{"id":30893,"date":"2016-01-11T17:42:36","date_gmt":"2016-01-11T22:42:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=30893"},"modified":"2016-01-11T17:42:37","modified_gmt":"2016-01-11T22:42:37","slug":"dear-wheaton-et-al-heres-what-to-do-next-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2016\/01\/11\/dear-wheaton-et-al-heres-what-to-do-next-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Dear Wheaton, et. al., here’s what to do next time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

So what should<\/em> Wheaton College have done?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with the situation, as described by (Wheaton alum) Elizabeth Dias in her Time<\/em> magazine report<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The Wheaton College provost overseeing an expulsion trial against a tenured professor who said Christians and Muslims worship the same God wrote in a private email last month that her comments were \u201cinnocuous\u201d but that they had created a public relations disaster for the Illinois college.<\/p>\n

\u201cArticles are already being written in a variety of news sources, and the media are pounding on our door asking for comments about our faculty who are endorsing Islam,\u201d wrote Provost Stanton Jones, in a December 11 email obtained by Time<\/em>\u00a0to Wheaton Psychology professor Michael Mangis. \u201cWe are being asked to defend why we have faculty openly rejecting with (sic) the institution stands for.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Set aside that bit about the expulsion trial for the professor \u2014 that\u2019s what Wheaton should never<\/em> have done.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s accept, for the sake of argument, the rest of Jones\u2019 characterization of this situation as a potential \u201cpublic relations disaster.\u201d A professor\u2019s laudable actions and \u201cinnocuous\u201d comments are being distorted in some media reports, twisted into \u201cfaculty \u2026 endorsing Islam\u201d and \u201copenly rejecting what the institution stands for.\u201d Now the school is getting angry and worried emails and phone calls about this supposed Islamic fever from dozens of people who are either: A) honestly misinformed by those distorted media reports, or B) intent on deliberately spreading misinformation in a nasty, dishonest attack on the school.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The good news here is that the response to both A and B can be much the same \u2014 tell them the truth. Whether these folks are worried due to their naive* acceptance of a twisted misrepresentation of the professor\u2019s remarks and actions, or whether they are merely pretending to be angry because they\u2019re a bunch of culture-warriors seeking to consolidate money and power by deliberately lying for Jesus doesn\u2019t change the obligation to respond to falsehood by speaking truth, or the educational duty to correct misinformation with the facts.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re getting emails and phone calls from people who \u2014 honestly or dishonestly \u2014 are claiming that they\u2019re worried because they heard a professor is\u00a0advocating some syncretistic merging of Christianity and Islam or is saying that there\u2019s no meaningful difference between the two religions. Happily,** you can reassure them that this is not the case \u2014 that no Wheaton professor is saying anything at all like that.<\/p>\n

So, you look at your overflowing email inbox and you pull out a yellow legal pad where you start sketching the following notes to yourself:<\/p>\n

1.<\/strong> Quickly put together a succinct,\u00a0four-five graf response correcting the misinformation about this specific incident and make sure this is sent in reply to all of those \u201cconcerned\u201d emails.<\/p>\n

2.<\/strong> Track down the specific media reports spreading misinformation about the school and demand corrections and\/or retractions where necessary.<\/p>\n

3.<\/strong> It seems like a lot of white evangelicals are prone to freaking out over the fact\u00a0that Christians and Muslims are all children of Abraham. It seems like they need some help sorting out how to think about that. Fortunately, we\u2019re an educational institution with a host of top-notch theologians and religious scholars. And we\u2019ve also got some good design and layout people, a variety of print and online platforms, etc. Let\u2019s put all that together and do our job.<\/p>\n

4.<\/strong> Get in touch with Miroslav Volf, who came to lecture on Christianity and Islam at Wheaton a few years ago. See if we\u00a0can get him back to do it again, and let\u2019s do a better job publicizing the event this time.<\/p>\n

5.<\/strong> It seems that a dismaying number of Wheaton students are among the white evangelicals susceptible to freaking out about this. Start putting together a chapel or convocation or forum with a panel discussion on the topic. Invite somebody from the Islamic Center of Wheaton to participate (they\u2019ll help reassure such students that nobody<\/em> is suggesting Christianity and Islam are identical).<\/p>\n

6.<\/strong> Wheaton College is home to the archives of Billy Graham. It\u2019s sad to think about the contrast between Billy\u2019s longing to share the good news with Muslims and his son Franklin\u2019s new message of eliminationist hate toward them. Given that we\u2019re\u00a0Billy\u2019s alma mater, we\u00a0should know just who could address and correct that sad contrast in a chapel service. Set that up.<\/p>\n

7.<\/strong> Reading through these various angry emails, it seems a lot of white evangelicals are also deeply confused \u2014 or blatantly heretical \u2014 in their thinking about the relationship between Christianity and Judaism. This ranges from various strains of supercessionism to outright anti-Semitism. Maybe time to invite a rabbi to speak in chapel? Oh, and let\u2019s add a trip to the Illinois Holocaust Museum\u00a0as part of that freshman orientation class.<\/p>\n

8.<\/strong> The president\u2019s office says that some of our wealthiest donors are among the worst-informed and most hysterically ignorant. Sigh<\/em>. Sometimes wonder why people like that have any interest in contributing to education when they have so little regard for educating themselves. Still, maybe we can entice them to do that. Let\u2019s get one of our decent, non-idiot big donors to sponsor all of the above steps under a single yearlong academic umbrella. Call it an honors series or a symposium or some such. Glossy brochures on big-donor cardstock, etc. Make the Volf lecture some kind of fancy banquet and invite these donors to come and sit in a place of honor. Maybe, just maybe, it\u2019s not too late for them to learn something.<\/p>\n

\u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n

* Largely<\/em> naive, but never wholly so. One can be mostly\u00a0innocent when one has been deceived into believing the worst about someone else. But there\u2019s still the problem of the willingness or the inclination to accept the very worst about someone else, particularly on the basis of sketchy, implausible, second-hand claims that one then doesn\u2019t feel any obligation to further interrogate. That willingness to accept slanderous falsehood, and that reluctance to treat such accusations\u00a0skeptically, reflects a host of motives that are anything but innocent.<\/p>\n

** That word \u201chappily\u201d shows why, I suspect, very very few of the people claiming to be upset are acting in good faith. If some Christian, in good faith, is worried that a Wheaton professor is preaching some syncretistic \u201cChrislam,\u201d then the assurance that this is not happening should be met with great joy and relief.<\/p>\n

When this assurance is met, instead, with disappointment, then we have evidence \u2014 proof<\/em> \u2014 that these folks were not really worried about, but rather hoping for,<\/em> an instance of apostasy or heresy that they could self-righteously condemn. They claim to be angry that a professor is saying heretical things, but then they seem to get even angrier when they\u2019re shown that\u2019s not the case. This disappointment and anger proves that these people are full of it. Or, as C.S. Lewis put it, that they have chosen to become\u00a0\u201cdevils\u201d who are \u201cfixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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

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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\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Dear Wheaton, et. al., here's what to do next time","description":"Your college is getting angry emails and phone calls due to misrepresentations of what one of your professors said. What can you do? Well, you can start by responding to falsehood with truth -- by correcting the widespread misinformation rather than reaffirming it. You're in the education business. 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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\/30893","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=30893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30893\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}