Our Standard -- Feasible, Practical, Or Scriptural
(No. 8 in a series reviewing Brother Guy N. Woods' articles recently appearing in the Gospel Advocate.)
A large portion of article number six (Gospel Advocate, November 25, 1954) in Brother Woods' series is used in arguing the feasibility and practicality of caring for orphan children in a centralized institution as contrasted with each congregation caring for its own. We are not — at this point — particularly interested in what is "feasible" or "practical." We are concerned about whether or not "our benevolent institutions" are scriptural. Brother Woods assumes throughout his discussion that the question is one of expediency. A thing cannot be expedient unless it be lawful. Brother Woods must first prove that "our benevolent institutions" are scriptural (lawful). The feasibility and practicality of rearing children in an institution are open to question, and our brother's argument is by no means conclusive on these points, but we are not interested in these matters until he has first proved them to be scriptural. The Word of God is our standard. Let Brother Woods indict proof from the scriptures to sustain the lawfulness of "our institutions," then talk about expediency.
Sunday School And Orphan Home Same In Principle
Brother Woods affirms: "The principle which justifies the Sunday school and the orphan home is precisely the same, however much they differ otherwise." Recognizing the difficulties in which such a position must involve him, our brother with "tongue-in-cheek" attempts to anticipate the logical answer to such foolishness and thus escape the inevitable consequences of his contention. His bluff will not work. He will not be allowed to deny the logical consequences of his own argument. He who "dances" must "pay the piper." Hear him:
"Let those who may be tempted to try invidious comparisons between the Sunday school and the orphanages take notice that the only point of similarity we have advanced is their organizational features, i.e., the systematic and orderly arrangement characteristic of each. Without this warning, we are sure that the next discussion we conduct on the class question our opponent would cite the foregoing statement and say, 'The orphan home has a superintendent, treasurer, etc., therefore, you admit you have these in your Sunday school'; and some reviewer of these articles could not resist the temptation to enquire whether we would endorse a centrally located Sunday school to which all the churches send their pupils!"
If this writer were one of the non-Sunday school brethren and in debate with Brother Woods, he would certainly haunt our brother with the position he takes relative to the parallel between the orphan homes and the Sunday schools. In fact, we sincerely believe that in taking such a position our brother destroys his usefulness as a debator on the Sunday school question. Brother Woods seeks to establish some mystical and exceedingly "nebular" principle on which both the orphan home and the Sunday school are based, but he does not tell us what the principle is. What is this principle, Brother Woods? It seems that our brother dreads to meet the issue on the basis of the orphan homes as they actually are. He has some sort of an intangible ideal that he imagines he defends, and on this basis, bravely rides forth to champion in the lists the cause of "our institutions." However, he will not wear their colors. He says, "The only point of similarity we have advanced is their organizational features." To be sure, that is the very point at issue. What is the character of "our homes"? They are institutions organized and chartered under institutional boards made up of members of various contributing congregations through which the churches function in the performance of their benevolent responsibilities. This is their organizational character. They have their own charter, constitution and by-laws, board of directors, superintendent, treasurer and various subordinate officers. They maintain, not only secular homes, but schools (some do), farms, ranches, etc. They function independently of the church, and are in no sense under the church or its elders. If from the standpoint of organization, as Brother Woods argues, they are the same in principle as a Sunday school, we may look for these features or their counterparts in the Sunday school. Brother Bonneau, Johnson, or some other non-Sunday school brother will undoubtedly make Brother Woods suffer in his next debate. Our brother is ethically and logically obligated to defend an organized Sunday school separate and apart from the church if the. Sunday school is the same in principle as the orphan home. Of course, there is one alternative. Brother Woods might reverse himself again, change his position on "our orphan homes," and return to his position of 1939. He could argue once more that orphan homes must be operated under the eldership of a local church and that they are scriptural on no other basis. This might get him out of trouble with the folks he calls "antis," but would involve him in the necessity of affirming that it is scriptural for a single eldership in a city, district, or state to operate a Sunday school for the churches of those areas through which said churches fulfill their teaching responsibilities as churches. It is passing strange that a man of our brother's stature should make an argument that involves him in such predicaments knowing at the time the logical import of his position.
Brother Woods summarily disposes of this whole vexing problem by stating;
"The truth is, all of these — the orphan homes, the homes for the aged, the Sunday schools — are servants of the churches, functional organizations by which the church acts."
This writer would not defend an organized Sunday school in the sense implied in our brother's parallel. We would defend the teaching of the Bible in classes under the oversight of a local eldership in a local church as a means or method by which said church fulfilled its teaching responsibilities. Note, though, the similarity of Brother Woods' argument or analysis to that of J. B. Briney relative to the missionary society:
"They are not institutions outside of the church, but organizations within the boundary of this institution. They are channels through which the functions of the church are exercised . . . ." (Otey-Briney Debate.)
In article seven of his series, our brother seeks to evade the fact that the brotherhood benevolent institution is the same in principle as a brotherhood missionary society by comparing the orphan home to the "United Christian Missionary Society." No one has argued that the homes of the brotherhood are parallel, except in principle, to the "United Christian Missionary Society." It has been argued that they are parallel to a missionary society void of the abuses of the "United Christian Missionary Society." Will Brother Woods endorse a missionary society, formally organized and chartered under the laws of the state, governed by its own peculiar constitution and by-laws, overseen by a board of directors made up of members of various contributing congregations in connection with its superintendent, secretary, treasurer, and subordinate officers, and existing as an agency through which the churches, universally speaking, function in discharging their responsibilities to preach the gospel at home and abroad? His logic requires that he endorse such. If he will not, why will he not do so? What argument can he make against such an arrangement that cannot also and with equal force be made against the benevolent institutions which he defends?
We are all duly impressed with the popularity of Brother Woods in the realm of public controversy without his having to cite his many debates. We hasten to remind him, however, that the prestige of his many polemic encounters will not lend any power to the puerile efforts he has made on the question of "Orphan Homes and Homes for the Aged." Too, we are not overlooking his brave challenge for a debate through the columns of the Gospel Advocate. Surely, Brother Woods will debate the issue provided that he be allowed to force his opponent to meet impossible conditions of Woods' creation. Yes, of course, he will debate if he is allowed to write the propositions, select his opponent, an determine all the pertinent circumstances under which the debate is conducted. A bigger piece of double-talk than Woods, challenge for debate has not appeared in any professed gospel paper in our generation.
To The Weeping Wall
In our brother's concluding article, he takes us to the weeping wall and sheds crocodile tears over barbarous practices involved in the adoption of children that no man with half sense, much less a degree of Christianity, would think of countenancing. His purpose is to leave the impression that such things are inseparably joined to adoption. An "enlightened brotherhood," as he puts it, would hardly be deceived by such manifestly false implications. Surely, Brother Woods' cause is worthy of better defense than this.
Summation
In bringing our series to a conclusion, let it be remembered that Brother Woods offers only one argument in justification of the institutional homes for the orphans and the aged. He argues that the churches are to care for the orphans and the aged, that the Lord reveals no method for caring for them, hence that churches may follow "the procedure which seems most effective."
May we emphasize again that no one is attempting to tell a local church how it may or must care for its own orphans or aged persons. The discussion does not revolve around the question of method any more than the controversy over the missionary society revolves around the question of methods of evangelism. The following truths are the basis of the issues and problems which exist:
(1) No church, churches, or groups of individuals have the scriptural right to establish under an institutional board made up of members of various congregations an organization through which the churches may function either in discharging their benevolent or evangelistic responsibilities.
(2) No local eldership has the scriptural right to become the centralized agency through which the churches discharge their benevolent or evangelistic responsibilities. Many churches may contribute to a local eldership to assist the church over which they are overseers in time of distress. (Acts 11:27-30.) The principles of autonomy and equality, however, make it unscriptural for a church to delegate her own responsibilities in general evangelism or benevolence to a sister congregation.
The issue actually revolves around the question of the all-sufficiency of God's organization, the local church. Does the local church under its own elders have the ability to perform the mission with which God has charged it, or does it not ?
It is our firm conviction that if the God of heaven had desired for churches of Christ to act as one through a single agency in the performance of their mission, he would have given an organization divinely designed for the accomplishment of such work. The fact that he did not so organize the church universal is prima facie evidence that he did not intend for it thus to act.
All movements, therefore, to this end are aberrations from Divine Truth. Some movements are worse than others. Some institutions are fraught with greater possibilities for evil than others. However, even :the slightest deviation from divine principles cannot with safety be countenanced and tolerated by God's children. A fitting climax to this series is a familiar quotation from A. H. Newman's "Manual of Church History":
"We can show, as it were, experimentally, how every departure from New Testament principles has resulted in evil — the greater the departure the greater the evil. The study of church history, while it may make us charitable toward those in error by showing us examples in all ages of high types of religious life in connection with the most erroneous views of doctrine, will not tend to make us disregard slight doctrinal aberrations; for we shall know that the most corrupt forms of Christianity have had their origin in slight deviations from the truth." (Vol. 1, p. 18.)
May our minds not be blinded by prejudice and sentimentality to the obvious aberrations from New Testament principles concerning the organization of the Lord's church involved in the organizational features of "our benevolent work." Let us continue to regard one another as brethren and with open minds and devoted hearts study these questions for a scriptural solution. Militancy demands that the church fulfill all responsibilities (benevolent or evangelistic) divinely ordained. Fidelity to God demands that all responsibilities be discharged in harmony with His revealed will. May God help us to be both militant and faithful.