Just Plain Sophistry
In a recent article in the Gospel Advocate, Brother Batsell Baxter in his column, "This and That," April 22, 1954, inferred that an "Orphan Home" is a better place to rear a child than in "any" private home. He gave as his evidence a scene he witnessed in an "Orphan Home" when a child threw a "tantrum" and his parents who were visiting the institution could not control him. He contrasted this with the ready obedience of the children of the institution and reached the conclusion that the institution is a better place than the private home.
Such is not reasoning but plain sophistry calculated to deceive and "scuttle" the waters so as to cover up the real issue involved. Brother Baxter is capable of better thinking than that and will be responsible for such false and deceptive teaching. Surely he does not believe that any human arrangement can be better than that which God has ordained. It is easy to see from the word of God that God has ordained the private home as a place to rear a child. Where does Brother Baxter find God ordaining the "institutional home"? He would search in vain for such in God's Word. That kind of reasoning led to the regimentation of the children of the Third German Reich and made them the charge of the State. Brother Baxter would regiment all the children of all our private homes and institutionalize all of them for their spiritual good and for the sake of the Lord and the church. He has been connected with institutions so long that he has lost sight of God's arrangement for even the private Christian home, no wonder he can't see the church of the Lord because it has been eclipsed in his mind by the great institutions created by the brethren.
When anyone contends that institutions are better places to rear children than private homes because of some corruption or failure in some private home, he ignores all of the intolerable situations, morally and otherwise, that exist and have arisen in "our orphan homes." Almost every one of them have had moral problems to arise even in the management of them. Of course, such problems arise in private homes also. The same failures that characterize the one characterize the other also. Do not be deceived into thinking that "institutional homes" are free from faults and failures. It is not so as a casual investigation of the records will show. It is ridiculous to think that the wisdom of man can improve upon the ways of God.
But what is Brother Baxter's point? What does it have to do with creating a human institution through which to do the work of the Lord's church? Not a single, solitary thing! Exactly nothing! Why doesn't Brother Baxter, if he is going to write on these issues, discuss the real principles involved in them? He but confuses the issues with his random and foolish comments.
Another thing Brother Baxter should make clear is — who is objecting to "Christians supporting orphans"? If such a reference has those in mind who, like the writer, oppose the church supporting human institutions to do its work, he has misrepresented us and should for honesty's sake correct such impressions. The charge that we do not believe in taking care of orphan children is the worst sort of misrepresentation. There is no point in such but let Brother Baxter compare his own record of taking care of orphans with some of the rest of us and he will withdraw his false charge if he values honesty and fairness. He is, or at least he has been in the past, capable of a fairer attitude than that.