***This is the fourth part in what will be a long series exposing the undeniable turn away from the Bible and toward Marxist, leftist policies at Dordt University under relatively new leadership of President Erik Hoekstra and Dean of Chapel Aaron Baart. Dordt, a once great Christian institution, is falling away and leading kids astray with this undeniable, inexplicable liberal drift.***
Here is yet another speaker Dordt was proud to have on campus as a “Christian thought leader.” James K.A. Smith was one of the speakers at the 2019 “Prodigal Love of God” conference.
Smith is known as a Christian who “shills for the secular Left.” Paul Kengor from Crisis magazine wrote the following about a piece Smith wrote a few years ago:
“Its unfairness, its choice of mockery over substantive criticism, its nasty accusations and its naivety really troubled me. Even then, I might have walked away, but its unwarranted derisiveness toward three good men who have really stood for their Christian faith…prompts a response. (Smith’s) article constitutes a hit-piece on behalf of the secular left…Merely for opposing the redefinition of marriage alone, these men will be viewed by progressives as some sort of laughable, lamentable trio…The liberals at the Post no doubt hope that Smith has provided a nifty take-down of these unsavory foes.”
Smith is also an advocate for evangelicals to look beyond the issue of abortion of voting. Smith desires a world in which Christians are able to look past the murder of millions of unborn babies and instead focus on, I don’t know, I guess something that he thinks matters more than millions of unborn babies being slaughtered in the womb.
“When evangelicals start to imagine politics as more than federal voting, and beyond the governing issue of abortion, willing to entertain faithful compromise, THEN we’ll see a new sophistication in this sliver of the electorate.”
Yes, evangelicals. Compromise on killing on unborn babies, please.
Another highlight from Smith, who is a Calvin College professor, is his opinion of Trump supporters.
“Everyone – EVERYONE – who supports Trump: we’re making a list; we’re keeping names, we won’t forget. This isn’t a game.”
When it comes to the Bible’s role in government, Smith isn’t sure it has one.
“It seems silly to me to think that the Bible should have public cachet in an argument about what the state should do. I think it’s a misguided project to try to translate the specificity of Christian confession about abortion.”
There was also this tweet from Smith: “Trump voters: ‘Oh, we definitely want health coverage *like* Obamacare, we just don’t want to feel indebted to a black man.”
And, voting for Trump is “just a disastrous failure of political prudence.” And, “if you want to use your religious liberty to support Donald Trump, you’ve already lost the argument.” And, “Congrats on your Supreme Court justice, white evangelicals! And what a deal! It only cost you your dignity, integrity and witness.”
Sounds like a reasonable guy. A real, modern day “Christian thought leader…” just maybe not for people who are Christians…or thinkers.
What Smith is, is an echo. An echo of the far-left, secular left, ‘Christian left,’ that Dordt leadership (Hoekstra and Baart) keep bringing on campus. Hoekstra, as you’ll see later in the series, justifies this by the need of exposing students to “different flavors of Christianity.” But what actual biblical, conservative speakers have been propped up as “Christian thought leaders” at Dordt lately?
Smith isn’t an isolated incident. Smith is another piece to this blatant liberal puzzle attempting to turn Dordt upside down and reject basic biblical truths. It isn’t an “isolated incident.” It isn’t something that “lacks context.”
It’s an undeniable drift away from biblical Christianity. It is undoubtedly causing Dordt’s founders to roll over in their graves. And it’s happening due to the leadership of Hoekstra and Baart.
Let’s do our series recap:
*Marilynne Robinson, who isn’t convinced of a virgin birth, or that Jesus died for mankind’s sin. She’s also one of former President Barack Obama’s “favorite authors.” And she believes owning a gun is ‘grotesque.’
*Jemar Tisby, who believes the American church was built on white supremacy and that the church should pay reparations.
*Christina Edmondson, who says American exceptionalism is a myth and that in America, you can be a good, white Christian and hate your neighbor.
*Kristin Kobes DuMez, who wrote a book about how white evangelicals “corrupted a faith” and “fractured a nation.”
Dordt is under fire from some for forcing students to sign an open-ended “COVID covenant.”
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