# Professor at CHristian college suspended for her outspoken support of Muslims **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 17, 2015, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professor-at-christian-college-suspended-for-her-outspoken-support-of-muslims/740651 "2015-12-17T01:11:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professor-at-christian-college-suspended-for-her-outspoken-support-of-muslims/740651/81 "2015-12-17T22:10:58Z")
Did Prof. Hawkins make a statement that was theologically incorrect? No. Did she make a statement that conflicted with Wheaton College’s interpretation of Christianity? Yes. Should she be fired? Well, when you work with Fundamentalists you should know many have narrow-minded interpretations of Christianity/The Bible that are self-contradictory or conveniently ignore parts of the Bible or church history. You should know this going in and not be surprised when they object for you contradict their beliefs even if you are 100% correct. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professor-at-christian-college-suspended-for-her-outspoken-support-of-muslims/740651/82 "2015-12-17T22:28:07Z")
Not much to add to the debate here but: Wheaton College is an _evangelical_ but not a _fundamentalist_ college. This may seem nitpicky, but essentially what I mean is that they aren’t Bob Jones or Liberty University (both of which I might add are accredited institutions) and are basically a more conservative version of a mainstream college. It does teach evolution and (like most mainstream evangelicals) don’t think Catholics are heretics. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professor-at-christian-college-suspended-for-her-outspoken-support-of-muslims/740651/83 "2015-12-17T22:29:07Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The focus of my point was not the reverence accorded to Abraham but to the creation of the covenant with the Israelites. That’s not what [you said](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18945048&postcount=5). You said the covenant with Abraham (who was not an Israelite). As for your focus, you said that what was “especially” wrong with Muslim belief was that they did not acknowledge the special status allegedly awarded by God to the ancient Israelites, and your statement is contradicted by the verse I cited: [QUOTE=Quran 2.47] O Children of Israel! Remember My favour wherewith I favoured you and how I preferred you to (all) creatures. [/QUOTE] You would do better to just admit that, like most Americans, what little you know about Islam is wrong, instead of trying to back and fill and claim you wrote something different than you did. > [@](#): > > True, but how is that relevant to the current beliefs of Wheaton? I made it perfectly clear that I was addressing the posts of you and **Velocity** , not the beliefs of Wheaton. Specifically, your apparent incredulity that it’s possible for people to be anti-Semitic while also believing that the ancient Israelites were favored by God. And since you brought it up again, I’ll also note that those posts only make sense if they contain the tacit assumption that Muslims are necessarily anti-Semitic, which is also false. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professor-at-christian-college-suspended-for-her-outspoken-support-of-muslims/740651/84 "2015-12-17T22:32:19Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > I think his point is that Jews do not consider Jesus deity. Obviously, but that has nothing to do with whether Christians consider their God to be the God of the Hebrew Bible. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professor-at-christian-college-suspended-for-her-outspoken-support-of-muslims/740651/85 "2015-12-17T22:44:39Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Wheaton’s statement makes no reference to the actual words to which they object. Most media has focused on the statement that Christians and Muslims are both “people of the book,” but having seen her complete statement, I wonder if Wheaton was actually more outraged by a preceding paragraph:If Wheaton holds to a specific view of the Creation narrative, that paragraph would seem to be more upsetting to them. I don’t see why you say that. [Wheaton clearly states](http://www.wheaton.edu/Media-Center/Media-Relations/Statements/Wheaton-College-Statement-Regarding-Dr-Hawkins), “Yet her recently expressed views, including that Muslims and Christians worship the same God, appear to be in conflict with the College’s Statement of Faith.” They later confirm that the issue is “statements that Associate Professor of Political Science Dr. Larycia Hawkins has made about the relationship of Christianity to Islam.” Unless I missed it, they do not mention evolution or creation. Having said that, I’ll speculate (and I freely acknowledge that I have no cite for this) that Dr. Hawkins is dealing with bigots who will use whatever excuse they can find to get rid of a prof who is soft on Islam, and their doctrinal statement gives them a legally plausible way to do that. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professor-at-christian-college-suspended-for-her-outspoken-support-of-muslims/740651/86 "2015-12-17T22:54:57Z")
> [@Eva\_Luna](#): > > [Dr. Larycia Hawkins,](http://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/wheaton-college-suspends-dr-larycia-hawkins-professor-who-vowed-wear-n481001) an associate professor of political science at Wheaton College, a small Christian college in the Chicago suburbs, has been suspended for professing support of Muslims. > > Interestingly, the suspension is ostensibly not for wearing a hijab, but for stating that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, which is apparently [in violation of the college’s “evangelical Statement of Faith.”](http://www.wheaton.edu/Media-Center/Media-Relations/Statements/Wheaton-College-Statement-Regarding-Dr-Hawkins) > > Now I’m just a Jewish agnostic; what do I know? but it seems awfully, oh, wrong to suspend (and, I’m guessing commence termination proceedings) a political science professor who is herself a practicing Christian for supporting another People of the Book. AM I missing something? > > And I am curious to see whether it will fly under Federal and Illinois employment laws. As we have all seen recently, religiously based organizations have been given what I consider to be a terrifying amount of latitude to make decisions about people’s employment that have nothing to do with their professional competence, and everything to do with stamping out dissent. So much for academic freedom. 1. You’re missing the fact that the term “People of the Book” is an Islamic tenet, and Christians are not bound by the Koran. 2. You are missing the fact that to force a Christian institution to have Anti-Christ(ian) doctrine allowed at a doctrinaire school sort of…well, misses the whole point of being a \*Christian \*school. 3. Who said that dissent is something to be allowed in the work environment? Protests should be in open forums, not in the work environment. The workplace is for…well, work. 4. Academic freedom? The freedom of a person who is antithetical to the institution? How about the freedom of the school and it’s charter and the students who go for a Christian education? Are their freedoms, choices, etc…less important than somebody who calls them ignorant, and will not give them what they are paying for? Shall a Klansman be forced to be allowed to work for an NAACP? How about Howard University? You are trying to obfuscate the term ‘academic freedom’, and dissent. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professor-at-christian-college-suspended-for-her-outspoken-support-of-muslims/740651/87 "2015-12-17T22:59:49Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > That’s not what [you said](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18945048&postcount=5)…like most Americans, what little you know about Islam is wrong… I don’t think that you know that. I suspect that you are trying to force all Americans into your tiny little box. Why not post cites? ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professor-at-christian-college-suspended-for-her-outspoken-support-of-muslims/740651/88 "2015-12-17T23:03:37Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > The problem with this logic is that it would make the Catholic god “not the same god” as well. The evangelicals surely do not believe that various Catholics have become “saints” who sit at the hand of god and can intercede on behalf of people, people have been spoken to by Mary, etc. The guidance so received would make their “god” fundamentally different. > > If the Catholics can be “wrong” (in their view) about saints, Mary, etc. and still have the same god, why can’t Muslims be “wrong” about Mohammed and still have the same god? Because the Catholics treat Jesus as God in the flesh, while the Mohammedans treat him as a man. Also, the Catholics, however wrong they may be also limit salvation as coming through Jesus (not forgetting the Mary/co-redemptrix [sp] business, but, that is just more of a perversion, rather than saying that Jesus was a swell guy who died, which violates the ENTIRE core of the Jesus theme. ) ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professor-at-christian-college-suspended-for-her-outspoken-support-of-muslims/740651/89 "2015-12-17T23:05:01Z")
> [@Tithonus](#): > > “Facts which clash with accepted dogma will not be tolerated.” So, the Koran is ‘facts’, but you cannot abide the Bible? :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professor-at-christian-college-suspended-for-her-outspoken-support-of-muslims/740651/90 "2015-12-17T23:22:49Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > That’s not what [you said](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18945048&postcount=5). You said the covenant with Abraham (who was not an Israelite). As for your focus, you said that what was “especially” wrong with Muslim belief was that they did not acknowledge the special status allegedly awarded by God to the ancient Israelites, and your statement is contradicted by the verse I cited: > > You would do better to just admit that, like most Americans, what little you know about Islam is wrong, instead of trying to back and fill and claim you wrote something different than you did. I don’t claim to be an expert on Islam. [But I said](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18945048&postcount=5): > [@](#): > > as is pointed out above, the Christian God is the God that enter into a covenant with Abraham, and thus chose the Jews as His people, and then became flesh and dwelt among us as the Messiah. Ignorant American though I may be, I remain confident that the above description does not describe the Allah of Muslim understanding. Perhaps the word “and” in my quote confused you. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professor-at-christian-college-suspended-for-her-outspoken-support-of-muslims/740651/91 "2015-12-17T23:25:36Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > I don’t think that you know that. I suspect that you are trying to force all Americans into your tiny little box. Why not post cites? I generally hate it when people ask you to cite that the sky is blue, but I’ll meet you halfway. [Here’s a respected survey](http://www.pewforum.org/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-survey-who-knows-what-about-religion/#Bible) that shows that Christians’ knowledge of their own Holy Scriptures is abysmal. For example, less than half of American Catholics even know that Genesis is the first book of the Bible, and only a third can name the four Gospels. I’ll go out on a limb and say that if they can’t even name the books, they have no more than a Sunday School idea of what they say. Now, you give me a cite that shows that Americans know a lot more about the Quran than they do the Bible. BTW, the same survey showed that only about half of Americans are even aware that the Quran is the Muslim holy book, so that’s not a promising start. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professor-at-christian-college-suspended-for-her-outspoken-support-of-muslims/740651/92 "2015-12-17T23:30:59Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Ignorant American though I may be, I remain confident that the above description does not describe the Allah of Muslim understanding. > > Perhaps the word “and” in my quote confused you. No, it didn’t, which is why I said you were _mostly_ mistaken. But the word “especially” with your assertion about Islam not acknowledging God’s favor bestowed on the ancient Israelites did confuse me, if you meant it to mean “please ignore this, because I don’t know what I’m talking about.” ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professor-at-christian-college-suspended-for-her-outspoken-support-of-muslims/740651/93 "2015-12-17T23:31:31Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > I don’t see why you say that. [Wheaton clearly states](http://www.wheaton.edu/Media-Center/Media-Relations/Statements/Wheaton-College-Statement-Regarding-Dr-Hawkins), “Yet her recently expressed views, including that Muslims and Christians worship the same God, appear to be in conflict with the College’s Statement of Faith.” They later confirm that the issue is “statements that Associate Professor of Political Science Dr. Larycia Hawkins has made about the relationship of Christianity to Islam.” Unless I missed it, they do not mention evolution or creation. The first statement that I found attributed to Wheaton did not include the sentence that you have quoted. I have no idea whether I found a truncated statement or whether they elaborated on their first statement. In either case, that sentence makes my earlier post irrelevant. They clearly are taking the (incorrect) position that the Allah of Islam is a different entity than their view of God. The Wheaton text that i read was much shorter than the portion dated December 16 and longer than the text dated December 15, yet included language that now appears under December 16. I would guess that their first effort was sufficiently unclear that they have now issued multiple revisions attempting to make their point more clear. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professor-at-christian-college-suspended-for-her-outspoken-support-of-muslims/740651/94 "2015-12-17T23:37:27Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > Also, the Catholics, however wrong they may be also limit salvation as coming through Jesus (not forgetting the Mary/co-redemptrix [sp] business, but, that is just more of a perversion, rather than saying that Jesus was a swell guy who died, which violates the ENTIRE core of the Jesus theme. ) Huh? John 14:6 – “No one comes to the Father except through me.” ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professor-at-christian-college-suspended-for-her-outspoken-support-of-muslims/740651/95 "2015-12-17T23:40:31Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > No, it didn’t, which is why I said you were _mostly_ mistaken. But the word “especially” with your assertion about Islam not acknowledging God’s favor bestowed on the ancient Israelites did confuse me, if you meant it to mean “please ignore this, because I don’t know what I’m talking about.” Fair point. That “especially,” and the phrase it emphasized, were wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professor-at-christian-college-suspended-for-her-outspoken-support-of-muslims/740651/96 "2015-12-17T23:49:39Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > I generally hate it when people ask you to cite that the sky is blue, but I’ll meet you halfway. [Here’s a respected survey](http://www.pewforum.org/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-survey-who-knows-what-about-religion/#Bible) that shows that Christians’ knowledge of their own Holy Scriptures is abysmal. For example, less than half of American Catholics even know that Genesis is the first book of the Bible, and only a third can name the four Gospels. I’ll go out on a limb and say that if they can’t even name the books, they have no more than a Sunday School idea of what they say. > > Now, you give me a cite that shows that Americans know a lot more about the Quran than they do the Bible. BTW, the same survey showed that only about half of Americans are even aware that the Quran is the Muslim holy book, so that’s not a promising start. Most Muslims know even less about the Quran. Beyond that, something which I suspect you will agree with, is that it’s of little relevance what the Quran, the Bible or the Ahadith actually say. That’s what I find most depressing about all these food fights where people hurl religious injunctions at each other. What the religions believe often has little to do with what the books says. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professor-at-christian-college-suspended-for-her-outspoken-support-of-muslims/740651/97 "2015-12-18T00:02:23Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Eh? Which non-ancestral hominins are you suggesting left Acheulean tools at Sterkfontein? There’s **definitely** _H. ergaster_\* and _H. habilis_\*\* fossils in the Sterkfontein caves (specifically [Swartkrans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swartkrans)), Swartkrans is near Sterkfontein. And member 5 might be _H habilis_, but it’s not conclusive. That is not to say that Sterkfontein isn’t hugely important. It is one of the richest archeological sites we have. But the whole “Cradle of Humankind” is more of a marketing slogan than a scientific fact. It made sense in the early 20th century, but we know so much more now than we did then. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professor-at-christian-college-suspended-for-her-outspoken-support-of-muslims/740651/98 "2015-12-18T00:19:49Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > So, the Koran is ‘facts’, but you cannot abide the Bible? :smack: If the Bible specifically states that the Muslim religion that won’t exist for another 600 years is NOT following the same god as the Christians and Jews, I’ll be very impressed. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professor-at-christian-college-suspended-for-her-outspoken-support-of-muslims/740651/99 "2015-12-18T00:39:00Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Most Muslims know even less about the Quran. > > Beyond that, something which I suspect you will agree with, is that it’s of little relevance what the Quran, the Bible or the Ahadith actually say. > > That’s what I find most depressing about all these food fights where people hurl religious injunctions at each other. What the religions believe often has little to do with what the books says. I agree wholeheartedly. The two largest classes of religious people seem to be: 1. Those who know next to nothing about their scriptures. 2. Those who know enough about their scriptures to find a verse that justifies what they want to believe anyway, e.g. the current debate about gay marriage between liberal and conservative Christians, or the debate about slavery in the past. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professor-at-christian-college-suspended-for-her-outspoken-support-of-muslims/740651/100 "2015-12-18T00:50:43Z")
Wheaton students have posted[a petition](https://www.change.org/p/president-philip-ryken-provost-stan-jones-reinstatedochawk?recruiter=449454914&utm_source=share_for_starters&utm_medium=copyLink) asking for Dr. Hawkins to be reinstated. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professor-at-christian-college-suspended-for-her-outspoken-support-of-muslims/740651.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professor-at-christian-college-suspended-for-her-outspoken-support-of-muslims/740651.md?page=6)