{"id":30710,"date":"2015-12-19T08:59:11","date_gmt":"2015-12-19T13:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=30710"},"modified":"2015-12-18T19:00:31","modified_gmt":"2015-12-19T00:00:31","slug":"more-on-wheaton-aka-the-white-evangelical-faber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2015\/12\/19\/more-on-wheaton-aka-the-white-evangelical-faber\/","title":{"rendered":"More on Wheaton, aka, ‘the white evangelical Faber’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Miroslav Volf, \u201cWheaton professor\u2019s suspension is about anti-Muslim bigotry, not theology\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Appealing in part to arguments in my book Allah: A Christian Response,<\/em> Hawkins asserted that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. She did not insist that Christians and Muslims believe the same things about that one God. She did not state that Islam and Christianity are the same religion under a different name, or even that Islam is equally as true as Christianity. She did not deny that God was incarnate in Christ. Neither did she contest that the one God is the Holy Trinity. In fact, by having signed Wheaton\u2019s Statement of Faith, she affirmed her belief in God as the Trinity and Jesus Christ as God and man, fundamental Christian convictions which, among other things, distinguish Christian faith from Islam.<\/p>\n

There isn\u2019t any theological justification for Hawkins\u2019s forced administrative leave. Her suspension is not about theology and orthodoxy. It is about enmity toward Muslims. More precisely, her suspension reflects enmity toward Muslims, taking on a theological guise of concern for Christian orthodoxy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Paul Moses, \u201cWheaton College Caves in to Anti-Muslim Mood\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The action the college has taken \u2014 putting a tenured professor on leave \u2014 is extreme, given the circumstances. Ms. Hawkins is a political scientist, not a theologian. And she is citing ideas that are not only mainstream for Catholic Christians (Pope Benedict XVI and St. John Paul II in addition to Pope Francis, as well as the Second Vatican Council) but also are commonly discussed in evangelical circles.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u00a0The only conclusion I can draw is that Wheaton College has caved in to the anti-Muslim atmosphere that is growing in our country.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

J.R. Daniel Kirk: \u201cHow\u00a0We Theologize Matters: Wheaton College Edition (Or: Evangelical College Doesn\u2019t Even Know Who It Worships)\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

What do [Christians]\u00a0say about Jews? You know \u2013 the ones that Paul says are God\u2019s covenantally bound people whom God won\u2019t reject despite their large-scale rejection of the idea that Jesus is God\u2019s messiah?<\/p>\n

Why do we, why must we, say that these non-Trinitarians worship the same God that we do?<\/p>\n

Because we share the same story. We both look to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of David and Solomon and Isaiah. We both believe that the God who watched over Israel due to God\u2019s covenant promises and love is the one true and living God.<\/p>\n

The story matters. We reread the first part of the story. We understand it differently than our Jewish friends, but we read the story of the same God and we trust the same promises.<\/p>\n

So back up. Back up to the God of Abraham, and rerun the tape. There is that promised blessing to Ishmael.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Marty Troyer, \u201cWheaton, Witness, and Christian Theology\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Wheaton appears on the surface to be responding to perceived lose of distinctive Christian identity \u2013 certainly a valid concern. They were afraid; and so they hunkered down, redoubled efforts, and drew their lines. They hijacked a story about Christian witness<\/em> and made it into a story about Christian theology<\/em>. \u2026<\/p>\n

Is our fear actually less about purity, and more about the uncontrollable seething mess of emotions wedged into our souls? Are we using theology to mask our fear of vengeful annihilation, shame at our genuine inability to live for Christ and his kingdom, guilt from our role in creating this wicked mess, individual and collective sin, and a primal fear that the world as we know it has become un-moored and is sinking back into nothingness?<\/p>\n

Good theology should be the very thing that liberates us from these fears, not blind us too them! It should push us forward into mission as distinctively gospel-formed communities, not yank us back into the safe-zone of the church. Theology committed to the mission of God will bind us more closely to our neighbors than anything else in human history.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wheaton College (Norton, Mass.), \u201cAffirming freedom\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, is firmly committed to individual, academic and religious freedom as a cornerstone of its liberal arts mission. Some individuals have confused Wheaton in Massachusetts with an institution in Illinois that shares the same name, but is in no way affiliated with our college.<\/p>\n

Let me be clear: The Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., has not suspended a faculty member, a staff member or a student for expressing religious or personal beliefs. Our Wheaton affirms the freedom of faculty, staff and students to share their beliefs while respecting the human rights and dignity of others.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Insightful commentary from theologians Miroslav Volf and J.R. Daniel Kirk, Paul Moses of “Commonweal,” Wheaton alumnus Marty Troyer, and from the other Wheaton College — the one in Massachusetts that didn’t hire a bunch of anti-Muslim bigots as administrators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[158,28,37,65],"class_list":["post-30710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicals","tag-racism","tag-religious-right","tag-smart","tag-tribalism"],"yoast_head":"\nMore on Wheaton, aka, 'the white evangelical Faber'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Insightful commentary from theologians Miroslav Volf and J.R. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30710\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}