(INTRODUCTION: During the month of December, 1963 Batsell Barrett Baxter delivered three sermons at the Hillsboro church of Christ in Nashville, Tennessee under the title "QUESTIONS AND ISSUES OF THE DAY." This tract is available at 7c per copy from the Hillsboro church of Christ 2206 Hillsboro Rd., Nashville, Tennessee. The reader is encouraged to order one or more of these., It contains a significant move in the camps of liberalism. It asserts the "right" of the so-called "Christian schools" to church support in the boldest manner thus far in the present controversy. In this and following issues of TRUTH MAGAZINE I hope to write some articles reviewing some of the material contained in these sermons. JPN)

Many brethren have observed that the orphan home issue has been used as an emotional tool with which to break down the brethren's opposition to separate organizations to do the work of the church. The truthfulness of this evaluation has become more and more evident as time has gone by. The promoters of institutionalism failed to imbed the colleges in the budgets of the churches in the late 1940s, and realizing that the colleges were void of sufficient emotional appeal to blind the brethren to the scriptural principles church contributions to the schools violated, they simply switched the issues to something they knew would, namely, the orphan homes.

I fear that many brethren now contending for the truth on the institutional issue would have a better perspective of the whole controversy if they would take notice of this fact, and press the college issue more and the orphan home less. Brother N. B. Hardeman is the man who set the trap and switched the issue from the college to the orphan home. This is proven by the following quotation from his pen near the close of the 1940's college controversy and the beginning of the modern orphan home discussion.

"I have always believed that a church has the right to contribute to a school or an orphanage if it so desired. In all that I have written there is no conflict on this matter. The right to contribute to one is the right to contribute to the other. Note the parallel: (1) The school is a human institution; it has a board of directors: it teaches secular branches in connection with the Bible.

(2) An orphan home is a human institution; it has a board of directors; it teaches secular branches in connection with the Bible. The same principle that permits one must also permit the other. They must stand or jail together. (Emphasis mine JPN). Assuming that the school does the work of the church (which is subject to discussion) then may I ask; if the church can do part of its work -- caring for orphans -- through a human institution, why can it not do another part of its work --teaching the Bible -- through a human institution? These brethren failed to show why. According to the 'ace writer' the church sins in contributing to either…Why will these brethren support an orphanage and fight the schools? The possible answer is that there are too many of our best churches that support the orphan home, and these brethren are afraid to attack them" (Gospel Advocate Oct. 23, 1947, p. 844).

Following the year 1947, little was written on the college-in-budget controversy but more was written on the orphan home issue. N. B. Hardeman had very cleverly dragged a red herring across the track and got the brethren off the hot trail on to a cold one. From then until now the institutional brethren have forced the discussion on the orphan home because they realized it was to their advantage since it gave them such prejudicial material as: "anti-orphan home brethren," "orphan haters," "these brethren are willing to let the Catholics have all the homeless children and rear them to be Catholics" and "these anti brethren would let a little blind, hungry orphan child die in the streets before they would give it a cold biscuit," etc. They realized that if they repeated these prejudicial expressions long enough and loudly enough that their sympathizers would develop such a hatred for the opposition that they would forget that there is any need for Bible authority for what we do, and to help them along this line the promotional brethren began their familiar refrain "where there is no pattern," and "we do many things for which we don't have scriptures, nor do we need.

We realized that it was just a matter of time until the liberal brethren slapped their followers in the face with the college-in-the-budget issue again. The time is here now. The liberals led their followers out on a limb and are now ready to place the saw between them and the trunk of the tree and give them the choice of accepting the college-in-budget or drop with the limb into the sea of inconsistency. To prove this, I quote from the tract now under review:

"Some who are agreed that the church can contribute to an orphan's home are not convinced that the church can contribute to a Christian school. It is difficult to see a significant difference so far as principle is concerned. The orphan's home and the Christian school must stand or fall together." (Page 29, QUESTIONS AND ISSUES OF THE DAY, 2206 Hillsboro Road, Nashville, Tenn.). (Note the similarity between this and Hardeman's statement previously quoted. JPN).

In the above-mentioned booklet, brother Baxter asserts unashamedly the "right" of the college to church support. His language is loud and clear, and highly significant. Without doubt, the liberals feel that they have arrived at their destination: the point where they can spring the college-in-the-budget issue on their sympathizers with such force as to be irresistible. That the time is ripe is hardly debatable in view of the fact that several churches have already been hoodwinked into contributing to the colleges. Let us notice more from brother Baxter's sermons:

"The fact that the church must provide preachers, elders, teachers, and wives of such leaders places the responsibility for training and nurturing the young upon the church. Both of God's institutions have the responsibility to participate in this training program." (Ibid. p.25).

"Still another method (of training the young JPN) is the providing of 'Bible Chairs' in connection with secular colleges and universities. In such situations the church provides a building adjacent to the campus, conducts Bible classes, devotional periods, and affords opportunities for rest and recreation with Christian associates" (Ibid. p. 26).

"It is generally agreed among brethren that the church CAN pay the expenses of both young men and women in Christian schools, when they or their families are unable to provide such expenses. This is merely buying the services of the school. It is important to notice that this use of existing Christian schools pre-supposes that someone else has given the funds necessary to start and sustain the school. Paying tuition charges does not even pay current operating costs, much less the cost of buildings and other permanent equipment. If Christian schools are needed and can be used by the church to train its young, does this not establish a strong implication that the church might have some responsibility in starting such schools and causing them to be available when young people have need for them? If schools are needed to train leaders for the church, does this not imply that the church needs to help get the schools ready to provide such training?" (Ibid. pp. 26, 27).

"Actually, the church has depended upon these schools for many years to play a major role in the training of preachers, elders, teachers, and others. Is it not right that the church should provide the funds for the training of its own leaders?" (Ibid. p. 29).

"If the churches do not support the schools, ultimately one of two alternatives will result. One very real possibility is that the schools will die, as has been demonstrated in several score cases during this century…Think how many more young people might have been trained and how much stronger the church might be today if Christians had kept these schools alive. If the church does not support Christian schools, the second alternative is that the schools will eventually turn elsewhere for their support. When they turn to business and industry for any significant portion of their regular support it becomes inevitable that the Christian purposes for which the schools were established will be forgotten…It is my conviction that the schools need to be dependent upon the churches for the financial life blood in order for the schools to remain permanently loyal to the goals and principles which the Bible teaches" (Ibid. pp. 29,30).

"It is in this line of thinking that I urge the elders of the church to contribute to the ongoing of the Christian schools in order that the God-given obligation to train our young people may be discharged. I might also add the observation that if the individual Christian should give to make such schools possible, the church has the same responsibility, for it is a good work and the church is the people" (Ibid. p. 30).

It is evident, therefore, that the time has arrived when the orphan home and benevolent society controversy will gradually fade into insignificance, and the college-in-the-budget controversy will be in the forefront. I predict that we will see a gradual decline in the number of orphan homes as the years come and go and as the college-in-the-budget controversy waxes warmer and warmer. While the orphan home issue was being warmly discussed, the number of orphan homes increased by leaps and bounds because the liberals were seeking to convince their people of a point, but now that they have succeeded the number of orphan homes will decrease and the main interest will be in feathering the nests of all the colleges in the liberal camp from the church treasury.

SOCIETYISM HAS NOW GONE TO SEED AMONG THE LIBERALS: All of their would-be opposition to the old missionary society has a hollow ring; in fact, they have to misrepresent it to oppose it. They now practice everything involved in the basic errors of the missionary society. They now forthrightly contend for a separate human society (and don't forget that N. B. Hardeman called the schools "Human institutions") to do everything the church is obligated to do. They have an evangelistic society in Gospel Press to do the preaching. They have benevolent societies in the orphan and old folks homes, to care for the needy. They have an edification society in the colleges to train the membership. I see nothing of sufficient importance to keep our liberal brethren from joining hands eventually with the Disciples of Christ denomination. There is not enough difference between them to justify the maintaining of separate buildings and sustaining different preachers in most communities. Anybody who can tolerate a separate society to do even one work of the church (much less all) should have no trouble swallowing the instrument of music and an unscriptural name.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE STRAGGLERS? One wonders what will happen to the host of brethren who have fought so fervently for the orphan homes, but who have maintained that they could consistently oppose church contributions to the colleges? What will they do? Will they continue to oppose the church support of colleges, or will they just silently go along with this latest development hoping that folks will forget they ever said anything against it? This will be interesting to watch. We sincerely hope some of them will come to themselves (the longest trip one can ever make) and forsake the camps of liberalism before they allow the blind to lead them to the ditch of complete apostasy. (More to follow).

Truth Magazine VIII: 7, pp. 8-10 April 1964