2008 Faith & Facts
2008 Faith & Facts
A much more noticeable, and more important, symptom of the growing denominational consciousness of church leaders was the growth of institutionalized benevolence in the late nineteenth century. Organized benevolence grew slowly in Disciples history because of the caustic anti-institutionalism preached by the church’s early leaders. The crucial point at which Disciples disagreed about benevolence was how it should be done. Conservatives remained convinced that the church was an adequate organization to accomplish all that needed to be done; liberal Disciples increasingly looked for more efficient and orderly methods. Even more telling was the conservative argument that organized benevolence killed the sense of local responsibility: Christians too often relieved their consciences with token contributions to remote institutions. Church support of human benevolent organizations is wrong for the same reasons that church support of human evangelistic organizations is wrong. When churches support a human organization to do the work of the church, they establish ties of fellowship with the human institution, since a contribution by a local church is an expression of fellowship (2 Corinthians 8:4; Philippians 4:15-16). The only tie in Christ is that of fellowship (1 John 1:3). Thus, by donating to a human organization, that man-made institution is attached to the churches in ties of fellowship. It becomes in reality a church organization. It thus is a violation of the New Testament pattern for the organization of the church (2 John 9). Church support of human institutions violates the independence of the local church. The elders of those local churches surrender their oversight of that work to the board of directors of a human institution. The board of directors decide who shall be cared for and how. The churches just provide the money. This lowers the local church from the divine organization to do the work of the church to just a fund-raising organization for humanly devised organizations.
In his debates with Roy E. Cogdil over a half century ago, Guy N. Woods presented an argument which convinced a large number of brethren that church support of an orphanage was 36 THE BENEVOLENT WORK OF THE CHURCH scriptural. He argued that the orphan had become homeless, that the church had the right to supply a home for the orphan, and that the orphanage was the “home restored.” This became known as the “Home Restored” argument. The fallacies of the argument are glaring. First, it assumes that the care of homeless children is the work of the church. Certainly individual Christians may and should help care for these helpless, unfortunate children as we have opportunity and ability. But this falls outside the area of the work of the local church. Furthermore, the Home Restored argument is equivocation.
“Equivocation” is “a fallacy in logical reasoning arising from an ambiguous use of a word or phrase” (Webster. 769). Brother Woods used the word “home” in three different ways in the same argument. The child had lost his family (definition 3a of “home” in Webster. 1082), he asserted the church could supply him a place to live (definition la), and the orphanage is a “home” (a corporation, see Articles). An orphanage, a corporate body, is no more a family than the local church is. Furthermore, it cannot replace the divine arrangement. The family, any more than a denomination can replace the church. If a corporation can restore the family, I would like to see how brethren who employ this argument would restore the New Testament church. Would they set up a denomination and call it the “church restored”? An orphanage cannot replace the family; only another family can do that (by adoption or foster care). So for as a place to live, the corporation known as an “orphan home” is not such a place but provides it.
Conclusion
Here is a pattern for the benevolent work of the church that we must not shirk (2 Corinthians 8:24). When we have brethren in our midst who are doing without the necessities of life, or if we learn of congregations elsewhere which cannot meet their benevolent needs, we should rush to their assistance and so cement our ties of fellowship in Christ (2 Corinthians 8:1-4.). But church relief of needy saints is also a 2008 FAITH AN1 FACTS
37 pattern of benevolence we must not violate (2 John 9-11). Let us all abound in the work of the Lord (1 Corinthians 15:58).