The Death of Christian Higher Education

OK, one rather clueless dhimmi does not make an entire institution bad, but one sure has to wonder why such a person is allowed to stay. I refer to America’s most prestigious and well-known Christian liberal arts college, Wheaton College in western Chicago.

I just read something about one of the professors there that still has me reeling. I take a bit of interest in this place for the simple reason that I graduated from Wheaton many years ago. So when I find my old alma mater seemingly going down the tubes like this, it is of great concern indeed.

I refer to a political science prof (who was not there when I was a student) who has come out saying some of the most ridiculous and even dangerous things a so-called Christian professor could say at a Christian college regarding Islam. I really hope she is the only clueless dhimmi there.

Sadly Wheaton has had various issues over the years. I was even aware of some real problems when I was a student there 30 years ago! No institution is perfect of course, and all will have a real mix at times when it comes to faculty and staff.

But it is already getting wobbly on the homosexuality issue, which is always a real telling indication of where a Christian institution is at. Consider for example “OneWheaton”. And just what is that? You guessed it: “A community of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning and allied (LGBTQ&A) alumni and students of Wheaton College (Illinois).”

hawkins LaryciaAnd consider another staff member who had to (thankfully) resign recently, someone who had referred to herself as a “gay Christian”. “Julie Rodgers, advocate of the notion of a ‘gay Christian’ identity, resigned from her position as ministry associate for spiritual care at Wheaton College (IL) on the same day she admitted her support for homosexual relationships.”

So Wheaton is struggling here with the issue of homosexuality. But just as bad, it is clear that it is struggling with the issue of Islam as well. One prof who has not yet resigned is pushing the “we all worship the same God” baloney and is even singing the praises of the terrorist-related group CAIR. This episode is so mind-boggling that I must present the entire news item:

A Wheaton College professor announced on Facebook Thursday night that she will be wearing a hijab (Muslim head scarf) throughout her celebration of the Advent as a way of showing solidarity with Muslims. Larycia Hawkins, a political science professor at the Wheaton, Illinois, evangelical higher education institution, explained on her Facebook page that she will be wearing a hijab to work, class, and church. She also vows to wear the hijab during her trip to Chicago and even when she goes on an airplane to return to her hometown for Christmas.
“I don’t love my Muslim neighbor because s/he is American. I love my Muslim neighbor because s/he deserves love by virtue of her/his human dignity,” Hawkins 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, who has been on the Wheaton faculty since 2007, further asserted that not only are Muslims her neighbors but they also “worship the same God.”
“I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book. And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God,” Hawkins stated. “But as I tell my students, theoretical solidarity is not solidarity at all. Thus, beginning tonight, my solidarity has become embodied solidarity.”
“As part of my Advent Worship, I will wear the hijab to work at Wheaton College, to play in Chi-town, in the airport and on the airplane to my home state that initiated one of the first anti-Sharia laws (read: unconstitutional and Islamophobic), and at church,” she added. Hawkins did not respond to requests from The Christian Post for comments by press time.
The Wheaton College professor further explained that she hopes she is not the only non-Muslim woman wearing a hijab this holiday season, as she desires to start a movement of women showing their solidarity for Muslims.
“I invite all women into the narrative that is embodied, hijab-wearing solidarity with our Muslim sisters — for whatever reason. A large scale movement of Women in Solidarity with Hijabs is my Christmas ?#?wish? this year,” Hawkins continued. “Perhaps you are a Muslim who does not wear the veil normally. Perhaps you are an atheist or agnostic who finds religion silly or inexplicable. Perhaps you are a Catholic or Protestant Christian like me. Perhaps you already cover your head as part of your religious worship, but not a hijab.”?
Hawkins turned to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), where she has a friend on staff, for advice on whether it would be offensive to Muslims if a non-Muslim wears a hijab.
“I asked whether a non-Muslim wearing the hijab was haram (forbidden), patronizing, or otherwise offensive to Muslims. I was assured by my friends at CAIR-Chicago that they welcomed the gesture,” she explained. “So please do not fear joining this embodied narrative of actual as opposed to theoretical unity; human solidarity as opposed to mere nationalistic, sentimentality.”

Wow! What can one say? Well, I can say plenty, actually. First, this is how Christian higher education in the West ends. Allow dhimmis like this at a Christian college to undermine not only the Christian faith but a free and democratic America, and you will quickly see the loss of both.

That every person on earth is made in the image of God of course goes without saying. But using that basic biblical truth to pretend that there are effectively no differences between Islam and Christianity is the height of foolishness and theological mushiness.

And spare us this “embodied solidarity” silliness. She really wants to wear a hijab to identify with and show solidarity to Muslim women? A symbol of oppression, misogyny, and second class citizenship? Get real Hawkins. Any genuine Christian would want to see Muslim women liberated and emancipated from their enslavement, not stand with them and celebrate their wretched condition.

This prof clearly knows nothing about Islam or the treatment of women in Islam. She needs to do a bit of reading. She could start with one of my many articles on this, such as: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2006/11/02/islam-and-women/

Or she can listen to someone who knows exactly what she is talking about: she should read Cruel and Usual Punishment by Nonie Darwish. See my review of her important volume here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2009/06/24/a-review-of-cruel-and-unusual-punishment-by-nonie-darwish/

Moreover, let’s just follow her position to its logical end:

A Christian college prof wears a hijab to show solidarity with Muslims.
-So will she wear a pentagram to show solidarity with witches?
-Will she wear a white robe and hood to show solidarity with the KKK?
-Will she wear a broken cross to show solidarity with satanists?
-Will she wear a swastika to show solidarity with neo-Nazis?
-Will she carry around a pack of cigs to show solidarity with smokers?
-Will she carry a can of petrol to show solidarity with arsonists?

And if not, why not?

As to her reckless and unbiblical claim that we worship the same God: um, no we don’t. Not at all. But I explain this in detail elsewhere so I will not repeat myself here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2007/08/19/no-we-do-not-worship-the-same-god/

And what about this shocker: “anti-Sharia laws” are “unconstitutional and Islamophobic”!? What? This has got to be the most idiotic and uninformed thing she says here, and mind you, she says quite a few idiotic and uninformed things. Of course implementing anti-freedom, anti-democracy, anti-Christian, and anti-women sharia law is unconstitutional. Earth calling Hawkins!

And if that makes me Islamophobic for saying so, then we obviously need a whole lot more Islamophobia. But by tossing these useless terms around (like homophobic, etc), she is simply trying to shut down debate and demonise her opponents. And she teaches at Wheaton?

And like so many other Western guilt-tripping and self-loathing lefties, she speaks about “class privilege” on a Wheaton web page: “Acknowledge your privilege. Class privilege results from education at an elite liberal arts institution like Wheaton.” Oh good grief. If you are so bent out of shape by your class privilege, why don’t you leave Wheaton and let some poor kid from the Southside of Chicago take your place.

(BTW, Dinesh D’Souza does a superb job of dealing with this class privilege silliness in this terrific video clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN9bu6CP318 )

Then she says she actually sought permission from CAIR to go ahead with all this! And she is a political science prof! Puh-leeese. Does she know nothing about CAIR, an organisation with proven links to the Muslim Brotherhood?

Some clueless wonders might say, “Oh how sweet and Christlike of you to ask them first”. No, the truth is, how brainless, naïve and even dangerous of you. CAIR happens to be a dangerous terror-supporting group. Just a year ago the United Arab Emirates included CAIR on its list of “designated terrorist organisations and groups”.

Robert Spencer cuts to the chase in clearly identifying this dangerous organisation:

CAIR is not a terrorist organization, if one considers violent acts an essential part of what defines terrorism: it doesn’t blow things up or exhort others to do so. It is, however, an Islamic supremacist organization with the same goals as those of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State: the imposition of Islamic law wherever and whenever possible. And while CAIR is quite mainstream these days, this self-styled “civil rights group” was actually named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case by the Justice Department. CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR’s cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Ibrahim Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements. Its California chapter distributed a poster telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI. CAIR has opposed every anti-terror measure that has ever been proposed or implemented.
CAIR’s dark side has been well known for years. Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) said that CAIR is “unusual in its extreme rhetoric and its associations with groups that are suspect.” Another United States Senator said of CAIR that “we know it has ties to terrorism,” and “intimate links with Hamas.” Those were the words of Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), and they have been proven correct. Congressman Bill Shuster (R-PA) has said: “Time and again the organization has shown itself to be nothing more than an apologist for groups bent on the destruction of Israel and Islamic domination over the West.”

Yet this utterly clueless prof thinks it is neat to cozy up to CAIR in true dhimmi fashion, asking its permission to do what she had done. This my friends is the exact definition of dhimmitude. Hawkins is already a slave. She has so kowtowed to Islam that she even has to get their approval for submitting to Allah and become a second class citizen.

The Islamists just gotta love this. They have already won when utterly clueless Western intellectuals do their bidding for them. Islam always respects strength, and always looks down upon weakness and grovelling, which is just what Hawkins is fully displaying here.

So any good Muslim will look down on her with contempt. Way to go Hawkins. Way to stand up for truth, freedom, democracy, the rule of law, the full equal rights of women, and so on. You have proven in this incredibly foolish and inappropriate gesture that Islam is right and the West is doomed.

You have certainly proven that Wheaton College and higher Christian education is in a very bad way. I absolutely cringe when I read reports like this. I expect this grovelling, servile dhimmitude from the clueless secular left, but not from someone who is supposed to represent biblical Christianity and the evangelical faith at a top-notch college.

This my friends is how we lose. We are watching our own cultural suicide as we speak. Right before our very eyes we see clueless appeasers in our midst, and we see the enemy getting a real foothold. It is painful to behold. But sadly this is not the only example of it.

Let me say that if Wheaton College finds absolutely no problems at all with her incredible remarks and actions, then all evangelicals will see that we have a big problem with Wheaton College. We need to pray for those in charge there that they think biblically and carefully about the way ahead.

And we should pray for Hawkins, that her possible good intentions are grounded in some hard-core common sense and biblical realism. If this issue is not dealt with one way or another, things can only spin further out of control. If so, kiss Christian higher education goodbye.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/wheaton-college-prof-to-wear-hijab-during-advent-to-show-solidarity-with-muslims-152329/
http://www.onewheaton.com/
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/manhattanproject/2015/07/wheaton-college-counselor-resigns-admits-support-for-same-sex-marriage/
http://www.wheaton.edu/Media-Center/Wheaton-Magazine/Spring-2014/Feature-Articles/That-They-May-Be-One/Wheaton-Christ-Centered-Diversity-Initiatives
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/245708/hamas-linked-cair-terror-organization-robert-spencer

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19 Replies to “The Death of Christian Higher Education”

  1. Bracing tonic of an article, Bill! Thanks! Went to OneWheaton’s site and found this disclaimer:

    ©2014 OneWheaton. All Rights Reserved. Not affiliated with or sponsored by Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. Duh.

  2. This brings to mind 2 Thessalonians 2 –

    11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:

    12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

  3. Dear Bill,

    Thank you for the excellent article. Unfortunately, I believe there will always be the ‘useful idiots’ just as there were in the early 19th century during the Russian Revolution. These ‘useful idiots’ helped to promote godless communism which lasted for seventy years. The ‘useful idiots’ can include so-called Christians who do not know their faith and are lukewarm.

    On Jihad Watch Robert Spencer shows a woman holding a placard which says ‘I am Christian and I love the Quran’. As always he knows his stuff when it comes to Islam so he lists the several quotes in the Quran which dispute the Divinity of Jesus, which is central to Christianity, and how vile Christians are who believe such a thing. One comment was particularly relevant when it quotes the verse in John 2-22 which says ‘This is the anti-Christ, the one who denies the Father and the Son’. For a Christian that should be the answer!

    As a Catholic I confess that I am no brilliant Scripture scholar but I am so grateful that some people are and that some Christians have also made it their business to study the Quran in depth. How good and merciful is our Father in Heaven when He can send His Holy Spirit to ‘blow where it will.’

    However, I think there is no real excuse for what the Catholic dictionary terms invincible ignorance amongst the so called citizens of the Christian West in these times because they have more than just the radio and TV to keep them informed. They also have the internet and for people of good will there are many good sites like yours where people can be reliably and responsibly informed.

    In the thirties many German people WERE invincibly ignorant about the true nature of Nazism because they didn’t have our advantages. Like Islam, Nazism accomplished some good things and that is where the real danger lies for people who are intellectually lazy or undiscerning.

  4. Not surprising after all she is saying that she misunderstands ‘people of the book’ verses of the qur’an by including Muslims in that group. These verses only look out from Islam to the other beliefs Judaism and Christianity and does not include Islam. Her station in life as that of a senior lecturer in a Christian college is what makes this all the more alarming! It seems vetting people such as the presidential nominees and Christians for Bible School faculty is sorely lacking.

  5. I wonder how these women manage to obtain the title of “professor”. One wonders whether in fact there is real truth in the rumour that medications have been put in the drinking water. All these people bowing and scraping to the “we are all one” mantra, along with self-flagellation and a deep sense of shame for not embracing every perversion and godless ideology on the planet. Brain-washing isn’t a strong enough description….the evil forces behind this have duped zillions of people by way of the most stunningly effective psycho-manipulation camapign ever imagined.

  6. Why doesn’t the foolish woman go the whole hog and buy the top of the range burqa?
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21593676

    No doubt she also believes that anyone who converts from Islam to Christianity or simply escapes from it should be stoned today.

    Maybe she should also go the whole hog and her renounce her right to vote. In here case, she should never have been given the franchise.

    That is the trouble with useful idiots, they are selective with which parts of reality they want to play. She should be forced to be consistent.

    David Skinner UK

  7. The burqa is even more a garment of concealment than the hijab. What is at stake is the meaning of the headcoverings in question? Both represent a system of thought where women must be covered up to protect the honour of the menfolk of their clan – a system where the assumption is that men are bound to exploit any woman who is not a sister, close cousin or a mother in the immediate extended family.

    While decency and modesty are affirmed in Christian doctrine, the standards in question for the Christian are the same for both men and women: It is not a matter of a double standard which blames and punishes the fairer sex for the lust and covetousness of sinful men.

    The realities of life under hijab or burqa and abaya are, in far too many cases, a cruel tyranny of men over their female kinsfolk, where control is the rule and love for one’s spouse is the exception.

  8. You could be unfair here Bill. I’ll just try to find that news item about Muslims in Islamic countries wearing crosses during Ramadam…

  9. Hi Bill, Thank you for always making things of concern like this known to the many, and clarified abundantly.

    I must ask though your opinion on the comment made by dhimmi Wheaton about “primordial clay”, “cradle of humankind”, and “the cave in Sterkfontein”.

    Is she alluding to “plumbing the depths” of her evolutionary “common humanity”, or what? Just curious…

  10. Bravo Wheaton !

    My only recollection of Jesus getting angry was when He was “cleaning His Father’s House”.

    I am proud of you Wheaton for showing some discernment.
    I was beginning to wonder just how “Liberal Arts” you were leaning.

    It looks like Hawkins may mean well but is seriously in need of some basic Christian teaching herself. How did she get on staff there?

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