Colleges In The Budget
"Some who are agreed that the church can contribute to an orphans' home are not convinced that the church can contribute to a Christian school. It is difficult to see a significant difference so far as principle is concerned. The orphans' home and the Christian school must stand or fall together."
The words above were not written with a view to showing that, since it is wrong for churches to contribute to schools, it is also wrong for churches to contribute to benevolent societies. They were rather written on the assumption that it is right for benevolent societies to solicit and accept funds from the churches, and that forasmuch as the schools are a parallel, they have an equal right to both solicit and receive the churches' funds. The words are Batsell Barrett Baxter's (the head of the David Lipscomb College Bible Department and featured speaker for the Herald of Truth) as copied from his booklet, "Questions and Issues of the Day."
The schools want in the church's budget! And at the same time that they make known their mercenary intentions, they take the attention away from the benevolent societies and focus it upon themselves, and thus the battle has circled a full 360 degrees. The student of history will recall that the institutional war began with the colleges. Their attempt to attach themselves to, and become the wards of the church failed as a wave of scriptural argument and sentiment repulsed them in the thirties and early forties. The attack blunted, the schools withdrew in favor of the orphanages. They recognized that even though they were organically parallel, as witnesseth N. B. Hardeman's statement then and Baxter's now that "they stand or fall together," the benevolent society had the distinct asset of emotionalism. And they succeeded in equating opposition to benevolent societies to opposition to the welfare of little orphans. The results are now well known. The churches that have held to the old paths of having "book, chapter and verse" for faith and practice have been maligned as "antis" and worse, and the societies have been doing exceedingly well as wards of the churches. The schools now want their share.
Baxter continued: "It is my conviction that the schools need to be dependent upon the churches for their financial life blood in order for the schools to remain permanently loyal..." Baxter warned that "if the church does not support Christian schools... (they) will eventually turn elsewhere for their support. "(But instead of turning "elsewhere" the schools have only enlisted the benevolent societies to help as an ally in their persistent drive for, lo, these thirty-plus years to get into the churches' treasuries.)
Do the schools solicit? "It is in this line of thinking that I urge the elders of the church to contribute to the ongoing of the Christian schools..." (Batsell Barrett Baxter.)
Dear reader, human organizations do not have a scriptural right in the budget of the church of the Lord. But if one institution does, then they all do. As say their own defenders, "they stand or fall together."