And why I don’t have much sympathy for someone who sought employment there if they were thinking they were going to be granted “academic freedom”.
She’s been working there since 2003. Maybe she’s fed up.
You are mostly mistaken. Abraham is revered at least as much by Muslims as by Christians, and the Quran (e.g. 2.47) notes that the “Children of Israel” were Allah’s most favored people.
And I honestly don’t understand this post, which I assume was the one you were referring to with approval:
Surely the Christian belief that the Israelites were God’s Chosen People hasn’t prevented centuries of blatant anti-Semitism. In fact, it’s only been since Zionism found its stride in the early 20th century that Muslims have been anywhere near comparable to Christians in that respect, and even then, you’d have to say Christians easily took that century, too.
Well, when people claim Muslims and Christians worship the same God, what I have to ask is, they’re claiming that Muslims worship a God who physically came to earth as both the son of that God and God himself and let himself be killed so that people who believe that he was God could go to heaven?
That’s the sticking point to me…not whether or not Jews are God’s chosen people. Muslims are monotheists. Christians are polytheists who say they’re monotheists.
Which, as I recall, is kind of how some Vaishnavists put it.
I believe I have met a sort of henotheistic Christian who considered Jesus and Allah to be two separate spirits fighting over the world, but I was shocked by him at the time, and I’m pretty sure that’s directly contrary to what I was taught as a child. I’m surprised that Christians in any numbers consider God-in-Arabic to be any different to God-in-Greek.
It seems more sensible to say that if there is one God, then the different traditions are just different stories and interpretations, not actual existent different persons.
If there are actually multiple gods, then monotheism is out on its ear without appeal, as far as I am concerned.
This appears to be one of the rare situations where holding a particular religious belief qualifies as a reasonable job requirement. Wheaton College defined what is acceptable religious belief and Dr Hawkins agreed she held those beliefs. From her public statement, she no longer holds those beliefs. So the college is justified in suspending her.
No, they’re claiming that Muslims worship a God who numbered Abraham and Jesus among his greatest prophets. Muslims believe that Christians are mistaken about Jesus being God-on-earth; that’s one of the things that Muhammad was sent to straighten out. But it’s not much different than Protestants saying that Catholics worship the same God as they do, even though they believe that Catholics attribute way too much power to Mary.
I’ll express my distaste by forever referring to the school as “hWheaton”.
Believing different things about God is not the same as believing in different Gods.
If you and I are co-workers, and you say the boss came in to work at 8:00 this morning while I say he didn’t get in until 9:30, that doesn’t mean we have different bosses because I believe in a boss who came in at 9:30 while you believe in a boss who came in at 8.
The issue is who God is. Christians believe Jesus is God and worship him. Jews and Muslims believe Jesus was a mortal man and do not worship him.
Good for her. She should seek employment where she won’t be hamstrung by religious belief that she does not adhere to.
It’d be very strange for two entirely different gods to have created Adam and Eve, spoken with them in Eden, sent a flood to drown all but Noah, spared Noah, revealed himself to Abraham, and spoken to Moses.
That’s sort of like saying that Zeus is “two different gods” because the stories of Hesiod don’t exactly match the stories of Homer.
ETA: if not clear, I’m completely agreeing with Thudlow Boink (who, in addition to being correct here, also has one of the coolest login names ever.)
And Muslims also pray to Saints(which to many people is a form of idolatry) and think of the Devil as this extremely powerful godlike being who were we talking about another religion would be classified as a God. I could certainly see many people who weren’t members of the Abrahamic faiths seeing the Christian and Muslims concepts of “God” and “the Devil” as a form of polytheism with the God of the light vs. the God of Evil.
I’m not Christian, but if you believe there’s an all-powerful being it strikes me as rather obvious that he could multiply himself like Doctor Manhattan in Watchmen.
That’s a pretty big difference, though. Look, if you say Jews and Muslims have the same concept of God, then sure. The Jewish and Muslim ideas of God are pretty similar, even though they differ about some of the stuff God did. But they both have the idea of a monotheistic, transcendent lawgiver who created mankind and set up a moral code for them, rewarding people who follow it and punishing those who don’t. The differences are in the particulars (Is it ok to eat shellfish? To drink wine? Is there one set of proper moral and ritual behavior for the whole world, or is God stricter with one group of people than another? Which city is holier; Mecca or Jerusalem?), but the basic idea is the same. If you had a Muslim describe his idea of God to a Jew or a Jew to a Muslim, they would be pretty similar.
The Christian concept of God, though, isn’t like the Jewish or Muslim concept of God. Christians worship one god who is at the same time, three different gods, one of whom became human and was executed to fulfill some sort of metaphysical requirement for redemption. That’s a fundamentally different concept than the Muslim or Jewish one. God, in the Muslim and Jewish concept, doesn’t become human. He’s a unity, not a multiplicity. I mean, the most basic Jewish statement of belief is “Hear, oh Israel, the Lord your God is One.”, and the most basic Muslim statement of belief is “There is no God but God, and Muhammed is a prophet of God.” Meanwhile, in Christianity, it’s, as the Athanasian Creed puts it:
A Christian saying that to a Muslim or Jew wouldn’t get agreement there. The concept is too different.
Suppose you believe that behind the closed doors of the executive suite, the founder is running the company by himself, and that the guy who used to go around claiming to be his son is long gone, while I believe that behind those doors, the two of them are running the company together, and that furthermore I believe that the son is going to convince the founder to overlook my bad performance reports and give me my pension anyway, because one time I gave the son half my sandwich. Do we have different bosses then?
I guess on some level I’m not sure that saying, “we believe in the same God – but your understanding of His fundamental nature is completely wrong,” is all that different from saying, “we believe in different Gods.”
In all fairness, most Christians don’t even understand the Trinity. For the majority of Christians, the foundation of the teaching of the Trinity is “Errm, don’t think too much about it.” Jews and Muslims can recognize Christians as having the same god by simply writing it off as “Sheesh, did they ever overcomplicate it!”
This isn’t a regular college that accepts broad concepts like academic freedom when they conflict with the college’s theological position. This isn’t Notre Dame or Georgetown or Baylor, religiously affiliated schools that might require a token religious class, or have some religiously-inspired student behavior codes, or etc, but that otherwise are very similar to a public college and whose main focus is quality college education in secular subjects. This is a small religious college designed for people interested in studying a certain set of theological principles that will guide everything in the entire education.
This isn’t a place for people that don’t want faith intermixed with learning about other things, and because Wheaton specifically is organized for, and markets itself as, a place to mix faith throughout your studies it’s kind of obvious this isn’t somewhere you go to promulgate theological opinions at odds with the theological stance of the institution.
It’s like getting a job at the Vatican and then expecting to denounce the concept of papal infallibility and not have that be an issue.
Actually you say you are familiar with similar cases and then list two that aren’t similar at all. A refugee organization has a relatively non-religious message, and shouldn’t expect people to adhere to strict theological positions to work there. In general it’s also not expected the teachers at K-12 Catholic schools adhere to strict Catholic theology (although certain things that are gravely at odds with Catholic theology have resulted in dismissals, generally simply being Protestant or even atheist isn’t a deal breaker), but Wheaton is explicitly religious throughout–and by design. No position there is expected to be either secular or out of conformity with the established theology.
That’s great. Wheaton is a private college by a specific religious sect designed to attract students who want a comprehensive religious education by people with the same beliefs. We have public schools and most other private schools for people like you. But in the United States you’re allowed to set up an evangelical private college that doesn’t accept outside religious opinions.
The Islamic tradition, not your stereotypes has always accepted the special place of the Jews from the very start of the revelation. Unlike the Christians it has never in 1400 years been a mainstream doctrine to deny this. And for 1400 years, the Jews and the Muslims agreed that their shared concept of the Taouhid, the unicity of the God is the same.
You are simply **wrong. ** Although this is not surprising given the misinformation about the Islam that is propagandized amongst the christians (and amongst them about their own theology relationship with the Jewish religion).
Yes.
This does not mean in the main thinking the Jews lost their special place as the originators of the Taouhid.
There is nothing “symbolic of gender discrimination” about the simple hidjab. Too many place is three countries. I do not myself wear it nor like it, but the ignorant statements by non muslim white men about this pretending to be concerned about us is more than tiresome, it is nothing more than their own covering of prejudice or ignorance. Indeed, I become more and more sympathetic to putting on the hidjab myself in the face of the ignorant commentary around it, as the expression of a resistance to this prejudice and the more important discrimination.
Shhh… we who have the real Unicity in our belief have to allow for their confusion :^)
The Salafistes, and the basis of the Tariqas engagement is theologically not the same.
As I so often hear from those on the left who fear freedom of expression. Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. She got consequenced.