Earlier in the day, the Synod newly approved Covenant College of Lookout Mountain, Georgia, for its list of recommended colleges

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The Synod of the Reformed Church in the United States voted Thursday (May 20) to suspend Dordt College from its list of colleges recommended for support.

The vote came a day after Dr. Carl E. Zylstra, president of the Sioux Center, Iowa Reformed-oriented college raised hackles among delegates to the conservative denomination when he gave what was perceived to be equivocal answers to questions about the college’s liberal drift.

The vote to suspend the college from further RCUS support also included instructions to the denomination’s executive committee to send Zylstra and the college board of trustees a “letter of pastoral admonishment” and request that the board respond to the denomination’s concerns or face permanent sanctions.

The debate began with a recommendation from a synodical committee that a letter be sent to RCUS congregations “warning” parents about three professors at Dordt who were said to be promulgating “erroneous” doctrines or teachings.

That recommendation was immediately met with blistering criticism from several outraged delegates who said the Synod had endured Dordt’s many errors for far too long and that it was time to take positive steps to declare the college unacceptable.

Opponents of the college said the problem at Dordt was not just with three professors or a compromising administration but the problems were systemic. There is an “institutional mindset that is not worthy of our support,” one delegate argued.

Opponents proposed an immediate permanent removal of the college from the denomination’s list of approved educational institutions, and a preliminary vote to substitute that action for the original committee recommendation to issue a parental warning was approved by a lop-sided 56-17 vote.

Moderate delegates, however, succeeded in convincing a majority of the delegates to “suspend” the college rather than “remove” it and to add the provision for a “letter of pastoral admonishment.” They argued that it was unbiblical to, in effect, excommunicate a long-time educational partner without giving it a chance to redeem itself. Opponents countered that Dordt has known for decades about the RCUS’s concerns and has perennially failed to take corrective action or provide forthright responses to those concerns. One delegate accused the college administration of outright “deceitfulness.”

Among the allegations raised by delegates were charges that the school’s fundamental views of salvation were increasingly “Barthian” and “universalist” (reflecting Zylstra’s orientation), that professors are given “academic freedom” to hold unbiblical views of creation, that elements within the college are growing soft on homosexuality, that there are no prohibitions against hiring a woman to become the next college chaplain, and that there is no credible effort to remain “self-consciously Reformed.”

It was noted that the college recently admitted an unconverted Hindu student, a fact that Zylstra acknowledged the previous day, claiming that that was an aberration in the admissions process which the school is investigating.

Moderates warned the Synod that the denomination should be careful not to be so purist as to cause it to become “isolationist.” They said it would be impossible to find any institution that agrees with the RCUS on every fine point. A number of delegates who said they have children attending Dordt College or were themselves alumni urged a go-slow approach.

“Pulling our funds won’t sink this ship, but it will send up a flair to other churches,” one delegate said, however, pointing out that the delegates had just sung a familiar hymn containing the words “saints their watch are keeping.” One contended that Dordt College is being effectively controlled by the Christian Reformed Church of North America, a body with which the RCUS severed fraternal relations some years ago because of its liberalism. He said that Dordt is going the same way the CRC’s flagship institution, Calvin College of Grand Rapids, Michigan, had gone many years ago.

One outspoken critic of Dordt charged that the college administration had long been providing pious-sounding Reformed platitudes to the RCUS merely to hang on to the denomination’s “money and credibility.”

Although there was almost universal acknowledgement among the delegates that there are problems with orthodoxy at Dordt, one moderate argued that “colleges don’t make or break a student’s faith,” but that safeguarding that faith was the duty of parents and churches. Others countered that college-aged young people are the most vulnerable to heresy, especially when it is couched in familiar doctrinal terms, making them more susceptible to diversion from the truth than if they attended a blatantly secular college.

Opponents argued that it would be inconsistent for the denomination to question the orthodoxy of other Reformed church bodies, as it is doing with regard to a fraternal denomination in the Netherlands, and then recommend its youth to attend a college exhibiting the same errors.

The vote to suspend support and admonish Dordt passed 43-28.

Earlier in the day, the Synod newly approved Covenant College of Lookout Mountain, Georgia, for its list of recommended colleges. Covenant is an institution of the Presbyterian Church in America, a denomination with which the RCUS maintains relations. Delegates who had visited Covenant spoke well of its doctrinal orientation and conduct of student life.

The Synod also approved Mid-America Reformed Seminary of Dyer, Indiana, for continued support, although it noted a drawback in the fact that there are no RCUS churches in the area with which students can fellowship during their seminary years.

Numerous Synod delegates expressed strong support for conservative Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylors, South Carolina, following a presentation by a Greenville representative Wednesday.

The denomination also supports several other small seminaries, including Heidelberg Theological Seminary of Sioux Falls, South Dakota; City Seminary in Sacramento, California; and New Geneva Theological Seminary in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Fredericksburg, Virginia, all institutions which have RCUS faculty.