Wheaton College seeks to fire Christian professor over view of Islam

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Chicago Tribune

By Manya Brachear Pashman
[e-mail]
@TribSeeker

January 6, 2016, 6:55 AM

Wheaton College has begun the process of firing a professor who said Muslims and Christians worship the same God, the teacher and the west suburban school confirmed Tuesday.

Larycia Hawkins, a tenured political science professor who in December demonstrated solidarity with her Muslim neighbors by wearing a hijab, said at the end of last year that the college appeared ready to force her out after she had rejected recommendations to resign. This week she received word from Provost Stanton Jones that the termination process had begun.

“The Notice is not a termination; rather, it begins Wheaton College’s established process for employment actions pertaining to tenured faculty members,” the private evangelical college said in a statement confirming the latest development.

Hawkins, 43, announced last month that she would don the hijab as part of her Advent devotion to show support for Muslims who have been under scrutiny since mass shootings in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. ... “I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book,” she posted on Facebook. “And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God.”

Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-wheaton-college-professor-fired-20160105-story.html

---

It's this story: Wheaton College suspends Christian professor who wore a hijab

Also, someone will surely ask me to point out that this Wheaton College is the one in Illinois, which I why I went with a Chicago newspaper. There is another Wheaton College, in Massachusetts, that has no connection with the one in Illinois.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

1. Wheaton College: Dancing-friendly since 2003.

[whatthehey]

2. And see what they got for it.

If you let the young'uns get within a foot of each other with rhythmic music, you'll have a teacher who understands religious syncretism the next damn time you look.

[keithbvadu2]

3. By denying that both faiths worship the same God,

this 'Christian' college is promoting the belief that there are multiple Gods.

[MosheFeingold]

4. Perhaps

Don't they have 3 already? (Yes, just being snarky; my apologies to Christians, whom I generally find to be wonderful people.)

But, no, what they are saying is Allah is not the G-d of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, and thus not G-d at all.

My view: it's a religious school. We have freedom of religion in this country. They are entitled to their beliefs.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. Nice, and obvious to us, but they have a weasel out:

They say their god is the one and only god and the other 'gods' are not real gods.

[MariaThinks]

14. i don't understand the professor's point

[FairWinds]

5. This shows how religion and academic freedom of inquiry . .

do not mix.
Prof Juan Cole suggested that Wheaton change its name to "seminary."
And Wheaton is not the only one. As a faculty member, try to argue in favor of women in the priesthood
at a Jesuit "university" and see what happens.

[Hoppy]

6. Assholes !

[Hissyspit]

7. Completely mainstream academic interpretation of these religious belief systems.

These people are being assholes.

[christx30]

20. I agree with the professor,

but I can also understand the college's position. You want your employees to toe the party line.
I mean, what would you think of an IRS agent that didn't believe the 16th Amendment was actually passed, and the federal government didn't have the right to impose an income tax? Especially if he's telling everyone in the office, and members of the public he comes into contact with during his job. That agent would be out the door, 1040EZ style.

[Hissyspit]

21. False equivalence.

[catrose]

8. Where's her GoFundMe?

I trust Wheaton will explain their theology in detail. Muslims do indeed include the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the Gospels as holy books. The writings of Paul, not so much.

In the meantime, I'm happy to support her. Unfortunately, she's getting to be oppressed, maybe in a different way, like the Muslims she wanted to stand with.

[Nitram]

9. So much for academic freedom.

And religious freedom. Killing two birds with one stone.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

10. Duck

No, Rabbit !

[Manifestor_of_Light]

12. That's pretty basic.

There are three Abrahamic religions. In chronological order they are Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

That's the problem with extremely fundy religious colleges. There is the urge to control what the students learn and believe and the rules they follow of their religion, and the objective of a liberal arts education to enlarge the students' world view and teach them about the history of western civilization and other subjects as well. Those two currents are opposite. My parents were horrified that we had cousins that were sent to Baylor, in Waco, which is the biggest Baptist university in the world, and girls couldn't wear pants or shorts on campus.


I graduated from a Presbyterian liberal arts college and everyone had to take 6 hours of religion. It was basically sociology and anthropology of religion. The intro course blew my mind because it was about What is a religion? What is a primitive religion? Why do we have religions? What social and psychological needs do they serve? (Freud answered that one pretty well) What is a ritual? What is a myth? (Introduce Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung, Mircea Eliade, Paul Tillich, Rudolf Otto, Jacob Needleman, Dostoyevsky--Notes from the Underground). There were many heavy questions there that opened my mind. The course had a very broad reading list.



The second course I took was Old Testament. It was about the JEDP theory. Some history of the 12 tribes, pre-exile, post-exile, destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 79 A.D., first and second covenants and all that stuff. Interesting.


Now the Religion department at that college has a Division of Asian Studies with at least one prof that speaks Chinese. That is my idea of a religion department. One that isn't shoving doctrine down your throat, but exposing you to the big basic ideas of religion as I got in the intro course. It was called Nature & Function of Religion.

I don't think your average fundamentalist preacher could pass either one of the courses I took in college.

[keithbvadu2]

15. Sounds like a good description of a great course

6 credit hours well spent.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

17. Yes it was.

I took the first course over 40 years ago and it blew my mind. I remember sitting there for six weeks wondering, "What is this man talking about?" That had never happened to me before. Eventually it started to come together. The prof is retired but still alive and he has an endowed fellowship at Princeton (his alma mater) in his name. He was amazing at ancient languages. One of those rare professors I still remember for opening my mind.

That's one of the good things I got out of a nominally religious school that was tolerable to me as a non-follower of Abrahamic religions in general. They had a religion department, a huge chapel, church on Sunday and all that, but you could ignore that. I used to go to organ recitals in the huge chapel and watch the chandeliers shake.

With trumpets au chamade pointing out of the back wall in the balcony.

For a while they were in a contest with Southern Methodist University as to which one had the biggest organ. ((((SNICKER)))) I think my college had 112 ranks of pipes?

[jtuck004]

16. My favorite was Heaven and Hell. We got into how beliefs in Heaven and Hell

developed.

I remember Venus figurines, and later, The Epic of Gilgamesh. That was a long time ago, but I think I still have the syllabus around.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

18. That sounds like a really cool course.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Hypocrites and bullies; in 2007, their then and current provost, and then president, said the same

http://www.wheaton.edu/Academics/Faculty/J/Stanton-Jones
http://www2.wheaton.edu/inauguration/presidents/litfin.html

In November 2007 Wheaton’s president, provost, and chaplain signed a major statement on Christian-Muslim understanding that appeared in The New York Times. Calling for peace between the two religions, the document affirmed “our common love for God and for one another.” The 300 signatories included megachurch Pastor Rick Warren, Fuller Seminary President Richard Mouw, and the president of the National Association of Evangelicals. In January 2008, the statement drew strong rebukes from Minnesota Pastor John Piper and Southern Baptist educator Albert Mohler. Though Wheaton’s leaders later retracted their signatures, they continued to embrace the goal of peacemaking.

- See more at: http://religionandpolitics.org/2015/12/22/the-god-of-abraham-praise-wheaton-college-considers-its-muslim-neighbors/#sthash.AZHoYRaO.dpuf

(not sure what chaplain that refers to; the statement and list of signatories is here: http://www.acommonword.com/lib/downloads/fullpageadbold18.pdf )

So, they were happy to say it back in 2007; but then, they were criticised by powerful conservative evangelicals who could hurt them in the all-important money-raising community. So they chickened out, because this isn't about belief or social relationships for them; it's about dollars. But, being white and male, they had the privilege of just withdrawing their signature to an unremarkable bit of ecumenism, and to continue drawing their no-doubt large salaries. But Ms. Hawkins, being black and female, gets no such protection, and she has to be made a scapegoat, so they can show their fundamentalist backers that they have no truck with being friendly or reasonable with Muslims.

I recommend following Fred Clark's 'Slacktivist' blog on this; he is a liberal Christian who grew up in the evangelical world, and would still like to call himself evangelical, but is enraged by the assholes who use that name. He's posted on the earlier stages of this, and will have plenty to say, I'm sure (his is probably the most popular Christian blog among atheists and agnostics, because he has no fear in calling out hypocrisy and right wing bigotry in Christians).

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/

[mysuzuki2]

19. I am familiar with Wheaton College and this does not surprise me.

They are not much of an educational institution. I had friends who were expelled because they were in an interracial dating relationship.