Controversy over Wheaton professor's hijab captures evangelical rift in new film

[guillaumeb]

From the article:

Larycia Hawkins never questioned what she should do.
It was days after the 2015 San Bernardino shooting, in which 14 people were killed at a center for people with developmental disabilities. Then-presidential candidate Donald Trump seized upon the religion of the two shooters and declared he’d ban all Muslims from entering the country, and Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. encouraged students at his evangelical Christian school to get concealed-carry permits because “good people” with guns could “end those Muslims.”...

Hawkins wanted to send a different message.
So Hawkins — then a political science professor at Wheaton College, an evangelical school in the Chicago suburbs — posted a photo on Facebook of herself in a hijab and announced plans to wear it through the Christian season of Advent as an act of “embodied solidarity” with Muslim women.
“I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book. And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God,” she wrote.

The pushback was immediate. Within a few months, the first black, female tenured professor at Wheaton had lost her job.
Hawkins’ story is detailed in “Same God,” a documentary that premiered late last month at the LA Film Festival.
To filmmaker Linda Midgett, responses to the professor’s act revealed the polarization within both evangelical Christianity and the country as a whole.

To read more:

https://religionnews.com/2018/10/04/controversy-over-wheaton-professors-hijab-captures-evangelical-rift-in-new-film/

I recently posted a Rumi poem about names, and how they divide us.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=294678

[bobbieinok]

1. Prominent white male theologian said basically same thing shortly b/4 at Wheaton, no prob

Fred Clark in his blog slacktivist at patheos had many posts on this topic.

My impression was that her 'termination' was less because of the theology and more because she was black and female. IIRC she was 1st black tenured prof (?), and school admin and donors had real problems with that.

Anyone wanting background on this scandal should check out slacktivist's posts

[guillaumeb]

3. I agree with your impression.

And wearing the hijab was the last straw for the Administration.

[bobbieinok]

2. Remember Hastert was on school's Board of Regents. Business School named for him

After his scandal, he was removed from Board and his name was taken off the business school.

[guillaumeb]

4. Perhaps a building at Trump University could be named for Hastert.

[bobbieinok]

5. !!!

[MineralMan]

6. Wheaton College Is Not a Place Where Academic Freedom

is a principle. Not in any way. If you are a faculty member there, you will either toe their line or seek other employment.

[guillaumeb]

7. See the first response.

Suggesting perhaps a combination of racism and patriarchy.

[MineralMan]

8. I saw that response. My reply still stands.

I am familiar with Wheaton College. I was offered a full-ride scholarship there, paid for by the church I attended in high school. I investigated the school carefully, and declined that scholarship. The school has not changed in any way that would have altered my decision. I went in another direction - a direction I would have gone in even if I had attended that school. I was already on that path when it was offered to me.

Despite the attractiveness of a full-ride scholarship to me and my blue collar family, I could see that Wheaton was not a place where actual thinking was encouraged. The end goal of Wheaton students is generally the ministry. That was not an attractive goal to me, so after thoroughly checking Wheaton out, I simply declined.