You may have seen the story about the Larycia Hawkins, an associate professor of political science at Wheaton, who made a splash by saying that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, and by wearing a hijab for Advent. She was placed on administrative leave, and that was followed by a recommendation that her tenure and employment be terminated. Following that, the Faculty Council of Wheaton unanimously petitioned the administration to withdraw that recommendation.
The Wheaton statement on the whole affair is here. In that statement, they explain that the “hijab for Advent” thing had nothing to do it, but rather that their concerns were over her theological statements. In short, she could wear a hijab. Their problem is that she had the sort of thought processes that might result in her doing so.
When the Faculty Council made their request, they also posed five questions for the administration of Wheaton to answer. In the full recognition that nobody asked me, I will nevertheless endeavor to answer the questions in the same spirit that produced them, suggesting by this somewhat oblique means that the administration of Wheaton answer in this same way. Just a suggestion. That way they can murk up the protest at least as thoroughly as the protesters are murking up the Statement of Faith.
1. Does the College have a position on what can or cannot be said regarding the question: “Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?”
When you say “a position,” this appears to assume a heteronormative view of logic and sexuality. “A” position is confining, stifling. This appears to say that there is only one way of looking at these things. We believe that the way to break on through to the other side would be to embrace the full tensions implicit in the sociological narrative and so go on to say that Christians and Muslims both do and do not worship the same God/goddess/infinite force/being/yin/yang. But if this is the case, then it follows that the administration and Professor Hawkins are also saying and doing the same thing, each in our own way.
2. What is the process for determining acceptable interpretations of the Statement of Faith? Do faculty have a role in this process? How will faculty know if their views and/or statements are in danger of being judged unacceptable?
We believe that the process for determining acceptable interpretations of the Statement of Faith would have to be interminable seminars during the summer months, academic workshops at important conferences, and referral to at least three committees.
3. Is it considered proper process to place a faculty member on leave based on public statements that could be outside the statement of faith before there is a process of interpretation?
Nay! The process of interpretation must always come first. That is why we have referred these five questions of the Faculty Council — knowing that we cannot answer them unless there has first been a process of interpretation — to a committee that we here in the Admin Building like to call the Endless Committee. We would love to answer your question, but we have not yet been able to successfully work it through our process of interpretation.
4. What is Administrative Leave, and how does the Employee Handbook relate to the Faculty Handbook in the case of disciplinary situations?
“Administrative leave” is one of the deeper questions in theology. These things are often a mystery. The Employee Handbook is an even deeper mystery, as some of you have pointed out from time to time.
5. What policies are in place for administration to deal with “emergency” social media situations?
Well, again, the process of interpretation must always come first. We begin by trying to define “emergency,” and we must do so in light of the perichoretic dance, unless of course the Muslim God and the Christian God are the same, in which case there is no perichoretic dance, but only a unitarian stomp. But either way, since perichoretic and unitarian may well be talking about the same reality, not to mention dancing and stomping, it follows that “administrative leave” may also be identical to a “promotion and a fat raise.” This side of Jordan, we may never know.
Is the rainbow dude in the back part of the Wheaton faculty?
I never considered that that might be a faculty member. When I first noticed that guy, I thought, “Man, Russell Moore is really starting to lose his hair.”
Theological issues aside the labor lawyers are going eat Wheaten alive on this one.
Wheaten Alive: Pantheism and Lawfare in the Land of Lincoln. Dibs on the book rights!
Conclusion of book:
1 Corinthians 6
7 The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. !!!
Why? Private religious institutions are allowed to have statements of belief and policies that faculty must hold and adhere to.
Yes they are, but there is a problem if it can be demonstrated that other faculty members have been allowed to teach ideas that conflict with the official statement of belief. If Wheaton tolerates unorthodoxy except when it comes to Islam, it looks capricious at best and bigoted at worst.
Plus, she’s one of the few, if not only, blacks on the faculty, and she was, IIRC, the first black female professor ever hired at Wheaton. So if they have tolerated unorthodoxy in some white professors, accusations of racism are sure to be lodged in the near future, if they haven’t already been made.
There is also the blatant difference between variance in orthodoxy and heresy. One is orthodox, the other, well… not.
The statement of faith has holes you can drive a truck through (this is one such truck). It is possible to make a creditable intellectual defense of the administrations position but it would require that the collage also argue that Jews and Christians worship different gods as well. Talk about leaping from the frying pan into the fire!
Whence the premise that someone’s sincerely held belief has to be convincing or even coherent to someone else, in order to be protected? By that measure, Hinduism should have no protections at all.
It would appear that the overwhelming majority of the faculty support her. Is the administration going to fire them as well?
Supporting her is not the same as agreeing with her heresy.
Nor athiesm
it would require that the collage also argue that Jews and Christians worship different gods as well.
Uh, unless Jesus Christ and Satan are one and the same, Jews and Christians most certainly do worship different gods.
And this is where I must remind myself once again that freedom of speech is a good thing even when the views it is expressing make me ill.
I’m confused. It makes you ill when someone points out that Jews don’t worship Jesus Christ, but Satan?
Christianity makes you ill? Why are you on this site?
How about when people point out Muslims/Hindus/Mormons/Zoroastrians don’t worship Jesus Christ, but Satan?
I am well aware that Jews don’t worship Jesus, but I reject the idea that they must therefore worship Satan.
Well, and I’m being serious and trying to be respectful, if Jesus Christ is God, and Jews (and other groups) don’t worship Jesus Christ, but they’re also not worshiping Satan, then who do they worship? Do you believe there are other gods besides Jesus?
“Do you believe there are other gods besides Jesus?”
The question is do you belive there are false gods that aren’t satan?
No, I don’t. Jews worship God the Father. Because of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, we as Christians see God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When they worship God, Jews are unknowingly worshiping the Son and the Holy Ghost because the Trinity is indivisible. But their intention is to worship God the Father, who gave them the Torah and who commanded them to do justice and love mercy.
The indivisible nature of the Trinity also means that if Jews regect Jesus they regect the Father as well.
If they knowingly reject Jesus, true. But I don’t believe that every Jew who doesn’t believe in Jesus is consciously rejecting Him. It depends on how much grace they have been given.
My church teaches me that the words of Jesus were directed to the Pharisaic leaders of the time who were oppressing the people. He was not referring to every Jew past, present, or to come. It is also not my experience that ordinary Jews are familiar with Talmudic teachings or consider them as binding. Jewish children are routinely taught Torah, not Talmud.
My church also teaches me that God formed a covenant with the Jewish people. Of course I believe that pious Jews worship the one true God.
So you’re saying that Jesus’ statement here:
Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me:
only applied to a tiny number of Jewish leaders at that point in time, and should in no way be taken to mean that people it’s necessary to love Jesus Christ in order to worship God, and that Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and God the Father can be separated and properly worshiped in a non-Trinitarian manner ?
No, I was saying that when Jesus called the Jewish leaders devil’s spawn, He was referring to a particular group of leaders. I believe it is wrong to conclude from His words that He thought every Jew was a child of Satan.
I think that pious Jews worship God with as much light as they have. I also think that it would be a blessed thing if their hearts and minds were opened so that they would believe in our Lord Jesus. Until that day comes, I believe they are worshiping the Father as best they can.
I see what you’re saying, but I don’t agree. Of course, far more Christians agree with your on this topic than with me. From what I can see, most Christians regard Jews as fellow believers. John Hagee even comes right out and denies Christ, saying that Jews don’t have to accept Christ to be saved – they’re saved by their genes.
Of course, these same Christians look like idiots when they then turn around and insist that Muslims AREN’T worshiping the God of the Bible, because they don’t believe Jesus is God.
Would you agree with this statement, jilly?
I think that pious Muslims worship God with as much light as they have. I also think that it would be a blessed thing if their hearts and minds were opened so that they would believe in our Lord Jesus. Until that day comes, I believe they are worshiping the Father as best they can.
If not, why not?
“If so, then the very same is true of Muslims. They worship the God of Abraham, God the Father, as authentically as Jews do.”
Jews worship the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” muslims don’t .
Jews worship the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” muslims don’t .
But earlier you said this:
The indivisible nature of the Trinity also means that if Jews regect Jesus they regect the Father as well.
So Jews, who reject Jesus Christ, reject the Father as well, but they do worship the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
This is a blatant contradiction. But feel free to spin away.
That’s why I used the scare quotes. My point was that jews and muslims don’t worship the same god by their own definitions.
See; I knew you could spin it!
(I never said you could do it well…)
I’m not sure what you think I’m spining.
Also, this:
He tells me that fellow students would ask to see his horns on hearing that he was Jewish.
is almost certainly nonsense. It’s common for Jews to portray themselves as perpetual victims of eternal Christian hate. And for the most part, it’s not true. On the contrary, what I see is a raging Jewish hatred of Christians.
Every day, day in and day out, scores of Jewish journalists and academics attack evangelical Christians as monsters, who are filled with a murderous hatred of non-whites, gays, foreigners, and of course, Jews.
The Jews in England were guilty of one crime….not being Christians. At least is Spain there was a history of collaboration with the moreish invaders. The fact that all a Jew had to do to remain was convert to Christianity suggests that “This had absolutely nothing to do with Jewish behavior”. Where do you get your information Estes?
“Psychologists have done studies showing that when a group is habitually persecuted or mistreated, the people doing the persecution grow in their hatred of the target. Apparently it is human nature to despise those whom we treat badly.”
Deut 25:3
“Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed: lest, if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee.”
Wow!
Question #2 shows the true agenda behind this protest.
Correct; and more than likely, given the tenor of the Q’s, the verdict is also in words:
“this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”
Word grounded answers are always wonderful, but some situations just call for a simple, “you’re being a complete moron, knock it off.”
Speaking of the word however, this whole thing reminds me of, “what is truth?”
You seem to have forgotten the importance of utilizing up and down twinkles. Also, I’d applaud, but I’m reluctant to trigger anybody.
I up-twinkled you.
Amused, especially by answer number 1.
Although we are all still waiting for your post on the Anglican decision. If you are waiting inspiration here’s a title: Are Primates Vertebrates or Invertebrates?
I was quite interested in Pastor Wilson’s real answer to #1, as this is certainly not an easy question at all, and was disappointed when he just went with the unedifying snarkiness instead.
That was an answer, albeit a snarky one. Translation: it doesn’t make sense to ask a question for the purpose of nailing down a position based on the laws of verbal logic, if you’re already well down the road of waffling on those laws.
Fantastic! Answer fools according to their folly, the wise man said, and Wilson goes for the jugular. Simply unanswerable.
Burn the colleges and universities.
God will know his own.
Maybe Wheaton should just require all its professors to sign on to the Athansian Creed, and not to publicly say anything contrary to it. Failure to do so resulting in termination.
“Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith. Which faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance.”
If you want to talk about slowww committees…you don’t need to look further than the farce cmte investigating Doug’s crazy sexual abuse disasters.
Where are we in that process Doug? Other than, you know, making jokes about the abused in church meetings.
See Natalie’s web site for her publicly posted responses to the investigative committees questions. She posted them in 2015!
You know D&D, sometimes there is a lot in a name! ; – )
She wears the uniform of the murderers and oppressors of our brothers and sisters in Iraq and Syria, during Advent, at a Christian college. She is horribly evil.
You aren’t serious?
I am serious. At first i thought she was merely misguided, now I recoil at her actions. In Syria and Iraq our brothers and sisters are being enslaved, gang-raped and are the subject of attempted genocide. it this professor really cared about oppression, she would be standing with the Christians, Yezidis and Kurds.
The Kurds are Muslims themselves, and both they and the Yezidis have women among themselves who wear the headscarf. In fact, the vast majority of ISIS’s victims are Muslims. She almost certainly already is standing with the victims – I don’t know why you assumed that headscarf = oppressor.
Because she was talking about standing with the Muslims, NOT with the Yezidis or the headcovering Christians.
She didn’t just put on a hijab and let us import meaning into it; she explained why she was doing it.
You seem to have missed, “The Kurds are Muslims” and “the vast majority of ISIS’s victims are Muslims.”
In Iraq/Syria specifically, the number of Muslims who are ISIS targets or ISIS enemies FAR outweighs the number of who are ISIS emphasizers. Both Yezidis and Christians are a tiny % of their overall victims. I still don’t get how you can assume that “Muslim” automatically means the oppressors in the war and not the victims.
Are you denying that this woman wears the garb of the oppressors of our brothers and sisters in Iraq and Syria?
You sympathize more with Muslims than with Christians. You are sick.
If Wheaton does wind up firing Professor Hawkins, I hope they replace her with Donald Trump.
But I’m pretty sure they won’t fire her.
Christianity Today has a useful piece on this
“If Allah, the one who has no Son, is the same as the Father of Jesus Christ, then it would appear that hiring and firing are also the same.”
This reasoning would seem to imply that any two people with the slightest theological difference are worshiping different gods. By this logic, it is doubtful whether any two individuals have ever worshiped the same god. I suspect that this implication would be rejected, but how then can you tell when two people making contradictory statements about God are nonetheless worshiping the same God?
That is not a “slight theological difference”
??? Of course the significance of the disagreement (if I understand what you mean by that phrase) between two groups makes a difference. Not all points are equally significant. Not all disagreement has to do with ontological questions. Not all disagreement has to do with things fundamental – which is the tricky part, definition of fundamental I mean. Nonetheless, some disagreements involve divergence from a common starting point, e.g., there is a deity, earlier than others. A fairly early divergence on foundational matters is much more significant than later divergence on the details.
A. This is the best route to Matt’s house.
B. No, that is the best route to Matt’s house.
vs
A. This is Matt’s house.
B. That’s not Matt’s house, it’s over there.
The significance of the disagreement makes an absolute difference.
It would not mean he was talking about a different person, but it would mean he was NOT talking about the same person. There need not actually be two people in order for one of the two radically disagreeing parties not to be talking about one of them, but about something different that cannot reasonably be identified with the other one, regardless of whether there is such a person as is being described.
“Not knowing” and “denying” cannot possibly be equivocated after 1400 years of common history.
It’s not a simple matter of omitting or being unaware of a detail.
It’s a matter of saying, “Doug Wilson cannot possibly have a son named Nate and if you say Doug Wilson has a son named Nate, Doug Wilson hates you.”
The only sane response to that is, “That’s not the Doug Wilson I know. You’re either talking about a different Doug Wilson, or an imaginary one, but I know for a fact that’s not the real one.”
Jilly, I’m not sure how that matters.
I’m not mad at Arabella. I understand the reasons why she thinks what she does.
But someone who believes that God hates when people says He has a son, does not believe in the same kind of God as the God who actually has one. How is that controversial, and/or subject to being altered by how strongly or why Arabella believes what she believes?
Here are some thoughts on this incident.
https://natesparks130.wordpress.com/2015/12/24/larycia-hawkins-and-the-christ-of-god/
https://natesparks130.wordpress.com/2015/12/31/larycia-hawkins-further-consideration/