Why Wheaton College Suspended That Hijab-Wearing Professor

Photo Credit: Facebook
Photo credit: Facebook
Scanning the headlines, you might believe that Wheaton College, a Christian institution, suspended an associate professor because she wore a hijab. But the real story is Wheaton suspended her because she doesn’t believe an important tenet of the Christian faith.

Dr. Larycia Hawkins posted photos of herself on Facebook wearing a hijab and wrote:

“I stand in human solidarity with my Muslim neighbor because we are formed of the same primordial clay, descendants of the same cradle of humankind—a cave in Sterkfontein, South Africa that I had the privilege to descend into to plumb the depths of our common humanity in 2014,” Hawkins wrote.

“I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book,” Hawkins asserted. “And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God.”

It’s one thing to wear a garment associated with another religion. It’s quite another to hold beliefs contrary to what the Bible teaches while teaching at a Christian school. An excerpt of Wheaton’s statement:

Wheaton College faculty and staff make a commitment to accept and model our institution’s faith foundations with integrity, compassion and theological clarity. As they participate in various causes, it is essential that faculty and staff engage in and speak about public issues in ways that faithfully represent the College’s evangelical Statement of Faith.

A core tenet of the Christian faith is the Trinity, a unity of three distinct persons — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ is the begotten Son of the Father. Christ is divine. Christ is God made (sinless) flesh. The Trinity is a difficult concept for our finite minds to grasp, especially when we’re talking about an infinite God.

Without the Trinity — a term that doesn’t appear in the Bible, though the concept does — there is no God made flesh. No incarnation. Without the incarnation, there is no sacrifice on the cross for the sins of those Christ came to save or Resurrection. 

“And if Christ is not risen,” the Apostle Paul wrote, “your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.”

Muslims believe that Christ was a prophet only, and that Muhammad was the greatest prophet. If you could ask a person only one question to determine what he believes about the God of the Bible, this is it:

Who do you say Jesus is?

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7 comments

  1. When are people going to realize that if they jump up and down, somebody is going to think they are targets at a carniaval shooting gallery.. The mixture of cultures, race, nationality and anything else get along fine when they float on the river and get off at an available pier but those that scream to have the pier moved normally ride on one of the timbers that goes over the falls.

  2. Sad that they had to ask her to leave. But she would have professed and signed onto a statement of Christian faith before coming on as a faculty person.

    Quote from above “the real story is Wheaton suspended her because she doesn’t believe an important tenet of the Christian faith.”

    The hijab itself is worn by some Coptic christians in parts of the middleeast. The issue was faith.

  3. “…because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book,” …She clearly self-identifies as Christian. Perhaps it is rather the reference to the Pope that has the school in a tizzy. In either case, not very solid bases for this degree of action. Her acceptance of those of another faith, especially at this time, conforms with Christian doctrine. A tempest in a teapot, which even an unskilled attorney will put right, much to the embarrassment of the school.

  4. They were right to suspend her, the Allah of Islam is a false God.

  5. It’s obvious she knows as little of anthropology as she does of Christianity. Sterkfontain casve is the site of an ancient hyena’s den and they dragged a lot of bones into it. There is no evidence, let alone proof, that the human race originated there.

    • She’s not being suspended for being wrong about her facts. She’s being accused of denying tenets of her faith, which I do not find here. She will min her case in a court of law.