Put It Under An Eldership
We are learning these days. Brethren are coming up with new ideas in multitude. The trouble with many of these ideas are that they are simply not in harmony with the truth.
Many of our brethren have the idea that the work of the church can correctly include almost any project if such is "put Under an eldership" somewhere. It does not seem to matter to them whether it comes within the scope of the work of the church locally or even whether it comes within the scriptural limits of church work or not. If an eldership can be found who will "accept the supervision and oversight," that will solve every problem and settle every doubt.
Hence, today, we find elders of the churches supervising summer camps, handcraft schools, farms, dairies, real estate holdings, giant money raising schemes, brotherhood projects of many kinds, and the end is not yet. Brethren either do not know what the work of the church is, or they are doing a lot of crooked thinking with reference to it. At the present rate we will soon have the church engaged in every kind of social, economic, and political enterprise under heaven, and elders will be overseeing it all to give it the semblance of being scriptural. Such projects will not need to be initiated by the elders at all. Someone with enough ego and gall can promote it as "the work of the church" and all he will need to do will be to find a group of elders somewhere who are ambitious for the limelight to accept its supervision. (There seem to be plenty of them around — almost as many of them as there are Promoters.)
Brother E. R. Harper, Brother Logan Buchanan, the elders of Highland Church in Abilene, Texas, and the Promoters (that should be spelled with a capital "P") of the Herald of Truth have recently made the profound argument that the Herald of Truth is the work of the church; that it is a work of the Highland Church in Abilene; and that we cannot consistently oppose it for it is parallel to our own publishing concern!
Among many other things wrong with that argument is the fact that these brethren seem not to know the difference between what an individual Christian may do and what the church of the Lord may scripturally do. I, for one, could devoutly wish their contention were right. It would solve a lot of problems for some of us. According to their contention, all we would need to do would be to find an eldership somewhere willing to accept the supervision and oversight of the Roy E. Cogdill Publishing Company, then proclaim to the churches generally that it is their responsibility to preach the gospel through the printed page, and begin to solicit their contributions. That would solve all our financial problems right away. And what a relief that would be!
Moreover, all the schools and colleges could do exactly the same thing. All they would need to do would be to find an eldership somewhere willing to accept the supervision and oversight of the school. Then they could go among the churches and ask contributions from them to this work. Also, Brother Gayle Oler at Boles Home would be able to quit his disgraceful floundering in his public pronouncements between two positions for the institution at Quinlan. He would no longer be in danger of developing a nervous breakdown in trying to decide whether Boles Home is "Kingdom business" or simply a "service organization," whether it is the work of the church or simply a business organization of individuals selling service to the churches. He could settle down peacefully if he would only put his entire promotion under an eldership. Better still, if he isn't too big a piker, he could promote the combining of all the "orphan homes" into one giant "Orphan Home," put it under the eldership of a congregation somewhere, and then go out and sell the brethren' on the idea of letting that one congregation do all the "orphan home work" for the entire brotherhood. That would be parallel to Herald of Truth in its universal aspect at least.
Then, too, look at what wonderful opportunities this plan will afford for evangelism. Why not bring in the Missionary Society and "put it under an eldership"? In fact, is that not actually what has already been done in the Lubbock and Memphis set-ups? The only difference is in form, not in principle.
Where is the end? And where do we go from here? — Roy E. Cogdill