Browsing Through Old Papers
THE JOHN T. HINDS ARTICLES ON CHURCH INSTITUTIONS: The following is the final of the three articles from October and November, 1930 issues of the Gospel Advocate:
Is An Orphan Home A Church Institution?
The readers will remember that a number of questions regarding what it takes to constitute a church institution have already been noticed. One more completes the list and refers to orphan homes. It is this:
If a Christian husband and wife take one or more orphans into their home and a congregation assists in caring for them, does this make that home a church institution? If the congregation should buy a home for this purpose, just as they build a house for worship, and employ this man and his wife to care for the orphans, would it change the situation? What is the New Testament plan for helping orphans and other needy people?
If a husband and wife voluntarily undertake such a work on their own responsibility, it is not a church institution, only in the sense that it is a work being done by members of the church, just as a publishing company formed to get out religious literature may be called a "church institution" because conducted by members of the church, but not a church institution as the expression is commonly understood. If one or more congregations, individually, without being bound by some human organization, want to assist this work, they have the same right that they have to individually assist some destitute family. This latter work no one denies.
If a local congregation, under its own direction, wants to start a work of this kind, and is able to do it, it has exactly the same right to do it as the husband and wife had. If other congregations want to individually assist this work, they have the same right as when the work was conducted by the husband and wife. In neither case is there any human organization formed to bind congregations. If we avoid this, individual and congregational liberty must be allowed as long as moral principles are not violated and church worship is not perverted.
The New Testament clearly demands that we care for orphans and other needy to the extent of our ability, but lays down no definite plan. It may be done individually, in private homes undertaken voluntarily, in special homes directed by a single congregation, or a home managed by Christians who personally and voluntarily build such homes for the purpose. An individual or a congregation may help the work when conducted in any of these ways, so long as it is done directly and no human organization is formed to exercise authority over congregations.