibility. It is true that many fine persons have grown up in orphanages, but more often than not, they are stable and balanced in spite of, rather than because of the asylum A heartrending experience occurs when one visits an orphan home and sees the children who are literally starved for attention and affection, and who by their demeanor plead for you to take them home and love them, and keep them for your own. And the great mystery is that those who would take the child into their own home are called "orphan-haters" by the defenders of these institutions.
If, as the man suggests, the asylum rears a child so much more effectively than the home God provided, why isn't there a movement afoot to place all children therein? Actually, if what the man says is true, would it not be a sin to so deprive our children of the benefits of the asylum? Then we could shake hands with the Communist who takes the child away from its parents, and puts it in a collective institution to be raised by the state.
But, of course, the man's statements cannot be true if God's way is best. I have no personal knowledge of the conditions at Central Kentucky, but do have some of an asylum not too many miles from Portales. I have talked with a family that used to work in the home doing what they could for the children, and who gave their support to the institution until they learned what the Bible teaches. Of the many children who have left that "Christian orphan home," they do not know of a SINGLE ONE who it faithful to the Lord or His church! That may sound like a rash statement, and maybe they have not kept up with all that have gone out of the home. But even granting that, it is safe to say that a large number of those who have left the home have also left the Lord. Doesn't this help us to a greater appreciation of the statement made in Isaiah 55:8-9 — that God's ways are not man's ways?
May we suggest that the man from Kentucky consult his Bible more often and learn of God's ways before he blasphemes again.
— 522 West 15th Street, Portales, New Mexico