***This is part three in a series of articles that will demonstrate the undeniable falling away taking place at Dordt University under President Erik Hoekstra and Dean of Chapel Aaron Baart. The first section of the series will focus on the liberal speaks the college is rotating through campus.***
In April of 2019, Dordt hosted “The Prodigal Love of God” conference. The college promoted the event’s speakers as some of the top “Christian thought leaders.”
The headliner? Marilynne Robinson. Robinson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist. And, she’s one of former President Barack Obama’s favorite authors.
Who is Marilynne Robinson?
Well, according to the National Catholic Reporter, Robinson disputes church teachings like those concerning the virgin birth. She questions that Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden. She doesn’t believe Christ died as a punishment for sin.
Situated on the “Christian Left,” Robinson “fiction is not concerned with policing boundaries of premarital sex, abortion or homosexuality, preferring a faith characterized by wonder, grace and mystery. There are no declarations of literalist and inerrantist biblical interpretation amid the plenty of references to Scripture and no advocacy for Bible-reading or prayer in school.”
Perhaps the most ironic angle of Robinson’s appearance is her appreciation for ObamaCare and its contraceptive mandate.
“That seems to me like an artificial problem,” Robinson said of the ObamaCare contraceptive mandate. “I wish I could go to the Supreme Court every time I saw somebody trying to cut food stamps…These people that are so attentive to babiest hat don’t exist yet…It’s a religious controversy, to me, that we would think of cutting back on help for the poor.”
The irony?
Dordt was one of the institutions that literally sued the federal government over the ObamaCare contraceptive mandate.
And just like Baart, Dordt’s dean of chapel (this will be proven well beyond any reasonable doubt in coming parts of the series), Robinson takes an unbiblical position on homosexuality.
“Does Jesus ever mention it? You can get in a lot of trouble eating oysters if you are a literalist about Leviticus…If you choose to value one or two verses in Leviticus…over…calls for social justice…that’s primitive. There are a thousand ways that we would all be doomed…if we were literalists.”
Oh, and just for good measure, you gun owners are all monsters!
“(Carrying a gun) is an immoral act act, walking around imagining you’re going to kill someone. It’s a recipe for a completely deranged society. It’s grotesque.”
So, if you’re keeping score at home, here is what we’ve covered so far in the series. These are the thoughts espoused by “Christian thought leaders” Dordt brings to campus to indoctrinate students from otherwise solid, biblical homes.
*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.”
