The Big "Push" Is On!!

The Big "Push" Is On!!

Harvey J. Williams
Gary, Indiana

For sometime discerning brethren have warned that the advocates of church support of human benevolent organizations were, in some cases, using the emotional appeal of these to pave the way for a move to get schools in the budget of churches. There are clear signs from numerous sources that some have decided that the time for such a move is ripe. Up until recently, not very many who had no scruples against church support of schools would speak out very plainly, or publicly, advocating such. "Wee Willie" of Indianapolis did so quite a while ago. J. D. Thomas likewise took this, along with many other indefensible positions, in his book entitled "WE BE BRETHREN." Then, a scattering from here and there, especially from "school men"--Keeble, A. C. Pullias, Turner etc.--have been known to have no scruples against getting money for the schools from just about any source they think possible.

We will probably be seeing more and more of this in the coming months. Batsell Barrett Baxter preached three sermons that have been put in tract form with this matter of church support for schools evidently its main objective. In the LIPSCOMB REVIEW, Volume XV, Number 3, A. M. Burton appeals for church support of that school. Burton offers no scripture whatsoever. Baxter appeals to scriptures that do not relate to the issue -- or to each other in any remote fashion -- but the unsuspecting will be taken in I fear, and will think he has actually given Book, Chapter and Verse for his position.

One of the encouraging factors is that brother Reuel Lemmons has made use of the pages of the FIRM FOUNDATION, which he edits, to oppose this drive for church support of schools. However, judging from his wavering in the past, who can tell but that he has by now taken it all back.

We can't help but wonder what a great number of brethren who have claimed to see a difference in church support of human benevolent societies on the one hand, and church support of human educational societies on the other, so that they have advocated the one while opposing the other, will now do. Brother Roy Cogdill warned brother Woods in the Birmingham debate that if he did not line up with the "ADVOCATE" editor on the "school question," he may receive the same "axe" that Roy Lanier did for refusing to line up on the institutional "Orphan Home" question. It could happen to him, and some others besides. Let us hope that the brethren over the country will see that the only proper way to settle either, and both, along with all other questions is by an appeal to the scriptures that concern them. It will take more than some editor, or "school president," or well-known and highly polished preacher asserting such to prove that churches should support human organizations, for any purposes. It is nothing short of a violent misuse of scripture to offer as 'proof' for any practice verses that do not touch top, side, or bottom, of the issue involved. But, if there is no scriptural authority for a practice, and people presume to continue it anyway, they can only give appearance of scriptural sanction for it by such tactics. Let us hope that not too many will be either deceived by this sort of thing, or sold on the false notion that we do not need any scriptural authority for it, if it looks good to us. The only possible end of either route is complete apostasy.

Yes, the "push" is evidently on. This means that a "fight" must also be on. Just as in the case of every digression, those who push the unauthorized practices will bear the blame for the resulting trouble before the righteous judge. The practice of those of us who maintain that God's word must be carefully followed, that the organization furnished for His church in His word enables her to perform all duties he assigned to her, is not under question. So far as is known by this writer, no one is willing to deny that to which we sustain an affirmative relationship as regards church function. For more than eighteen centuries, God's churches performed their duties without humanly devised societies, missionary, benevolent or educational, attached to them. They yet can, and yet should, and yet MUST IF THEY STOP WHERE THE SCRIPTURES STOP!

Truth Magazine VIII: 9, p. 22 June 1964