The kid from Star Trek has his own college?!?
Why do you all keep emphasizing the h that way?
Everyone’s entitled to their aspirations.
Are religious colleges or institutions required to hire those who don’t share the same beliefs? Is a mosque mandated to hire Jews or Christians or Satanists?
Yet too often in these forums, you have people operating from the presumption that religious identity and the community of belief are, and should be, things that you can cast off or switch around or walk away from casually like a t-shirt or an ISP or a brand of canned tomatoes. It’s not easy and it’s a drawn out hard process especially for the committed believer.
Heck, look at the OP:
If right from the start you are dismissing it as fictional and nuts and infantile, you are not really asking in order to understand why either party finds it worth their while to go through the aggravation. It’s a rhetorical device to just point and laugh.
That’s right, I’m not asking in order to understand. I’m posting in the BBQ Pit. And before embarking on an analysis of me and my intentions, you might consider availing yourself of the title of the post. I see both parties as stupid - the college for their infantile beliefs and absurd fantasies, and the professor for working so hard to remain a part of that college.
I vote for stay until they offer a healthy buyout. Of course paid leave would work too.
Quoted for truth. I feel the same way about my church, which is rather conservative; where the Sunday after the same-sex marriage decision, a friend of mine whom I respect used the “slippery slope”, “next we’ll be marrying farm animals” argument.
An atheist myself, part of me sees this, but only a small part.
The larger part sees her as asking that Muslims and their beliefs deserve the same respect and protection as anyone else’s. It is a very human thing to do, and she sees it as a Christian thing to do as well. And she’s willing to fight to stay within the institution because she believes in its larger mission of creating these kinds of Christians.
She could cut and run and no one would blame her for it; I salute her for choosing to stay and fight.
Paid leave? She’s not a cop that shot someone. Some places you can be fired at will or for sufficient cause. If a person can get fired for talking nonsense in one’s own house, a person can be fired for talking the wrong kind of nonsense at a religious school.
For anyone here who isn’t aware of it, there’s a huge long thread on the case in Great Debates: Professor at CHristian college suspended for her outspoken support of Muslims
I believe that the ostensible reason for the college to initiate dismissal procedures is her assertion that Muslims have the same god as Christians, which violates some tenets of the evangelical roots of the school. Her generalized belief in the brotherhood of man, including Muslims is, on the surface, anyway, not in question.
And if she worked at a Buick dealership, we wouldn’t find it outrageous that she could be fired for posting on Facebook that Kias are basically the same.
I think a closer analogy would be that of a Toyota dealer saying that the Matrix and the Vibe were basically the same.
She doesn’t work at a Buick dealership. She works for an educational institution, not one selling a product.
Of course not. But the ministerial exception to Title VII does not extend to employees of a religious school, unless they perform a religious function. Wheaton argues that all its teachers perform a religious function because their whole program of learning is based on a holistic view of Jesus or somesuch nonsense, so they may be within their rights to fire her.
Standing up for herself doesn’t make her stupid. You can read her own words here. An excerpt:
[QUOTE=Larycia Hawkins]
While Wheaton College can signify that employees sign a statement of faith and adhere to it (and I do), they did not give me Jesus and they can’t take him away.
Wheaton College cannot hold me to a different standard, a higher standard, than they hold every other employees to.
Wheaton College cannot scare me into walking away from the truth that all humans, Muslims, the vulnerable, the oppressed, are all my sisters and brothers.
Wheaton College cannot intimidate me into cowering in fear of the enemy of the month as defined by real estate moguls, Senators from Texas, Christians from this country, bigots, and fundamentalists of all stripes.
Wheaton College will never induce me to kowtow to their doublespeak concerning the Statement of Faith, so as to appease an imaginary constituency that clearly knows little about what academic freedom or Christian love mean; or to placate platinum donors to their coffers.
Wheaton College will never hear me disavow my religious family tree—that would be the height of academic dishonesty; the nadir of historical revisionism, and a repudiation of the Christian narrative where the central figure is a Hebrew from Nazareth who was despised and rejected, from Podunk Nazareth, who nevertheless set captives free and is still dong so today.
Wheaton College cannot place me in a theological corner or a trumped up Statement of Faith Corner. The last time I was put in the corner was the 4th grade and that was undeserved. I won’t ever be put in such a corner again.
[/QUOTE]
No one puts baby in the corner!
Except that is exactly what the will do, and they have every right to do so. It’s a private, religious institution.
And she has every right to scream and holler all the way, so that other Christians who share her beliefs (and those who are sitting on the fence), can see what’s happening and join her in her fight.
I don’t think she’s stupid enough to think Wheaton will change its mind (which it also has every right to). But she gets a whole lot more more attention pretending that it will than quietly fading away.
She’s playing this far more intelligently than Wheaton is. If the school had any brains, they would have her just made things unpleasant enough for her to want to leave on her own.
Let’s not ignore the real burning question here:
Do kids really argue about King Kong and Rodan?
Exactly. Under the circumstances, what does it benefit her to go quietly? Make them have to come out and defend their position in public.