Make Up Your Mind

By Cecil Willis

For several years the liberal brethren have had a difficult time determining how the human institutions which they have foisted upon the church shall be directed. The Firm Foundation has maintained that these institutions must be under an eldership, while the Gospel Advocate has declared that they must not be under elders, but must be under a Board of Directors.

Some of the institutions have switched from one governing arrangement to another. For instance, the Maude Carpenter Home has been under elders, then under a board, and is now back under elders.

Guy N. Woods used to say, in his early debates, that if one board should attempt to oversee more than one home, it then would be comparable to the Missionary Society. But the Boles Home board has now for several years overseen both Boles Home and the separate Foster Home at Stephenville. But has Woods opposed this arrangement? If he has, his opposition has been overlooked by me.

Boles Home at first was under elders. Then they switched to a board. Then they started a second institution. Now they are separating the Foster Home from Bole8 Home. The Foster Home will now be overseen by a board of directors “approved” by the Graham Street church elders in Stephenville, but these directors live in several different cities.

Indeed, it must be a difficult chore to find a scriptural way to run an unscriptural organization!

TRUTH MAGAZINE, XVI: 19, p. 8
March 16, 1972