Hawkins is — or was — a political science associate professor at Wheaton College who said she’d wear a hijab through Advent to show solidarity with her Muslim brothers and sisters.
Wheaton then placed her on administrative leave. You can read the college’s statement here, and good luck finding any specifics as to why they chose this path, other than the administration’s concerns about some of the professor’s statements regarding the relationship between Islam and Christianity.
Here is the college’s statement of faith, written in 1924, a year before the Scopes trial. Perhaps it comes down to this: Some evangelicals are worried about joining hands with Muslims and admitting that we’re family.
Here is Dr. Hawkins’ Facebook page. I actually sent her fan mail. Evidently, those evangelicals who put her on administrative leave worship a teeny-tiny God.
Dating Jesus 
While you stand by her…,
as the much admired author once told me:
” *pats seat* come sit by me.”
Wheaton College is showing some true colors…and they ain’t a nice hue.
I find it just strange when the Abrahamic religions state they worship different gods. Technically, it’s the worship that’s different, not the God. Differences exist in interpretation and practice, as do similarities. But the god is the same.
I think Wheaton’s action against Hawkins is probably more related to its 2008 break with Christian/Muslim solidarity efforts than its Statement of Faith. (Although they did fire a professor in 2004 for converting to Catholicism.)
Evidently, evolutionary biology is okay at Wheaton, as is evolutionary theism, but admitting something as obvious as the sun rising in the East is out of bounds. Probably because too much solidarity with Muslims…these days….is bad for Ye Olde Bottom Line.
I couldn’t access her Zuckerbook page from your link, but her 12/13 statement is here. Sounds to me like she gets it.
Thank you for sharing this story. I am now also a fan of Larycia Hawkins. Her call to recognize that we worship the same God is an important one. Wouldn’t it be too bad if we could completely understand and dictate who God is? Instead, we can learn from one another – we do not have to share one another’s beliefs and practices in order to learn from them. The barriers between faiths will weaken only if we are willing to listening to each other.
I love what she’s done. I don’t understand why some cling to the dirt and the dust that dims what is the light of God.
What a beautiful sentiment.