Professor who wore headscarf to leave Christian college

Hawkins, who had been teaching at Wheaton since 2007, first caught national attention for posting on her Facebook page in December that she was going to wear a hijab throughout the Advent to show solidarity with Muslims.

Supporters of Hawkins suggested scrutiny of the professor’s statements was excessive and related to her race and gender.

“I can’t intuit… how they deem me inconsistent with the statement of faith…. when Wheaton College’s president and provost and an adjunct faculty member in 2007 signed a statements saying exactly what I said – that Muslims and Christians are people of the book, we worship the God of Abraham”.

Theologians have debated whether Christians and Muslims understand God in the same way, and if so, whether they worship the same “one God”. “And we diverge on questions of salvation, soteriology – how do you get to God? – and also on questions of Christology – who is Christ?” “As an institution of distinctively evangelical Christian identity, the core of our faith, as expressed in our Statement of Faith, is our belief that ‘the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, as a representative and substitutionary sacrifice, triumphing over all evil; and that all who believe in him are justified by his shed blood and forgiven of all their sins.’ We affirm that salvation is through Christ alone”.

The college and Hawkins “have come together and found a mutual place of resolution and reconciliation” and have reached “a confidential agreement under which they will part ways”, Wheaton College and the professor announced in a joint statement. While parting ways, both Wheaton College and Dr. Hawkins wish the best for each other in their ongoing work. On Twitter, the #supportdochawk hashtag attracted many advocates for Hawkins.

Just a couple hours later, professors received an email from Ryken stating Hawkins would not be returning to teach. “While I acted to exercise my position of oversight of the faculty within the bounds of Wheaton College employment policies and procedures, I apologized for my lack of wisdom and collegiality as I initially approached Dr. Hawkins, and for imposing an administrative leave more precipitously than was necessary”.

“I asked Dr. Hawkins for her forgiveness for the ways I contributed to the fracture of our relationship, and to the fracture of Dr. Hawkins’ relationship with the College”, he wrote.

Representatives for the college and Hawkins will speak to the press at 10 a.m. February 10 at the Chicago Temple First United Methodist Church in Chicago “in pursuit of further public reconciliation”, though the release said neither would take questions at or after the press conference.