Just Suppose...
Just suppose that our anti-1 Peter 5:14 brethren could prove that verses 26 and 27 of James 1 is congregational in its right application. Would that prove that churches of Christ may Scripturally "build and/or maintain such benevolent institutions as Boles Orphan Home..."? (See page 69 of The Indianapolis Debate.) What are these brethren trying to prove by affirming that James 1:27 is congregational? They are not trying to prove anything, brethren; they are just kicking up dust so that the "unlearned and unstable" will not see the truth.
Suppose that these brethren who are obsessed with the big "Campaigns for Christ," and the "Youth Rallies," and the many, many area-wide programs that are kicked off among them by human devices, could prove that none of their programs have yet destroyed the autonomy of a single congregation? Somebody asked me to name one congregation that lost its autonomy by participating in these human organizations and razzle-dazzle programs.
Somebody might have read 2 Thess. 2 and asked Paul to name one group of churches that he had set up a pope over them. Would his inability to point to such a group have proved that the mystery of iniquity already at work then would not inevitably bring on the Man of Sin? It was several hundred years before Paul's prophecy was wholly fulfilled.
My dad used to say, "There's none so blind as they who will not see." I wondered where he found or acquired all his wisdom. Now, I remember that he read widely. He must have read John Heywood (1547- 1580), who wrote so long ago:
"Who is so deafe or so blinde as hee That will neither heare nor see?"
-Rt. #2 Dora, Alabama