"Church Schools"
Fred E. Dennis
Marietta, Ohio
| The church owns no schools, hospitals, drug stores, camps or filling stations. Many brethren are in these
businesses, and brethren are within their rights when they get into such businesses. They have a right as
individuals to set up schools, hospitals, drug stores, camps and filling stations. They have no right in the
light of the scriptures to set up such things and then call upon the church to support them, or to call them
"Church of Christ schools, hospitals, drug stores, camps and filling stations."
Certainly a brother running a school, a hospital, a drug store, a camp, or a filling station has a right to teach the Bible as he has opportunity. In fact, it would be very wrong for him or any of us not to teach the word of God at every possible opportunity. I do not believe that any Christian will be in any business without teaching the Bible when he can. I believe that brethren who work in the stores, the offices, the schools, the farms, the shops, etc., will teach when they can, the Bible. If we would make a distinction between what the individual may do as a simple member of the church and what the church may do as a body, it would solve many of the problems that are troubling Zion (Please read that again). When brethren get to talk about "The Educational Foundation that was set up by the Church of Christ" they are wrong. The church is not setting up anything and is not starting anything but Congregations of Disciples of Christ. The God of heaven set up everything he wanted to set up. He set up the church more than nineteen centuries ago. He set up the home six thousand years ago. Christians are members of these two divine institutions. The Church is God's educational institution. Of course, it is right and proper that our children be educated in languages, history, science, medicine, etc. But that is not the work of the church. The work of the church is to preach the gospel of Christ and care for the worthy poor who are members of the church and do not have relatives who can or will do it. I would rather that my grandchildren would sit at the feet of a Christian to learn their mathematics, English, etc., but that is not the work of the church. If we keep on, the average member is not going to know what the church is to do. When good brethren talk about the church owning colleges, camps etc., they are wrong. Such is the language of Ashdod and should not be engaged in by intelligent Christians. When I began to preach forty years ago, congregations were being divided and brethren alienated because the distinction was not clearly made between what the individual Christian can do and what the church can do. In my part of the country that breach is practically healed and the old sores are cured. Brethren, I beg of you not to open up this breach and pick at these old sores. Start your schools, your hospital, your drug store, your camp, and your filling station, but do not beg the church as the body of Christ to support it. Let the church, be the church. I would even suggest that you don't talk too much about your camp, and your filling station from the pulpit and in the bulletins and religious papers. Remember these are individual enterprises of yours and do not interest the church. I am an old preacher. The sun will sink behind the western hills for me before long. I love the church. I love every brother. Let us be careful. Keep the church and the world separate. May God help us in our righteous endeavors to serve Him. Truth Magazine VIII: 9, p. 14 June 1964 |