"The Sioux Center Affair" (viii)

When the 1924 Synod met in Kalamazoo, it found, once more, that "the Sioux Center Affair" was there again like a reoccurring toothache. This time, the petitioner was the group that had--five years previous--been the Teachers Meeting, although as you might imagine, the issues now went farther and deeper into the hearts and minds of the two warring sides. If we can gauge Synod's attitude on its behavior that year, it's not difficult to gather that they were utterly sick of the whole darn business. The 1924 Synod slapped everybody; but the congregation of the new consistory got taken out to the woodshed and told to take this matter of who owed how much to whom--the somewhat new money angle--back home with them and settle the mess in their own backyard. 

They were assigned an impressive group of solid denominational officers to advise them, a list that included, by the way, Rev. J. B. Hulst whose grandson of the same name eventually became President of Dordt College. That may be the sole delightful story in this never-ending tale.

The former Teachers Meeting's continuing recalcitrance is astounding. They told the assigned committee--which included J. B. Hulst!--to go blow, at which point those very officers told them that their intemperate non-compliance could get them tossed from the CRC.

Big deal, the congregation said. If we don't get our way, go ahead and give us the boot.

Meanwhile, back home in Sioux Center, the two sides started talking about the possibility of having two churches in one building, one of them Dutch-speaking (that one known today as First CRC), the other regularly meeting in English (that one known as Bethel CRC). Once more, however, it was filthy lucre that refused to give peace a chance--specifically who was going to pay who what. The property, including the church itself, brick-and-mortar kept peace at bay. The only way to determine what needed to be determined was to put the whole mess into civil court, despite the ardent biblicism of both groups, both of whom were painfully aware of the New Testament admonitions not to do what they did.

As one can imagine, the court's rulings didn't put out the fires, and therefore had negligible effects on the litigants, half of whom had already tossed Synod's assessments aside in a huff. Thus, most of 1925, Van Dyke says, was spent preparing yet another approach to Synod, as well as forestalling what they could of the pending court rulings. 

It is hereby declared to be the intention of all of the parties to this agreement that the entire matter of the controversy between first and second parties as to the organization of a church corporation and financial settlement between second parties and first parties shall be submitted for final adjudication to the 1926 Synod of the Christian Reformed Church.  

The prairie fire in Sioux Center had now been raging for seven years, which sounds almost biblical. You can't help but imagine that the 1926 Synod would might have paid to be able to give the whole mess over to the RCA, which wouldn't have worked either, however, since the litigants could not have belonged to a fellowship who wasn't Reformed (bad joke maybe, but this tale seems never-ending).

This time, Synodical proceedings were held in Chicago for most of the month of June. Things got especially tedious, especially when viewed a century after the fact. Here's how Van Dyke attempts to draw out the mess: "Curiously, while Synod 1926 criticized the work of the Committee of 1922, and it rescinded the decision of 1924, it proceeded to implement the finds of the Synodical Committee of 1922." Once more, Synod attempted to draw up a scenario by spreading the financial bill around the denomination--the CRC would kick in $7500 to help salve the financial woes that fell to Bethel, the original church consistory. 

At this point, suffice it to say that the 1926 Synod's ruling did very little to bring peace, not because whatever they'd ruled or advised was bad but because the lines in the sand had, in all that time, grown into ever-looming stone fortifications. Eagle-eyed members of both groups hunted out means by which to avoid doing what Synod--and the courts--had advised. 

When the congregation at Bethel determined that it had little choice in the matter, they set about to raise funds to fulfill what others considered their financial obligation to the upstart congregation--$12,500. That ask failed miserably when the congregation coughed up only $2,500, leaving them 10 thousand in arrears. The consistory returned to the congregation with three options by which they could meet the obligations Synod had assigned. The congregation voted them down, all of them. 

When the new consistory at First CRC saw Bethel's payment deadline (as assigned by Synod) come and go, they simply let Bethel's consistory know that they had initiated court proceedings "asking for a judgment for the entire 20 thousand." Hearing of such, Synod politely stepped away from its role as mediator, given the fact that, at this point, the courts, they said, had been enlisted to settle the mess. 

Brickbats continued to fly, back and forth, back and forth, because it was clear that someone was going to have to pay someone else for something they really didn't feel was right or just or Godly. On July 25, 1927 (that's not a typo), the First Sioux Center consistory was "advised" by it lawyer that the congregation "must pay" $12,500 and $7500 dollars by January 1, 1928 (yes, 28!). "If this is not done," the note said, the Second Congregation has the right. . .to sell the church property by Sheriff's sale." Happy new year!

Honestly, I never thought it would take this long to "summarize" the embattled years of the early Christian Reformed church--and churches--of Sioux Center. As you can imagine, it's not over yet.