Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 8
August 16, 1956
NUMBER 15, PAGE 3b

"Keep The Issue Clear!"

Alvin O. Raney, Cleveland, Texas

It is one of the tragedies of controversy that, almost inevitably, in the heat of the pros and cons of the issue, the basic cause is soon lost to sight. Side issues, related and unrelated, are raised and argued with such vigor and length that, in the minds of both the disputants and the witnesses, such side issues usurp the place of the real bone of contention. Manifestly, however such issues are settled — if they ever ARE settled — such settlement contributes little or nothing to an understanding of the ORIGINAL DISPUTE. It seems to me that this has been the fate of the current controversy on "INSTITUTIONALISM." Very few writers on either side have, of late, confined themselves to a discussion of the ORIGINAL, BASIC QUESTION INVOLVED; of the spark that set the present conflagration raging. Brother Gayle Oler, and those allied with him, are now busily engaged in charging (and sometimes with telling effect) that all who oppose them and their ambitions are hard-hearted and un-Christian unbelievers in the inspired words of James 1:27; that all such are opposed to caring for orphans and dead set against orphan homes. Thus they become the knighted champions of the weak and helpless; the saviors and succorers of babes and children. Necessarily, then, those who oppose them are depicted as social and religious monsters, who would not so much as give unto "one of these little ones" a crust of bread or a cup of cool water. The tremendous emotional appeal of the picture has fogged the perception and suspended the thinking of entirely too many members of the Lord's church. The care of orphans is not, and never has been, the real issue involved. I challenge any man that lives to produce one article ever published, or one witness, ON EITHER SIDE OF THIS CONTROVERSY, who has EVER advocated the neglect and starvation of orphans! The seeds of this controversy were sown in the attempt by the management of several orphan homes, led by Brother Oler and Boles Home, to get the churches of Christ to subsidize the homes directly from congregational treasuries. When this move was challenged, several writers, including Brother Oler, rushed into print to justify their demands by the contention that the church of the Lord had FAILED in their duty to orphans, (with the inescapable inference of the INADEQUACY of the church as divinely constituted), therefore the homes were NECESSARY, to patch up that failure. "THIS IS THE CHURCH AT WORK" was the sweetest song on their lips until scriptural opposition turned it bitter in their mouths. No, with whatever straw-men of "total situations" etc. brethren may joust, the basic issue remains unchanged....and unsettled. As the recent SPECIAL ISSUE of the Gospel Guardian ought to conclusively show, the ranks of noble and respected brethren fighting the creeping modernism of "INSTITUTIONALISM" are not against caring for orphans — nor even against orphan homes. THEY ARE AGAINST CONFESSING THE CHURCH OF THE LORD INADEQUATE TO ANY WORK DIVINELY ASSIGNED TO IT — AND AGAINST ALL ATTEMPTS TO REPAIR THAT SUPPOSED FAILURE BYATTACHING SOME HUMAN INSTITUTION TO IT AS A HUMAN CRUTCH TO SUPPORT A DIVINE FAILURE! And so, of course, am I.