One runs across news stories which are blatantly wrong, but usually they are in the MSM.
This one, however, is in the Daily Caller. And it's a doozy. One suspects that the reporter, a "Blake Neff" was actually writing a press release from the professor-ette at the center of the story.
...Earlier this month, political science professor Larycia Hawkins
announced on Facebook she would be wearing a hijab until Christmas to
show solidarity with Muslims who encounter bigotry in their daily lives.
She described them as “people of the Book” who worship the same God as
Christians.
Hawkins’ rhetoric, though, wasn’t pleasing to her employer, Wheaton
College, which is an evangelical Christian school that requires all
faculty members to adhere to a statement of faith
in order to keep their jobs. School officials say Hawkins’
statements didn’t adequately distinguish Islam from Christianity, and
they responded by suspending her indefinitely....
There is now some talk of reinstatement but with loss of tenure, That's the "lose her job" flapjaw in the headline of the story.,
Re-read the red in the quote above. Hawkins said that the God of Islam is the same God as the God of Christians and Jews.
That is heresy. One need only recall that both the Christian and Jewish God is a Trinity (albeit one must dig a bit in the OT to find the clues for the Jewish side of it.) Allah, on the other hand, is not a Trinity; he does not have a "son" called Jesus Christ, and certainly does not have a Holy Spirit.
Mr. Neff could have called the Wheaton people to get an understanding, I suppose, but that may have required some thinking on his part. Maybe next time he'll try that.
It's a heresy from the Catholic position. It's a truism from the Islamic position (which is also where she's getting the phrase 'people of the book'). Their argument is that there is only one God, that this god sent all true prophets, and that earlier versions of the Abrahamic were just wrong about the details of the message. So the 'differences' aren't real from that position: they're just our mistakes.
ReplyDeleteWhat's very likely is that she was carefully instructed on the Islamic position by one of these groups that wants to push the narrative that Islam = Christianity = Judaism and downplay the differences. These people are often but not always well-meaning, but even the best of them are subject to the errors of thought that Chesterton identified in the Theosophists.
*Cough*
ReplyDeleteHowever this young woman was propagandized, it is the "reporter" who is a concern. He certainly did not get Wheaton's side of the story.
Meantime, she should remain on leave until she recants. Wheaton is under no obligation to retain and pay heretics.