The Deficit May Help
In the January issue of Facts, an official propaganda organ of Boles Orphan Home, there are some interesting facts given as to the financial condition of this brotherhood institution. Brother Gayle Oler is the editor of Facts and the superintendent of the Home. Through this official organ of his institution (which institution Brother Flavil L. Colley said in a recent issue of Firm Foundation Brother Oler has all but stolen from the churches!), Brother Oler has of late been doing some demeaning, begging, backbiting, misrepresenting and perverting. He seems all upset and very offended at some that he speaks of in very unbecoming ways, such as "writin' brethren," "caustic, uninformed, and often jealous criticism of a vociferous few," and as "megacephalous journalists." He seems "burned up" and incensed that anyone would dare question his "Big Business For Christ" as he has described Boles Home. Many have questioned it and many more are questioning it all along as to its being a scriptural organization through which churches may work. The fact is, so many are doubting this that this "Big Business" was allowed to run a big deficit last year. This is really hurting Brother Oler. There have always been many that have wondered about Boles Home and its operation just from a practical, business standpoint. No contributing church can secure a real financial report from the Home. Many have tried and all have failed. This puts this "Big Business" under question. One can well see why.
Brother Oler has been trying to "scotch" for his "Big Business" through Facts. He saturates the churches with this propaganda sheet and its one-sided discussion of matters. He has demonstrated one of the ugliest dispositions and spirits, to say nothing of plain cowardice by his underhanded attack on others and his refusal to publicly defend his "Big Business" as scriptural, that I have ever seen. His every article along this line is filled with bitterness, hate and rancor. This has certainly hurt him in the estimation of many of his friends and supporters. They can not help but see his failure and unwillingness to defend his institution, and also his deep resentment for those who have questioned it. Far better would it have been if Brother Oler had come forward like he should to speak out in honorable defense of his position. By so doing we could have respected his honesty and conviction, even if he failed to establish his position as right. As it is, we cannot any longer respect either his honesty or his conviction — if he has such. Brother Oler has taken too many different positions, done too much shifting in argument and has made nothing but a prejudicial appeal in defense of Boles Home. These are plain words, but these are stubborn facts. We hope that even yet Brother Oler will redeem himself by coming forward in a forthright defense of Boles Home as scriptural or else have the honesty and conviction to say that it cannot be defended as such. I have written him personally about this, but he has not answered.
In this January issue of Facts Brother Oler says that there are 270 children in Boles Home. He tells something of the cost of caring for each child and then says, "At $60.00 per month per child we cared for we should have received $16,200 per month. We actually received only $13,809 per month. This means we lacked $2,391 per month receiving enough money from the churches to care for the children they have brought here."
This is a big deficit for such an institution to stand. At $2,391 per month, that means that they were $28,692 short for the whole year! That is a lot of money. The first question that entered my mind when I read this was: How did they stand such a financial shortage? The Home did not go broke and this "Big Business" continues to operate. How did it do it with such a tremendous shortage financially? Does Boles Home have some secret source of income and revenue that is not generally known? There must be an explanation somewhere. Many other business firms would be happy to learn the formula for operating a "Big Business" at a financial loss of $28,682 per year!
Where did Boles Home get this money to make up the deficit? There is no question but that this "Big Business" has other sources of income than the churches. In this report Brother Oler only tells of the money received from the churches — just one source of revenue that must be exploited to the "hilt." He says the Home received only $13,809 per month from the churches. This means the churches furnished this "Big Business" with a total of $165,708 last year. No trouble to see that such an institution is a "Big Business." How much is received from other sources is not known and evidently is not for public knowledge. Perhaps these other sources of income might be able to finance the whole affair. Who knows?
Maybe Boles Home could borrow enough to cover the deficit from her sister institution at Morrilton, Arkansas. The "Big Business" there seems to be pretty well fixed financially. This home for orphans at Morrilton is "supported by churches of Christ." This institution has a good size surplus, for from this Home the Sixth and Izard Church in Little Rock, Arkansas borrowed $40,000 to help finance their church building. A "business" has to be doing pretty well to make loans like that. Maybe it was the making of this loan to Sixth and hard that has helped establish such an affinity between that church and orphan homes. Brother Cleon Lyles, preacher for Sixth and Izard Church, has recently gone on record in their church bulletin as recommending that the homes be supported. In fact, he says congregations should "double" their contribution to these Homes. You should not "bite the hand that feeds you" as the old saying goes. Perhaps if all churches were to double their contributions to these Homes, then they would have a greater surplus of money to loan the churches. These "Big Businesses" could then loan the churches their own money back and charge them interest! This would be quite a help to churches and just look at the service rendered! This could be a pretty good "side line" for these orphan homes.
In this same issue of Facts Brother Oler assumes that it is the obligation of the churches to support Boles Home. He says, "But the care and support of homeless children is the responsibility of the churches." Of course, Brother Oler offered no proof for this broad statement. I deny that such is true and ask him to prove it. Let Brother Oler prove that it is the obligation of churches in general to support the children at Boles Home. And if he proves that the churches should support these children, that does not prove that the churches should support Boles Home — this "Big Business" as an institution! Yes, a church may pay Boles Home for "services rendered" like it would pay a Hotel for "services rendered" in keeping a preacher. But there is a vast difference in this and in churches putting Boles Home in the budget to send so much each month to the institution where it is not a matter of "service rendered." Churches can no more do this by scriptural authority than they can put any other private business in the budget. If Boles Home is to be simply a "service institution" as Brother Oler seems NOW to want it, then let him say so, let the Board of Directors set it up as such, thus making it a private business, and then quit trying to bind its support on the churches! The churches then will sustain no obligation to it except in such cases where the "Big Business", renders a service (in caring for children) to some church.
Brother Oler then says that if the Home does not get from the churches adequate funds — $16,200 per month at least — then they have but two alternatives. He says they can: "1. Send the children back to the churches from which they came, or 2. Give them sub-standard care, training and supervision in improperly maintained facilities."
There it is! That is the situation as this "Big Business" faces a crisis. What the outcome will be I do not know. Just how the funds have poured in this year to keep this business booming, I do not know. If Brother Oler's spirit, attitude and writing may be still taken as any indication of results, then matters are not any better. Brother Oler continues to pour out his indignation and wrath upon the churches for allowing this shortage, and especially upon those he thinks have been to blame. Per-laps the reason for the shortage is that churches over the land are awakening to the fact that Boles Home is a "service institution" — a private business, and that as such the churches are under no obligation to it. Hence, since Boles Home is rendering to them no service, they see that they are not obligated, and have stopped their contributions. Churches that have not learned this should learn it!
As to which alternative Brother Oler will take, all of us who are interested in children would hate to see him follow the second one. This would be unfair to the children and would be morally wrong. All of us know that the care and support these children receive in such institutions is poor at the best. It is a poor substitute for their natural parents or even a foster home. Even Brother Oler admits this.
Let me suggest that if he must take either alternative that he take the first one and send the children back to the churches from which they came. In fact, this would probably be a good idea anyway. This would place the obligation back on the churches to which it belongs, if indeed the obligation (scripturally) was ever theirs. They would be forced to meet their obligation in this way. If these churches that have placed children in Boles Home and are thus buying "service" (child-care) from this Home, will not meet their obligation and pay for such service, then they should be sent back. Churches should not be allowed to thus impose on Boles Home or any other business and become "deadbeats." Brother Oler recognizes this and practically says as much. "Churches employ the services of radio stations, newspapers, hotels, and numerous other concerns and pay and expect to pay fully and promptly for their services. They could not expect to do otherwise. But what about Boles Home?" Churches who are employing the services of Boles Home should pay for such — "they could not expect to do otherwise." No other churches sustain any obligation to Boles Home and cannot rightly be solicited for money for the Home. The Home has no more right to expect such than any other private business, such as a hotel or radio station. If Boles Home is a human institution, a private organization, and the churches are only connected with it as they buy a service from it, then unless churches are buying service from Boles Home they can no more support it than they can any other business. Surely brethren can see this. Some do and this may account for the deficit.
If Brother Oler is forced to send these children back to the churches from which they came, this may help to settle our "orphan home problem" in the brotherhood, at least as far as Boles Home is concerned. This may help more than can now be seen. The churches of Christ are under no obligation to Boles Home as such, and whether it succeeds or fails is of no special consequence to the churches. If it is a private organization, simply an institution that can look to the churches for money only for "services rendered," then if the churches that have placed children there are such "deadbeats" as to refuse to meet their obligations, that is too bad. Churches who refuse to pay their debts are as sinful and wrong as individuals who do the same.
Brother Oler says, "Now churches have only one of three answers to the situation: 1. They may deny any obligation or responsibility toward the homeless, needy orphan children they or their sister congregations bring here; which of course, they will not do . . . ." This is a strange statement! Look at it. Brother Oler says churches "MAY" deny any obligation to the children they send there. Why say "MAY" deny? His article is about the fact that they ran a deficit of $2,391 each month because churches do not send what they should — they have not been willing to meet their obligations! No church owes Boles Home anything except those churches for whom Boles Home is rendering a service! Everyone of these churches is under suspicion now of being a "deadbeat" and refusing to meet their obligations. The superintendent should make these churches "cough up." Brother Oler says that they will not deny their obligation to these children! Whom is he trying to fool? This is the very thing Brother Oler charges them with doing in failing to send the necessary $16,200 per month! What strange and contradictory statements do come from Brother Oler.
The second answer the churches have is: "2. They must find a better, more feasible, more practical and economical way to care for these children than the way at Boles Home, which discovery we would all welcome ..." This is a splendid idea and should be encouraged. I am sure that a better, more practical and much more economical way can be found. In the first place, many of the children in Boles Home are in no sense of the word the obligation of any church. Let's start here! Their parents are living and contribute to their support. Others have relatives that can and should support them. The churches should not be burdened with such. Eliminating these would reduce the number at Boles Home who have the right to look to the church for support to less than half.
These children who are the obligation of various churches can best be cared for in other ways. Some could be put out for adoption — and they would be taken. The rest could be placed in foster homes, or perhaps in some "service institution" like Boles Home is supposed to be. Should there be those so sick or mentally retarded as to need specialized care, then such could be placed in an institution equipped for such and the church could really pay that institution for "services rendered." There are none like this in Boles Home, however. They will not accept such and are not equipped to handle such. In one or all of these three ways every orphan home among "us" could be emptied within a few months. Those children adopted would cease to be an obligation of the church, and hundreds of Christian couples are desirous of obtaining such children. Those placed in foster homes would in most instances be cared for without any expense to the church. Individual members could and would provide what help was needed. Even the state would pay for such work in most cases. Thus a far better, more practical and certainly more economical way of doing it. Brother Oler says, "which discovery we would all welcome." Let's see if he does!
By the proper application of scriptural principles and the understanding of the obligation of the churches in this work; the recognition by local congregations of their own responsibility; the realization on the part of parents and relatives of their obligation to these children (which is plainly taught in the New Testament); the belief in the sufficiency of God's largest, God's smallest, and God's only organization — the local congregation — to do the work divinely required of the church; and the practice of pure religion in our individual lives, the "orphan home problem" would vanish. May God speed this day is my fervent prayer and ardent hope.