Larycia Hawkins, the Wheaton College professor who is facing termination because of her Facebook comment that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, has said that she is "flummoxed and flabbergasted" by the college's actions.
Speaking at a news conference at First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple on Wednesday at which she was surrounded by around a dozen Wheaton faculty, alumni and students and dozens of other religious leaders, she suggested that the college's response to her post might have been influenced by "uniformed donors" who had put pressure on it.
According to the Chicago Tribune, she warned of the danger of such behaviour for the future of Christian liberal arts education.
"I teach at a university that exudes a zeal not only for knowledge and for experience of Jesus but also for experience of the word — freedom of thought, freedom of action within the confines of our commitment to live charitably and righteously as Christians," she said. "While Wheaton College can signify that employees sign a statement of faith and adhere to it — and I do — they did not give me Jesus, and they can't take him away from me."
She said academic freedom and higher education had been put in danger by Wheaton's actions and that academic staff should be aware that any of their communications could be used against them.
"When calling on one member to, over and above every other member of the campus community, answer for a Facebook post that was actually committed to living out the love of Christ and the principles of the statement of faith, no one's safe," she said. "If they're not safe on their Facebook page, they're not safe in the classroom. And that's the end of liberal arts. That's the end of Christian liberal arts. That's the end of the academy."
Hawkins was told on Monday that the process to terminate her employment had begun. Among the reasons Wheaton gave, Hawkins said, were "her unqualified assertion of religious solidarity with Muslims and Jews" as well as statements that Muslims and Christians come from the same clay, and that Muslims and Christians are people of the book and worship the same God.
