A Defense of the Consistency of Dr.

Larycia Hawkins Statements concerning

Christianity and Islam with the Wheaton College Statement of Faith

ABSTRACT: Wheaton College has not stated publicly its precise reasons for
initiating termination proceedings against Dr. Larycia Hawkins. It has come
closest in two documents by Provost Stanton Jones: a Dec. 15 memo to
Hawkins and a Jan. 20 statement to the faculty. First, then, we take up each of
the four areas of concern Jones highlights in his memo, with particular
attention to the question of whether Christians and Muslims worship the
same God. We argue that Hawkins Dec. 17 reply to Jones suffices to show
that her initial statements are quite consistent with the Colleges Statement of
Faith, taken on its face. But in his Jan. 20 statement, Jones suggests that the
Statement of Faith performs its communal function, not merely in virtue of
what it explicitly says, but as a living breathing instrument that can compel
assent to claims that are neither explicitly asserted by, nor clear consequences
of, the Statement. Therefore, our next task is to argue against this
understanding of the function of the Statement of Faith. We also contest the
claim that faculty members are obligated to enter into dialogue about their
theological commitments with the administration, absent any compelling
evidence that they have contradicted the Statement of Faith, taken on its face.
We conclude by calling on the College to state publicly and definitively its
precise grounds for its action against Hawkins, so that the merits of its case
can be publicly assessed. If its chief grounds are among those against which
we have argued, and if our arguments are sound, we urge the College to
cease pursuing its case against Hawkins and to welcome her back to her
position as a tenured member of the faculty in good standing.

Griffin Klemick

Charles J. Guth III

B.A., BITH, Honors in Philosophy,

Wheaton College, 2012, summa cum laude

B.A., Honors in Philosophy,

Wheaton College, 2012, summa cum laude

Adjunct Instructor of Philosophy,

Wheaton College, Spring 2014

Teaching Ministry Intern,

Nassau Presbyterian Church, Princeton, NJ

Ph.D, Philosophy, University of Toronto,

in progress

M.Div, Princeton Theological Seminary,

in progress

griffin.klemick@mail.utoronto.ca

charles.guthiii@ptsem.edu

(Principal author.)

On December 15, 2015, Wheaton College placed Associate Professor of Political Science Dr.
Larycia Hawkins on administrative leave, stripping her of her teaching duties for the upcoming
semester. And on January 4, Provost Stanton Jones delivered to President Philip Ryken and to
Hawkins herself notice of his recommendation that she be terminated for cause, initiating the
Colleges termination proceedings against her. The cause cited by the College consists of a
number of statements made by Hawkins in a December 10 Facebook post and clarified and
elaborated upon in a December 13 follow-up, including but not limited to [some] indicating
the relationship of Christianity to Islam.1
One element of the Colleges procedure in this matter that those who, like us, are not
currently active participants in the College community may have found frustrating is this
vagueness in the Colleges public statements about just which statements of Hawkins it finds
objectionable, and why. The College defends its treatment of Hawkins by maintaining that she
has not reconciled her beliefs with the Colleges theological position, as represented in its
Statement of Faith. And it does specify one assertion of Hawkins that appear[s] to be in
conflict with the Colleges Statement of Faith: namely, her claim that Muslims and Christians
worship the same God.2 But it does not cite any particular provision of the Statement of Faith
as the one with which this claim apparently conflicts. And while it suggests that this claim is
just one of a number of Hawkins assertions that apparently conflict with the Statement of
Faith, it does not enumerate the others or identify the provisions of the Statement of Faith with
which they appear to conflict.
Accordingly, it has been difficult to assess the merits of the Colleges case against
Hawkins. Even some members of the College community with whom we have discussed the
matter, while supportive of Hawkins statements in her Facebook postsif not of their truth,
then at least of their consistency with the central tenets of Evangelicalism and with the
Colleges Statement of Faithhave nevertheless reserved judgment, suspecting that further
points must be at issue behind the scenes. These people love and trust the College, and so they
have been reluctant to believe it to be in the wrong. This attitude is understandable; more, it
typically evinces the presence of intellectual virtues in its possessors (chiefly, that of epistemic
humility). But it naturally produces an inaction that is regrettable, given the high stakes
inherent in the situation. If indeed the College lacks adequate cause for terminating Hawkins,
then it risks doing her a serious injustice by depriving her both of her employment and of the
pursuits and the close relationships that make up the intrinsically valuable elements of

See the Colleges December 22 public statements.

See the Colleges December 16 public statement.

membership in the College community. (And, of course, it risks wronging Hawkins students
and colleagues by depriving them of her mentorship and camaraderie.) So, if the College lacks
adequate cause, and if our actions can forestall this result, we ought to take action by calling
the College to reconsider its course of action regarding Hawkins. Moreover, it seems unlikely
that the College plans to furnish a public, definitive statement of its grounds for proceeding
against Hawkins in the near future.3 Under such circumstances, we cannot suspend judgment
any longer: we must find some basis for determining whether the Colleges proceedings
against Hawkins are justified.
Recently Provost Jones December 15 memo to Hawkins, in which he requests that she
clarify her affirmation of the Statement of Faith in light of her statements on Facebook, has
circulated, as the College notes in the statement just quoted. In this memo, Jones outlines a
few of the many questions raised by Hawkins statements (p. 1). Unless or until the College
releases publicly a more comprehensive list of its worries concerning Hawkins statements, it
seems fair to take the questions Jones raises as the Colleges chief grounds for doubting
Hawkins commitment to the Statement of Faith. Even if these do not in fact constitute its chief
grounds, this discussion would be worthwhile, since it might prompt the College to disclose its
actual grounds.4 Accordingly, in what follows, we address each of the key areas of concern
identified by Jones. We argue that in none of them does the claim of Hawkins in question
clearly conflict with the particular provision of the Statement of Faith that Jones cites, and we

The College has publicly addressed this question only once: in a January 14 update to its December
22 Frequently Asked Questions statement regarding Hawkins, in which it stated that The issue is
not that Hawkins statements were all definitively unorthodox, but that the College wanted and
needed to better understand her thinking. (It did not explain why the College should need to better
understand her thinking if her statements were not in conflict with the Statement of Faith on their
face, or how that need would be at all relevant to Hawkins conditions of employment under those
conditions.) The College has since retracted that statement (see the January 15 update to the
Frequently Asked Questions statement), without providing a more adequate replacement. And in a
January 21 Listening Session conducted by himself and Jones, Ryken replied to the question of
specifically how Hawkins statements conflict with the Statement of Faith by noting that he and Jones
cant talk about that. He gave no indication that he would be able to address the question at some
future point.
4

Furthermore, in the since-retracted January 14 statement, the College noted that Jones memo
identifies several of the theological issues underlying the Colleges action against Hawkins; indeed,
this is the sole reference it made to any substantive justification for its action. If the memo circulating
were not authentic, or if it did not accurately present the Colleges chief grounds for its action,
presumably this would have been noted, or, at least, the Colleges statement would not have made
appeal to the document in this way. (Nor does the January 15 retraction note contradict the January
14 statements reliance on Jones memo or tacit stipulation of its authenticity.) So, it seems reasonable
to proceed on the assumption that Jones memo does identify the Colleges chief grounds for
proceeding against Hawkins, absent a public, definitive statement by the College of its grounds.

suggest that Hawkins adequately demonstrates this lack of conflict in her December 17
response to Jones memo, which has now also circulated.
We cannot stress this last point enough. We do not view our task here as that of
supplying an original justification for Hawkins statements or defense of their consistency with
the Colleges Statement of Faith, as though Hawkins herself had not supplied any such
justification or defense. On the contrary, we view her December 17 response as an entirely
adequate defense (and, secondarily, justification) of her statements, and we think the College
was wrong not to take it as such. Therefore, our task here is primarily to elaborate upon and
provide additional warrant for claims Hawkins has already made. Where we go beyond her
defense, it is typically in considering more expansive (and, in our view, less plausible)
interpretations of her statements for the sake of argument, in order to maintain that, even so
interpreted, her statements are not inconsistent with the Colleges Statement of Faith. Neither
of us knows Hawkins personally, but her public statements in this matter have impressed us as
products of deep reflection by an acute mind. We add to them only to defend them at greater
length and with closer attention to technical detail. This last is perhaps a product of our
particular disciplinary training (in theology and, especially, philosophy), but it also seems
dialectically useful now in a way it would not have been at an earlier stage: those who have
failed to see the force of Hawkins defense of her statements may nevertheless be persuaded by
an extensive analytical evaluation of them. At least, that is our hope. But in any case, the issues
at stake herenamely, whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God; of how our
answer to that question bears on our understandings of the natures of God, salvation, and
worship; and of what all this means for how, concretely, we ought to relate to our Muslim
neighborsare of great intrinsic importance and are practically pressing for Christians today.
They merit lengthy and detailed consideration in themselves.
Another issue that merits some consideration is that of the particular role played by the
Statement of Faith in the Wheaton College community. Two important questions under this
topic concern the proper hermeneutical stance to adopt toward the Statement of
Faithwhether to construe it strictly or expansivelyand the particular actions and
expressions that may rightly be expected from community members as manifestations of their
conformity to it. These questions are particularly pressing because a recent statement by Jones,
first circulated on January 20, suggests that the Colleges objection to Hawkins statements is
not that they, taken on their face, contradict the Statement of Faith, taken on its face. While
Jones precise criticism of Hawkins statements remains opaque, he seems instead to argue that,
when the Statement of Faith is properly understood, not strictly but as a living breathing
instrument, it becomes apparent that Hawkins statements contradict it in some broader sense,

showing her failure to clearly and adequately evince the mark these convictions ought to have
on the life of a Wheaton faculty member. For this reason, after demonstrating that Hawkins
statements are consistent on their face with the Statement of Faith, we will take up the question
of the function we ought to attribute to the Statement of Faith itself.
One further preliminary note: in framing our defense of Hawkins as we have, we waive
appeal to some other arguments that have been given on her behalf. Some have taken issue
with the very idea of a Christian, or of a specifically Evangelical, institution of higher education
holding faculty members to a doctrinal statement as a condition of their employment. We do
not. Others have attempted to downplay the significance of Hawkins statements themselves in
favor of the practice in whose defense they were offered: namely, in her practicing embodied
solidarity with Muslims by wearing the hijab throughout Advent. But we reject the claim,
implicit in this line of thought, that the vital importance of concrete Christian practice is best
respected by ceasing to reflect carefully upon the theological principles from which it springs.
We join these defenders of Hawkins in applauding her concrete efforts to show the love of
Christ to her Muslim neighbors, and we agree that her goal in crafting her statement clearly
was not to defend a theological assertion for its own sake, but rather to convey the importance
of her practice of embodied solidarity and to exhort others to share in it. Indeed, in our view,
this practical orientation is not peculiar to Hawkins but is inherent in the very task of theology.
We must do theology for the same reason that, according to St. Augustine, we must read and
interpret the Bible: namely, to guide our actions so that we may cultivate the virtues of faith,
hope and, above all, love.5 But far from trivializing our theological statements, this truth invests
them with deep significance. If theology is indeed the reflection on and necessary guide to
practicing the theological virtues, then it is no more dispensable than is that practice itself. For,
Augustine reminds us, even if the faith that flows directly from theology is ultimately
subordinate to love, still if someone lapses in his faith, he inevitably lapses in his love as
well.6 Therefore, those who would commend Hawkins practice as an admirable
exemplification of the love of Christ, and who suspect that Hawkins entered into that practice
not haphazardly but rather as the outworking of this very process of reflection on and for the
sake of practice, should take up the task of defending her theological claims rather than
minimizing their importance in favor of practice, considered in isolation.
It is this task that orients us in what follows. We will argue that ones faithful
commitment to the basic tenets of Evangelicalism or to the Wheaton College Statement of Faith

See On Christian Doctrine, I.36-9.

Ibid., I.37.41.

simply does not settle the question of which view one should take about whether Christians
and Muslims worship the same God. One can answer this question either way while retaining
such a commitment. We will further argue that there are reasons that Evangelicals should find
persuasive that render an affirmative answer at least plausible. And we will show that none of
Hawkins other statements singled out for criticism by Jones may be reasonably interpreted as
conflicting with the Statement of Faith. If we succeed in our arguments for these claims, we will
have shown that, at least with respect to the evidence currently in the public record, the
College lacks adequate grounds for its proceedings against Hawkins and should cease them,
restoring her to her position as a tenured member of the faculty in good standing.

Area of Concern 1
Hawkins: I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are
people of the book. And . . . we worship the same God (Dec. 10 Facebook post).7
The Statement of Faith: WE BELIEVE in one sovereign God, eternally existing in three persons: the
everlasting Father, His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, and the Holy Spirit, the giver of life . . .
.
WE BELIEVE that Jesus Christ . . . was true God and true man, existing in one person and
without sin.
Jones: It is widely and commonly understood that persons of the Islamic faith, on the basis of
the teaching of the Quran (e.g., Surah 4: 171), deny the Trinitarian nature of God Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit, and specifically deny the divinity of Jesus Christ as the divine Son. With this
understanding, please articulate how you understand that Christians and Muslims worship the
same God. . . . If blasphemy is understood as statements showing profound disrespect or
disregard for the true nature of God as understood in a particular religious faith, can you
explain how your comments are to be understood as not falling into that characterization for
either Muslims or Christians or both? (Dec. 15 memo, p. 1).
We Comment: Let us begin with this last question of Jones, that of blasphemy. Granting Jones
definition of blasphemy, it is doubtless correct that Christians will and should view the denial
of Gods Triune nature, or of the divinity of Jesus Christ, as blasphemous. And it is doubtless
correct that many Muslims will view the affirmation of either of these claims as blasphemous.

We elide Hawkins aside as Pope Francis stated last week, which Jones leaves out in his memo.

So, suppose that Hawkins statement entails that Christians and Muslims share a belief in the
Trinity of God and the divinity of Jesus. In this case, her statement attributes a belief to
Muslims that they view as blasphemous. Suppose instead that it entails that Christians and
Muslims alike deny the Trinity of God and the divinity of Jesus. In that case, her statement
attributes a belief to Christians that they view as blasphemous. In either case, then, by at least
one groups lights, her statement is, if not itself blasphemous, at least a serious
misrepresentation of its beliefs.
But it would be very surprising that Hawkins would intentionally assert a statement
with either of these consequences, as it would suggest that she was simply unaware of the
differences between Christians and Muslims on these matters. Given Hawkins close
interaction with Christian theology in the academy at Wheaton, as well as her deep
engagement with the Muslims around her, we find it nigh impossible to believe that she did
not know these elementary points of disagreement. And, indeed, she notes these disagreements
in her reply to Jones while still affirming her initial statement. It seems, then, that we should
seek another interpretation of her statements, one which is more plausible and more charitable.
Another possible interpretation is that while Hawkins was aware of these
disagreements between Christians and Muslims, she simply did not view them as important.
On this proposal, Christians and Muslims worship the same God because their beliefs about
God differ only about otiose mattersor, perhaps, only about matters about which neither side
can be simply correct, but in which each belief represents a path to relationship with God that
is equally valid as the other (in some sense of the phrase). Indeed, committed as they are to
their respective doctrines of God, both Christians and Muslims would seem to be licensed to
regard this claim as blasphemous. Crucially, Hawkins concurs with this assessment in her
reply to Jones, noting that the stance of an easygoing ecumenism that would amalgamate all
faiths into a homogenized whole8 would amount to both a distortion and a sign of
disrespect. And yet she does not retract her initial statement. This may represent an
inconsistency in her beliefs. But if we would adopt a posture of charity toward her as an
interlocutor, we should prefer an interpretation that attributes to her consistent, reasonable
beliefs, provided that it does not unduly strain the ordinary meanings of her words. The
question is whether this is possible: can we give an interpretation of Hawkins statement that
Christians and Muslims worship the same God on which this statement is not unreasonable,
but that also continues to respect the particularities of religious traditions in general and the

The wording is Timothy Georges.

differences between Christianity and Islam in particular? This is what we shall attempt to
provide.

Believing in the Same God

Let us take first a simpler case. Pretend that you and we both know someone named Stephen.
But you know Stephen quite intimately, while we met him only for a few minutes at a noisy
and hectic party. As a result, our impression of Stephen differs greatly from yours. We left
thinking that Stephen is a math teacher from Chicago who is very rude and disagreeable. You
know that Stephen is an anthropologist from Pittsburgh who is eccentric but big-hearted and
was simply off his social game that day. Now, you and we have very different beliefs about
Stephen. But clearly this does not prevent us all from knowing the same person, Stephen. Nor
does it prevent our very different beliefs about Stephen from nevertheless sharing an object or
referent: they are still beliefs about the same person. Moreover, we can give this verdict without
somehow implying that your disagreements with us about Stephen dont matter, or that
neither of our conflicting beliefs is simply correct while each is somehow equally valid. On
the contrary, when our belief has the same object as yours, this entails that, if we attribute
incompatible attributes to the object, our beliefs disagree, and we can discuss the reasons for
and against our respective beliefs and can consider which of us might be best positioned to
apprehend the shared object of our beliefs correctly. (By contrast, if our belief that Stephen is
disagreeable refers to a different person named Stephen than your belief that Stephen is agreeable,
then they wouldnt disagree at all, and so this further discussion would not arise.)
The general verdict this example teaches, then, is that beliefs can share an object (i.e. can
be about the same thing) while attributing importantly different properties to that object, and
can do so without this dispelling or rendering unimportant the disagreement between these
beliefs. Perhaps this principle allows for Christians and Muslims to believe insetting aside the
question of worship for a moment; we return to it belowthe same God even while having
importantly different beliefs about this one God.
We should consider a possible objection to this approach. In the case we just
considered, while you importantly disagree with us about some of Stephens attributes, all of
us nevertheless agree on a good number of his other attributes. We can all agree about his
appearance, for instance, or about whom he likes to hang out with at parties. Fundamentally,
moreover, we agree about Stephens basic nature: we all agree that Stephen is a human being.
We agree about the kind of object we are talking about. This agreement, an objector might

claim, provides the necessary basis for our disagreement about some of Stephens attributes.
After all, if, in the course of our disagreement, it should become apparent that, while you know
that Stephen is a human being, we think that in talking about Stephen we are discussing a
friends Rottweiler, then we could not sensibly proceed to discuss the question of whether
Stephen is agreeable without clarifying which sort of object we are actually talking about. Now, it
is a plausible claim that Christians and Muslims disagree not merely about Gods
attributesthe features that God has but might have lackedbut about Gods very nature: the
kind of being God is in Himself. And the objector might claim that while differences in beliefs
like those you and we respectively have about Stephen dont make our beliefs about different
objects, differences in beliefs about the nature of an object do make these beliefs about different
objects, since they take away the basic agreement about what sort of object is being discussed
that is necessary for meaningful disagreement about the objects other attributes.9
We grant that it is true that meaningful disagreement about some of an objects
attributes is possible only on the basis of agreement about some of its other attributes. But we
deny that this agreement must concern the nature of the object in particular, and so reject the
objection. To see why, consider another example. We have a significant number of beliefs about
water. So, too, it would seem, did the ancient Greeks: their beliefs about water seem to have
concerned the very same object that our beliefs about water are about. After all, we form beliefs
about this object in the same ways that they did: watching the rain, noting evaporation on hot
days, going to the seaside, experiencing thirst and its quenching, and so on. And it seems
obvious that our respective employments of these belief-formation processes led us to the very
same object: the water they encountered then in these ways is the same substance that we
encounter now in these ways. So, it would seem that our beliefs and theirs share an object in
common. Importantly, however, we have a very different conception of the nature of water
than they did. We think of water as a chemical compound made up of more basic elements
(namely, hydrogen and oxygen); in our judgment, waters nature consists in its being H2O. But
the ancient Greeks thought of water quite differently, viewing it as one of the basic elements of
which the rest of physical reality is composed. The situation here is precisely the opposite from
that in the case of the disagreement about Stephen we considered above. In that case, you
shared with us a view about Stephens nature and basic physical attributes. This enabled our

We note, though, that only particular disagreements between Christians and Muslims can buttress
this precise objection. Among the points Jones asks Hawkins to clarify is how it is that [Christians
and Muslims] worship the same God if Muslims cannot affirm that God is the Father of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob; . . . or that the Father did not spare his only begotten Son (Dec. 15 memo, p. 1). But
these divine attributes would seem to be grounded in Gods free choice to bless and to redeem his
creatures rather than in the unchangeable divine nature. Therefore, they have no bearing on the
objection presently at issue, which is a question of Gods essential nature or identity.

beliefs to refer to the same object, which, in turn, allowed us meaningfully to disagree about his
other attributes. In this case, however, we and the ancient Greeks share a view not about
waters nature, but about the attributes it evinces in its relations to us: how it looks to us, the
role it plays in sustaining our lives, and the like. And this enables our beliefs about it to refer to
the same object, which, in turn, allows us meaningfully to disagree about its precise nature.
Now, Christians and Muslims share many beliefs about the ways in which God relates
to us, as well as about elements of Gods nature. As Hawkins notes in her reply to Jones, both
Christians and Muslims . . . confess that God is One and that he revealed Himself to Abraham
and made a covenant with him. Moreover, for Muslims as well as for Christians, God is the
transcendent, all-powerful and all-knowing Creator, Sustainer, Ordainer, and Judge of the
universe.10 God is that on which all other beings depend at every moment for their continuing
existence, while He is dependent on nothing outside Himself. He is the righteous law-giver and
judge of all, but also the benevolent giver of natural sustenance, revelation through the
prophets and Scriptures, and even forgiveness. This constitutes substantial agreement between
Christians and Muslims about who God is and how He relates to human beings. But as we
have seen, Christians and Muslims significantly disagree about God as well. It remains a
question of degree whether their agreement is sufficiently substantial to provide an adequate
basis in agreement for the shared reference of their beliefs. In recognition of this, we provide
two arguments in favor of Christians adopting a generous view of the requirements for a
beliefs successfully being about, or referring to, God.11
The first is missiological. Recently, missiologists have persuasively argued that failure to
translate the Gospel into terms that make contact with a cultures own beliefs and values
practically reflects a flawed theology that fails to grapple with the Incarnation and Gods
accommodation to human particularity and limitations therein. Not only so, but, far from a
needed protection against syncretism (as was previously thought), this failure in fact invites
syncretism, as its natural output is false conversions in which converts are conditioned to

10

John L. Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 22. For
the further claims about the Islamic view of God made in this paragraph, see Esposito, pp. 22-8.
11

We briefly note a third here: if we have reason to doubt that a religious communitys beliefs
succeed in referring to God when it denies important truths about God, even if this community has
many other true and important beliefs about God, then we would seem to have nearly as much
reason to doubt that a religious communitys beliefs refer to God when it affirms these important
truths imprecisely, or without understanding their true meaning (again, even if this community has
many other true and important beliefs about God that it affirms precisely and does understand). But
surely we do not wish to hold that communities within the Christian church that affirm some
important orthodox Christian doctrines only imprecisely, or that do so without understanding their
true meaning, do not succeed in so much as having any beliefs about the one true God.

10

repeat formulas of foreign concepts, but at the same time go on acting and even worshiping as
beforeprecisely because since the proclamation of the Gospel they have received is not
directed to [their] specific needs and problems, it does not enable them to experience the
Lordship of Christ in their concrete situation, and so leaves them subject to the same lords
as they were before.12 This result is certainly antithetical to the task of Christian mission.
Instead, we should affirm that other cultures and religious communities sometimes have
concepts that do refer to the one true God, but that nevertheless reflect a wrong understanding
of His nature and character. And we should prompt them to revise these prior understandings
in light of an understanding of what the God they have been trying to understand and serve is
actually like.
This may initially strike one as a piece of reasoning novel to postmodern theology or
the like. But nothing could be further from the truth, for this reasoning enjoys clear and striking
Biblical support. For it provides the basis for the apostle Pauls explanation of the Christian
God to the Athenian philosophers at the Areopagus in terms familiar to them: Athenians, I see
how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked
carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, To
an unknown god. What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you (Acts 17:23;
italics ours).13 Paul, then, does not hold back from identifying the object of the Athenians
worshipand not mere beliefwith the God who is the subject of the Christian Gospel he will
now present. Of course, he does not mean to affirm all the Athenians beliefs about this being.
Minimally, since the altar in question was just one of many objects of worship, the Athenians
appear to have conceived of the being in question as one of many beings on an equal footing in
power and worthiness of worship. This is quite an important mistake to make about Godat
least as significant, one wants to say, as any made by Muslims.14 And yet Paul treats their
beliefs and acts of worship as referring to the one true God, not in order to give a facile
affirmation of all their beliefs about God, but precisely in order to call them to recognize the
way that elements of their own cultural and religious frameworks were already calling them to

12

See C. Ren Padilla, Mission Between the Times, rev. ed. (Cumbria: Langham, 2010), p. 113.

13

All Scripture quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version.

14

This point is really not essential to argue that the Athenians view of God was at least as mistaken
as Muslims, however, since the Athenians seem to have made the precise mistakes about God that
Muslims do as well as additional ones like that noted above. For the Athenians would also
presumably have been disposed to deny that the being Paul is discussing was Triune, as well as that
the human being Jesus was also divine (see 17:31-2).

11

turn away from image[s] formed by the art and imagination of mortals and to repent before
Jesus righteous judgment of the world (17:29-31).
The second concerns the doctrine of God. As we have noted, Muslims, like Christians,
view God as the transcendent creator of all, all-powerful with respect to His creation,
dependent for His existence on nothing external to Himself. Now, if we nevertheless deny that
their beliefs about God are about the one true God described by Christianity, then we must
affirm one of two remaining options: we must hold that their beliefs about God are about some
other (merely possible) being who fits the above description, or we must hold that they are not
in fact about anything at all. But neither option is viable. So, we must affirm that their beliefs
about God succeed in referring to the one true God.
Why cannot the former option be made to work? Why cannot there be multiple possible
beings who are all-powerful, totally independent and transcendent creators of all? Well,
orthodox Christian theology will not allow this. It tells us in the doctrine of creation ex nihilo
that the one God is the creator of all things other than Himself, and that He Himself depends
on nothing for His existence but rather exists eternally and necessarily. Obviously, then, there
cannot be another being of this description that actually exists, since it would be a being that
God has not created and so would violate the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. (Incidentally,
Muslims would assent to all these claims as well.) But why can there not be another possible
being of this description, to whom Muslims beliefs might refer? The reason for this takes some
effort to understand. It relies on the distinction between the natures (or essences, as they were
classically called) of things and their existence. The doctrine of creation ex nihilo tells us that it
was15 once true that no created things existed. None of the beings we encounter in the created
universe is such that its essence includes existence: that is, that it exists by its own nature alone.
Rather, God creates it by causing something of that nature to come to be, and so by conjoining
a particular act of existence to that essence. But God Himself is not created: nothing outside
Him causes Him to be, or causes existence to attach to His essence.16 What, then, must we say
about Gods essence? We must say that God, as a being of the above descriptionthe first
cause of all that is, dependent on nothing external to Himis a being whose essence is its

15

This wording is infelicitous if time itself is a creature, as seems plausible. We hope this will be
excused us, as it is very difficult to speak precisely about an atemporal state, especially as it relates to
temporal ones.
16

For one thing, this is entailed by the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. But it is also necessary
philosophically, since, if something did cause Gods existence to be conjoined to His essence, then an
adequate explanation of creation would require us to inquire about the relation of that beings
existence to its essence, and an infinite regress would result, so that creation would never be
explained at all.

12

being (i.e. existence), in Thomas Aquinas words: a being who is nothing short of pure being
itself, with no diminution or lack of any kind internal to it.17
So, this is the kind of being that the doctrine of creation ex nihilo entails that God is.
Now, let us press our question once more: are there multiple possible individuals of this sort?
Given that one individual whose essence is its existence exists, can we consider another one
who might have existed? Thomas rightly answers that we cannot. We can, of course, do this
with respect to other essences: for instance, given that we exist, we can imagine having siblings
who do not in fact exist. But this is precisely because the human essence is neutral concerning
whether, and how many, humans exist: it is neutral, that is, with respect to particular acts of
human existence. For to imagine siblings that we might have had just is to imagine our human
nature to be conjoined to particular acts of existence other than those to which it really is
conjoined. Now, we have just seen that the doctrine of creation ex nihilo entails that Gods
essence simply is his particular act of existence: these are identical. So, for another being to share
Gods essence would be for it to share Gods particular act of existence (this is what it means to
share Gods essence) and also to have its own distinct particular act of existence (this is what
makes it another being). But no being can have two distinct acts of existence: this would be for
one being to be literally two separate individual beings, which is impossible. And since this is
not merely not actually the case, but could not possibly be the case, similarly it could not
possibly be the case that there is a being who shares Gods essence but is not God. But if this is
true, there is no possible all-powerful, totally independent and transcendent creator of all who
is distinct from the one true God described by Christianity, and so such a being cannot serve as
the referent of Muslims beliefs.
What, then, of the second option: that Muslims beliefs lack an object altogether? The
best supporting rationale for this claim we can find is something like the following: God is by
nature Triune, and is also by nature transcendent, all-powerful, all-knowing, and so on. In fact, all these
features flow necessarily from the same, unchangeable nature. So, to hold that a being with this nature
could fail to be Triune is to affirm a contradiction. And because such contradictory beliefs do not describe
a coherent way that reality could be, they do not succeed in referring to any being at all, whether actual
or possible. Now, on the basis of Christian revelation, we are willing to grant the preliminary
conclusion that to hold that a being of the divine nature is not Triune is to affirm a
contradiction. If we fail to see this, this is because we have an inadequate grasp of the divine
nature, in virtue of our inability to come to know it in itself; rather, we come to know it only

17

Thomas Aquinas, On Being and Essence, ch. 4, par. 6.

13

derivatively, on the basis of our knowledge of Gods actions concerning us.18 But it is not true
that contradictory pairs of beliefs cannot succeed in referring to an object. This is clear, for one
thing, on the basis of examples. Suppose a person makes plans to visit a friend one day, and so
forms the belief that she will be visiting her friend later in the day. But she forgets these plans.
Then, another friend asks her to coffee at a different location at the same time, and she agrees.
Accordingly, she forms the belief that she will be having coffee with the latter friend at that
time. Ultimately, she realizes her mistake and feels foolish, perhapsprecisely because she
held two incompatible beliefs about herself. The beliefs have not become nonsense that refers to
nothing; rather, it is precisely because they share an object and each make a meaningful claim
about it that their meanings can be incompatible. In any case, Christians in particular should
not be quick to assert that those who view God other than as Triune cannot succeed in having
beliefs that are about anything at all. Hawkins notes this in her reply to Jones, quoting from
John Stackhouse:
if we insist . . . that God must be understood in terms of the Trinity, with a focus
especially on Jesus, or else one really doesnt know God, I respectfully want to ask such
Bible believers what they make of Abraham (who is held up as a paradigm of faith in
the New Testament) and the list of Old Testament saints (who are held up as paradigms
of faith to Christians in Hebrews 11), precisely none of whom can be seriously
understood as holding Trinitarian views and some proleptic vision of the identity and
career of Jesus Christ.19
Christians will not find palatable the claim that the patriarchs beliefs were not in fact about
anything at all, even given that the patriarchs did not affirm the doctrines of the Trinity or the
Incarnation.20 Indeed, to deny that the Old Testament patriarchs religious beliefs referred to

18

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, part I, q. 2, a. 1.

19

John G. Stackhouse, Jr., Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God? Online blog post,
Dec. 16, 2015. URL: <http://www.johnstackhouse.com/2015/12/16/do-muslims-and-christiansworship-the-same-god/>
20

Some might be attracted by the reply that, though the patriarchs did not explicitly affirm these
doctrines, they did so tacitly. (Perhaps they would think this reply borne out by Scriptural passages
such as John 8:56). But those putting forward such a reply would assume the burden of giving an
account of just what this tacit knowledge consists of. This is a difficult question. For it is not obvious
that, given their own epistemic situations, the patriarchs would have explicitly affirmed these
doctrines even had they entertained them, and had the relevant concepts been minimally explained
to them; indeed, it is not absurd to suppose that they would have explicitly denied them. The
viability of this reply, then, depends on whether a detailed account of this tacit knowledge can be

14

the same God as the beliefs of the figures of the New Testament just seems to be to adopt the
heresy known as Marcionism. So, Christians cannot hold that Muslims beliefs lack an object
simply because they do not affirm these doctrines. And since they also cannot maintain that
Muslims beliefs about God refer to some object other than God, they should grant that
Muslims beliefs about God succeed in referring to the same object as their beliefs about God:
namely, the one true God.
We take the foregoing to constitute an adequate defense of the claim that Christians and
Muslims believe in the same God. We think the foregoing renders it plausible that this claim is
true. Even failing that, however, we think it clearly shows that one can hold this belief without
denying the provisions of the Statement of Faith cited by Jones. And since our defense of the
consistency of this belief with the Statement of Faith drew largely on claims Hawkins herself
made in her reply to Jones, simply expounding and defending them at greater length and in
more detail, we view this as a defense of the adequacy of her own reply to Jones with respect to
her reconciliation of this belief with the Colleges theological position as it is codified in the
Statement of Faith.

Worshiping the Same God

But Hawkins did not state merely that Christians and Muslims believe in the same God, but
that they worship the same God. This might be thought to complicate matters. Scripture tells us
that a subjects having correct beliefs about God (let alone incorrect ones that merely succeed in
referring to God) does not indicate much at all about the subjects relationship to God: even the
demons believe that God is one, after all (James 2:19). Worship, by contrast, seems to be the
characteristic attitude of the heart toward God when it is rightly related to God. But our hearts
cannot be rightly related to God without first receiving Christ through faith. Accordingly, an
objector might contend, since they have not received Christ through faith, Muslims are unable
genuinely to worship God. And so Hawkins statement that Christians and Muslims worship
the same God is false. For, the objector claims, it could be true only if commitment to Islam
were capable of rightly relating a person to God, independent of the saving work of Christ and
the persons reception of Him through faith. But, of course, any orthodox Christian must deny
this.
In our view, this objection is vulnerable at two points. The first is its claim that right
relation to God is not merely normative for worship (i.e. a standard according to which human

given on which it is plausible to think that all the patriarchs had it while Muslims in general do not.
And whether such an account can be given is, at best, unclear.

15

acts of worship are measured as proper or defective), but partly constitutive of it (i.e. necessary
for a human act to count as an act of worship in any sense at all). The second is its equation of a
persons reception of Christ through faith with explicit belief in his Incarnate divinity and
confession of his Lordship. We consider each point in turn.
First, the objection succeeds only if it is necessary for ones heart to be rightly related to
God, not merely for one to worship God in a manner acceptable to Him, but for one to worship
God at all. And this seems implausible. For it implies that, while Muslims have many beliefs
about God, and while these lead them to feel awe and adopt postures of respect, as well as to
carry out various practices of devotion and service, none of this amounts to worship in any
sense at all. Muslims, it would turn out, do not worship anything.21 And surely that
consequence is counterintuitive. Moreover, it is not clear how to apply the objectors analysis of
worship to idol-worship. It is absurd to think that it could be necessary for idol-worship that
ones heart be rightly related to the one true God. But if we relativize this notion to the religion
in questionholding (roughly) that, for one to worship an object that, on the basis of ones
religious commitments, one takes to be divine, it is necessary only that ones heart be related to
that object in the way singled out as right by the religion one holdsthen it is hard to see why
Muslims should not succeed in worshiping, since (at least ideally) they do relate themselves to
the object of their religious belief in the way singled out as right by the religion they hold.
Instead, it seems more plausible to hold that Muslims do succeed in worshiping God,
but do so inadequately, or in a manner that is not as such acceptable to God. On this view,
certain characteristically religious emotions, attitudes, and practices suffice for worshipawe,
respect, praise, confession, and the like.22 When persons adopt these emotions, attitudes, and
practices toward some object other than the one true God, they are what make true the
assessment that such persons are worshiping idols. And when they adopt them toward the one
true God, this suffices for that person to be worshiping God. However, this does not suffice for
this worship to be adequate, or for it to be acceptable to God.23 For this reason, this view of

21

Could they worship some other being than God? It seems not, since their religious beliefs succeed
in referring to God (as we have argued), and since these beliefs restrict the referent of the emotions,
attitudes, and practices that are consequent upon them.
22

Obviously, we are concerned with the cases in which these are borne or done to the degrees and as
elements of the overall postures characteristic of religion; of course, we can bear and do these things
in non-religious contexts, too. The precise distinction between, e.g., religious and non-religious awe
does not concern us here.
23

One way of explaining why this genuine worship could fail to be adequate or acceptable to God
involves two steps. First, one could hold that adequate worship acceptable to God must proceed not

16

worship is perfectly consistent with the denial that commitment to Islam can of itself enable
persons to stand in right relation to God or to worship Him adequately or in a manner
acceptable to Him. So, it can warrant Hawkins statement without encountering any of the
difficulties raised by the objection we are considering.
The warrant for this claim, too, is not purely theoretical, but derives significantly from
the Biblical example we considered above: Pauls claim at the Areopagus that the God he will
proclaim to the philosophers is the very being they worship as unknown (Acts 17:23; our
italics). Now, Paul was under no illusions that these philosophers were rightly related to God;
indeed, the very point of his message is to impress upon them their failure to stand in right
relation to God and the consequent urgency of their need to repent before Jesus should return
to judge the world. So, those who deny that Christians may be licensed in granting that those
not rightly related to God can nevertheless worship Him must explain Pauls apparent
readiness to grant just this. (Of course, nothing about this concession should be taken to require
Paul to allow that the philosophers prior worship of God was either adequate or acceptable to
God. Indeed, Paul clearly would have denied this, lest his proclaiming to them the God they
previously worshiped as unknown be rendered pointless.)
Second, the objector is clearly correct to hold that orthodox Christians must not allow
that any person can be set free from sin and come to stand in right relation to God apart from
the saving work of Christ. But does this preclude that at least some Muslims can come to stand
in right relation to God, and so to worship Him in a manner acceptable to Him, while
remaining Muslims? It does so only on the assumption that one cannot be saved by the work of

merely from knowledge about the one true God, but from saving faith in Him. Second, one could
adopt Calvins definition of full or saving faith: a firm and certain knowledge of Gods
benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed
to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit. (John Calvin, Institutes of the
Christian Religion, 1559 Latin edition, III.II.7. Translation by Ford Lewis Battles. Philadelphia: The
Westminster Press, 1955.) Persons who lack knowledge of this freely given promise in Christ would
then be unable to attain saving faith in Him, and so would also be unable to worship God adequately
or in a manner acceptable to Him. But their worship of God could nevertheless be genuine, since the
requirements for this are the less demanding ones suggested in the text.
We note in passing that this particular explanatory strategy is inconsistent with the second
interpretation of Hawkins claim that Christians and Muslims worship the same God that we
consider below. But defending the consistency of Hawkins claims with the Statement of Faith
requires only that we present one or more reasonable interpretations of those claims on which both
they and the Statement can be true; it does not require that we demonstrate the consistency of each of
these reasonable interpretations with each other. Moreover, Calvin at times makes claims quite
similar to those underlying that second interpretation (see the penultimate paragraph of this
subsection), demonstrating just how difficult it can be for even an undeniably orthodox theologian to
craft an account of these matters that is both consistent and compelling.

17

Christ while continuing to remain, or at least to identify consciously as, a Muslim. Those who
accept this premise will likely warrant it by claiming that only those who consciously affirm
the Incarnate divinity of Jesus and confess Him as Lord are covered by His saving work. But it
is important to note, as C. S. Lewis does, that this further claim does not follow from the initial
assertion that freedom from sin and right relation to God are possible only through the saving
work of Christ: Though all salvation is through Jesus, we need not conclude that He cannot
save those who have not explicitly accepted Him in this life.24
We will not argue here that the objectors second claim is false. But we do assert that it is
implausible that it is an essential tenet of orthodox Christianity.25 Indeed, we doubt whether
there is any strong reason to take it to be an essential tenet of Evangelicalism. (Presumably Billy
Graham, for one, does not take it as such, since he denied it in a 1997 interview with specific
reference to Muslims, among others.) In any case, the further claim is neither among nor
entailed by the theses included in the Colleges Statement of Faith. Here are the only relevant
portions of the Statement:
WE BELIEVE that our first parents sinned by rebelling against Gods revealed will and thereby
incurred both physical and spiritual death, and that as a result all human beings are born with a
sinful nature that leads them to sin in thought, word, and deed.
WE BELIEVE 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.

24
25

C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), p. 102.

Some here will protest that this claim is entailed by Romans 10:9: if you confess with your lips
that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
But it is not. For this verse, considered in isolation, provides only a sufficient condition, and not a
necessary one, for salvation. (Which is to say: the claim would be entailed by a verse that read only if
you confess with your lips . . . and believe in your heart . . . can you be saved. But that is not what
the verse says.) Moreover, the context also supports this view: Paul is concerned to argue that
salvation need not be through the righteousness that comes from the law (10:5), because the
conditions cited in 10:9 are sufficient. (He does go on in 10:14ff. to stress the importance of evangelism
in order to ensure that people hear of Jesus and so are enabled consciously to call on Him. But this
would be important in order to widen the availability of one important means of availing oneself of
Christs saving work even if there were other possible means of doing so. So, this passage is not
decisive.)

18

WE BELIEVE that all who receive the Lord Jesus Christ by faith are born again of the Holy
Spirit and thereby become children of God and are enabled to offer spiritual worship acceptable to
God.26
WE BELIEVE in the bodily resurrection of the just and unjust, the everlasting punishment of
the lost, and the everlasting blessedness of the saved.
These statements entail that all human beings are subject to sin; that those who receive Christ
by faith are forgiven of sin, come to be rightly related to God and to worship Him acceptably,
and will see everlasting blessedness; and that those who are lost will face everlasting
punishment. But they patently do not entail any particular account of the relationship between
receiving Christ by faith and conscious affirmation of the Incarnate divinity of Jesus and
confession of Him as Lord. Nor do they restrict the consequences of receiving Christ by
faithforgiveness, restoration of relationship and the ability to worship acceptably, everlasting
blessednessto only those persons who make such conscious affirmation and confession. Nor,
again, do they specify conditions for being lost that entail that all those who do not make
such conscious affirmation and confession are lost.27
So, nothing in the Colleges Statement of Faith bars Hawkins from holding that, through
the saving work of Christ, some, and perhaps even many, Muslims are enabled to worship God
adequately and in a manner acceptable to Him, even while, failing to know of the truth about
Christ or of any cogent reason to take it to be true, they remain Muslims who have not
consciously affirmed Jesus Incarnate divinity or confessed Him as Lord. And in the absence of
any such obstacle, the College has no basis for finding fault with her if her prayers, like those of
John Calvin, embrace all who are [her] brothers in Christ, not only those whom [she] at
present sees and recognizes as such but all men who dwell on earth. For what God has
determined concerning them is beyond our knowing except that it is no less godly than
humane to wish and hope the best for them.28

26

Incidentally, we do not take this thesis to rule out the account of worship by those outside right
relation to God we offered on Hawkins behalf above. For that account does not entail that those who
have not received the Lord Jesus Christ by faith can offer worship that is acceptable to God, as we
emphasized above.
27

Nor would such conditions be palatable if they were included, since, in this totally unqualified
form, they would entail that those lacking the mental capacity to consider the question of Jesus
Incarnate divinity and Lordship, including the very young and some mentally disabled persons, are
one and all lost.
28

Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, III.XX.38.

19
Whether, then, one construes the claim that Christians and Muslims worship the same

God to mean that each group worships God in some sense, or even if we construe it to mean
that, through the saving work of Christ, at least some persons belonging to each group are
enabled to do so in a manner acceptable to God, we find no reason to think the claim
inconsistent with the Colleges Statement of Faith.

People of the Book and Religious Solidarity

We now turn to another of Hawkins statements: I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims
because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book. Jones does not say how this passage
is in putative conflict with the passages from the Statement of Faith he cites; indeed, none of his
questions specifically concerns the concept of religious solidarity or the topic of whether Islam
and Christianity share Scriptures in common. Therefore, without further clarification from the
College, we need not defend this claim in any detail. Concerning the question of whether
Muslims are people of the book, it should suffice to note that Muslims do believe that God .
. . revealed his will to Moses and the Hebrew prophets and later to Jesus, and that the
Christian Old and New Testaments are therefore sacred writings, containing revelations from
God.29 Muslims hold, however, that these revelations became corrupted by extraneous
cultural beliefs, so that the current texts of the Torah and the New Testament are regarded as a
composite of human fabrication mixed with divine revelation.30 This explains the need for
Gods final, decisive revelation in the immutable and inerrant Quran. Obviously, most
Christiansand certainly most Evangelicalswill disagree with this assessment of the status
of the Biblical revelation. But Hawkins claim, when read charitably, does not require that
Christians and Muslims agree entirely about the status of the Bible, but only that each group
take it to be a sacred text centered around a divine revelation and treat it as such in its
practices. And, in fact, many Muslims do study the Bible carefully and respectfully in order to
come to a fuller understanding of their religion. In our view, then, this statement of Hawkins is
simply a true and straightforward description of a simple matter of fact.
This might seem to raise an important question about Hawkins invoking religious
solidarity with Muslims, however. Throughout this section, we have argued that Hawkins
claims that Christianity and Islam share common Scriptures and a common object of worship
are importantly minimal. They do not entail that there are not important disagreements

29

Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path, p. 17.

30

Ibid., p. 18.

20

between Christians and Muslims concerning their respective understandings of these

Scriptures and this God. Nor do they entail that neither conflicting answer can be simply more
accurate than the other. But, in that case, is this religious solidarity really so significant after
all? In her December 13 Facebook post, Hawkins suggest that she finds convincing Miroslav
Volfs argument that asserting our religious solidarity with Muslims and Jews will go a long
way toward quelling religious violence and enervating religionist fear of the religious other.
But given that the grounds for this solidarity leave it open that one of these religions might
understand and worship God more adequately than the others, it might seem that it leaves the
religions in competition with one another, leaving the seeds of religious violence as sown as
they ever were. And, of course, as Hawkins notes in her initial post, we are called to love each
of our neighbors, including our Muslim neighbors, not primarily as a member of the particular
communities to which we belong, but simply by virtue of her/his human dignity.
So, why do we need to assert our religious solidarity with Muslims, when this solidarity
must acknowledge also religious incompatibilities with them, and when an invocation of
human solidarity would seem to suffice to ground the desired practical method? Perhaps it is at
bottom Hawkins refusal to confine herself to invoking the latter sort of solidarity with
Muslims that has led Hawkins critics to view her comments with suspicion, rather than the
meanings of her statements themselves, considered on their face. And yet we think that this
stance of Hawkins is eminently defensible, and perhaps it is even politically urgent in the
circumstances we currently face.
Of course few Christians will deny the abstract claim that each of our neighbors is a
bearer of dignity in virtue of her share in our common human nature, and so in the image of
God. But many people currently believe that Muslims as such are captive to a religious
ideology that refuses to recognize the humanity of non-believers and treat them accordingly.
That is, many people currently think that Islam refuses all relations of human solidarity with
non-Muslims. But it is psychologically difficult in the extreme for one to continue to recognize
another person as a bearer of dignity and value in virtue of her common humanity when the
other person ceases to return this recognition. In those circumstances, one will find it very
difficult to treat the other person in the ways Christianity requiresand requires precisely
because the other person equally shares in humanity, and so, at least by nature, equally bears
the image of God. Now, in such circumstances, one task for faithful Christians is to recall and
strive to emulate the example of Jesus, who not only respected the human dignity of his
persecutors but, further, forgave and loved them. But it is also very important to consider
carefully whether the religious differences between most Christians and most Muslims are
actually so stark as to prevent interaction based on mutual recognition of a common human

21

nature. In such cases, emphasizing Christians and Muslims common, and/or even similar,
religious beliefs and practices is one potentially constructive way of enabling Christians to
engage their Muslim neighbors as fellow humans and bearers of dignityand, indeed, to see
them as fellow humans who in turn recognize our humanity and dignity. Therefore,
expressions of religious solidarity with Muslims are important because they remove the
obstacles to relating to Muslims in human solidarity. This latter task is vital in present
circumstances, and we are simultaneously encouraged and convicted of its urgency by Dr.
Hawkins concrete attempts to carry it out.
We have engaged the concerns Jones expressed in this first area at such length because
they appear to be the ones most central to the Colleges case against Hawkins. Jones further
questions for Hawkins are less detailed; indeed, he does not even always attempt to ground his
remaining concerns in the Statement of Faith. Therefore, our comments on these remaining
areas of concern can be much briefer.

Area of Concern 2
Hawkins expresses her desire to live at peace even with those who view her as apostate for
daring to call fellow humans who happen to be Muslim my brothers and sisters and to
respond to her critics in the spirit of the unity of what Christians term the body of Christ
(Dec. 13 Facebook post). (Jones quotes only these two sentence fragments.)
The Statement of Faith: WE BELIEVE 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 BELIEVE that all who receive the Lord Jesus Christ by faith are born again of the Holy
Spirit and thereby become children of God and are enabled to offer spiritual worship acceptable to God.
Jones: not only do the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed deny the reality of the divinity of
Jesus, but they also deny the reality of his bodily resurrection from the dead (Surah 4: 157). It is
on the basis of that resurrection power that we become children of God brothers and sisters
in Christ Jesus. . . . Please clarify the type of religious unity you are affirming with Muslim
persons, and how you understand your relationship with them as sisters and brothers (Dec. 15
memo, p. 2).

22

We Comment: We may as well begin by noting that the second fragment Jones quotes from
Hawkins is given without any context. Jones criticizes her for identifying the religious unity
Christians share with Muslims with Christians unity as believers. This suggests that she
discusses the spirit of the unity of what Christians term the body of Christ in connection with
the attitude Christians should take toward Muslims. This is simply false. In fact, she is
discussing the criticism her previous post received, almost exclusively from other Christians,
and her desire to reply to their criticism in the spirit of the unity of what Christians term the
body of Christ. This is laudable, for one thing, and in any case Jones comment and citation are
entirely irrelevant to it.
What, then, of Hawkins calling Muslims her brothers and sisters? Hawkins does not
explain precisely what she means by using this phrase, either in this post or when speaking of
our Muslim sisters in the December 10 post. Importantly, however, she does not cite any
religious considerations in the immediate context of either occurrence of this language. In the
December 13 post, she identifies her Muslim brothers and sisters neither as fellow believers
nor as likeminded worshipers, but simply as fellow humans who happen to be Muslim. So,
she is perfectly consistent with the apparent meaning of her prior statements when she
explains this language in her reply to Jones as licensed by the fact that all human beings
originate from the same parents and bear the unalterable imago Dei. Clearly, Christiansor,
at any rate, Evangelicals who affirm the literal existence of our first parentsshould allow that
Muslims, like Christians, trace their origin to our first parents and, as bearers of the human
nature, are bearers of the image of God. Nor, its other appropriate uses notwithstanding, does
the language of brothers and sisters seem inappropriate for expressing these commonalities
or ill-suited to do so. It is of course unfortunate that this led to confusion, but this confusion
does not derive from the original context of Hawkins remark, which, as we have noted, lends
itself far more to interpretation as a statement of the imago Dei, and a reflection of [Hawkins]
African-American cultural heritage (reply to Jones) than it does to interpretation as an
ecclesiological or soteriological contention.
We think it is reasonably clear, then, that critics who are confident that Hawkins
employed the language of brothers and sisters to connote the relation of fellow membership
in the body of Christ are not justified in their confidence. Even if this were her claim,
moreoverand we stress once more that we do not think it was; this is merely a concession for
the sake of argumentthis claim would not clearly violate the Statement of Faith, Jones
comments notwithstanding. It clearly would violate the spirit of the Statement of Faith if
Hawkins should claim that Muslims can attain membership in the family of God and the status
of the unity of believers without sharing by faith in the death and resurrection of Christ, or

23

without abid[ing] together in the Resurrected Christ, as Jones notes.31 But simply to affirm
that Muslims can be, or even often are, our brothers and sisters in Christ does not entail this,
but rather entails only that Muslims can, or perhaps often do, share by faith in the death and
resurrection of Christ in a way other than by conscious knowledge of Jesus and affirmation of
His lordship. As we saw earlier, a number of figures generally regarded as within the bounds
of Evangelical orthodoxy have embraced claims in this arena. Similarly, Calvin encourages
us to view all men who dwell on earth as brothers in Christ, since we cannot know that
they are not and since it is fitting for us to hope this. And, most importantly, the Statement of
Faith employs the concept of receiv[ing] the Lord Jesus Christ by faith without defining it or
importantly restricting it. So, it does not contradict the entailed claim in question.
So, even if there were reason to suppose that Hawkins meant this more striking claim by
her talk of Muslim brothers and sisters, her statement would not clearly conflict with the
Statement of Faith. But, as we have said, we take her claim actually to be the much less striking
one she herself identified, one grounded in a shared human nature. And this statement
obviously does not conflict with the Statement of Faith. What is more, as Hawkins herself
contends in her response to Jones, indeed the Statement of Faith seems to entail it.

Area of Concern 3
Hawkins notes that the Eucharist is the culmination of the Christian liturgy where Christians
through the centuries have united around a common table to practice hospitality by the eating
of bread and the drinking of wine, to seek forgiveness from those weve hurt or offended, and
to grant forgiveness to ourselves and others. It is a table of reconciliation--both spiritual
reconciliation and relational reconciliation (Dec. 13 Facebook post).
Jones does not cite the Statement of Faith in this area. Moreover, the Statement of Faith does
not explicitly reference the Eucharist at all.
Jones suggests that Hawkins discussion of the Eucharist seemingly fails to reflect any
acknowledgement of the unique and fundamental sacramental and memorial purposes of the
celebration of the offering of his own body and blood by our Lord Jesus Christ in Christian

31

Interestingly, it is not clear that it would violate the letter of the Statement of Faith. While the
Statement affirms that those who receive Christ by faith receive forgiveness, justification, and
welcome into the family of God, it actually does not state explicitly that this is the only way in which
one can receive forgiveness, etc. But clearly this is simply an oversightthough a significant one that
should be corrected.

24

worship. The Eucharistic table, in Christian understanding, only functions as a vehicle of

human communion and hospitality, and of relational reconciliation and forgiveness, because it
first and foremost celebrates and memorializes the unique sacrifice of Christs body and blood on
our behalf so that in eating his body and drinking his blood we are reconciled with God. What
is the significance of your emphasis of the horizontal to the exclusion of the vertical, as when
you speak of granting forgiveness to ourselves and to others when the focus of Christian
worship is on Gods merciful granting of forgiveness to us as a free gift based on the sacrifice of
his Son as an atonement for sin? (Dec. 15 memo, p. 2).
We Comment: Upon reading Jones comment, one is immediately struck by the fact that he
does not challenge anything that Hawkins actually says. It would seem to suffice to allay his
concerns, then, for Hawkins to state her agreement with the claims that he makes about the
vertical significance of the Eucharist. In her response to Jones, she does so: You and I are not
in disagreement in our understanding of the Lords Table. And since Jones does not identify
any inconsistency between the claims he makes and Hawkins statement, there is nothing to
impugn her claim to agree with them.
There are two interpretations available regarding Jones claim that Hawkins emphasizes
the horizontal dimension of the Eucharist to the exclusion of the vertical. It might mean
that the assertions Hawkins makes about the horizontal dimension contradict with a right
understanding of the vertical. But, reading her assertions, this claim seems false; at best, it
remains unargued. Instead, however, Jones claim might mean simply that, in her Dec. 13
Facebook post, Hawkins discusses the horizontal dimension of the Eucharist but not the
vertical. This is true. But there is a reason for this: Hawkins post is chiefly devoted to
discussing breaks in her relations with fellow Christians and to attempting to repair them. The
Eucharists role in reconciling Christians to one another, then, is directly relevant to the topic of
her post in a way that its role in celebrating and perhaps effecting our reconciliation to God is
not (though, of course, it is the necessary condition for the former mode of reconciliation and so
is strongly indirectly linked to this topic). It seems too demanding to require that Hawkins
interrupt a rather focused essay to add an irrelevant discussion of the foundations of the
Eucharist. Or, at any rate, surely this question of emphasis in a particular piece of writing
would warrant at most for a friendly conversation, not for disciplinary action.
This already seems like a sufficient defense of Hawkins in this area. But before moving
on, we wish to defend the strong emphasis she places on the horizontal dimension of the
Eucharist as importantly Biblical. From one point of view, Jones is clearly correct to hold that
the Eucharist is a vehicle of reconciliation and hospitality within the church only because it is

25

first and foremost a vehicle for Gods hospitality to us and our reconciliation to Him. For
only the transformation of us sinners effected by Gods grace to us, concretized in the
sufferings of Christ and, derivatively, in the Eucharist, enables us to rightly relate to one
another once more and so to be reconciled. But we are in grave error if, once we are members
of the body of Christ, we take this claim to license us in partaking of the Eucharist while we are
divided from, rather than reconciled to, one another. Indeed, perhaps the most prominent
interpretation of the Eucharist given in Scripture, Pauls discussion in 1 Corinthians 11:23-6, is
given, not in the immediate context of a broader discussion of our reconciliation to God
through Christ, but in that of a denouncement of the Corinthians for partaking of the Eucharist
in a manner that reinforces factions while ignoring and humiliating the poor. Those who do
this, Paul tells us, eat and drink judgment against themselves and will be answerable for the
body and blood of the Lord; they should refrain from taking the Eucharist until they have
repented of their behavior toward one another (11:27-9). So, while we must remember that our
reconciliation to others is only possible because God has already reconciled us to himself, as a
practical imperative, we must strive to effect our reconciliation to others as part and parcel of,
rather than as distantly secondary to, our reconciliation to God as it is concretized in the
Eucharist. Indeed, if anything, Scripture advises us to concern ourselves first with our
neighbors; our sacrifices to God can wait (Matthew 5:23-4). If we have forgiven the debts of
others, God will see to our debts; until we have done so, nothing we do, no flowery prayer we
can offer, can make a difference to our own (6:12-5). Not merely in Hawkins particular
circumstances, then, but in practical contexts generally, we are warranted in according the
horizontal dimension of the Eucharist no less significance than the vertical dimension. Indeed,
this warrant proceeds precisely from a sound Biblical understanding of the Eucharist.
So, we think that the priority Hawkins places on the horizontal dimension of the
Eucharist as she writes in a practical context is defensible both by appeal to Biblical and
theological principles as well as relative to the specific aims of her post. But, in any case,
sincewe reiteratethe Statement of Faith does not explicitly reference the Eucharist at all, it
is unclear how Hawkins views on the topic could possibly be inconsistent with it, and so could
provide the basis for any action with respect to her employment.

Area of Concern 4a
Hawkins: I trust that we can peacefully disagree on theological points and affirm others like
the Triune God (albeit there are differences here as well--Athanasian Creed, anyone?), the

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virgin birth (or Immaculate Conception depending on your persuasion) . . . (Jones quotes
only the bolded portion.)
Jones does not cite the Statement of Faith in this area. The only relevant thesis seems to be the
following: WE BELIEVE that Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,
was true God and true man, existing in one person and without sin.
Jones takes Hawkins statement to reflect a troubling confusion in basic theological categories,
this since the virgin birth applies to the birth of Jesus of the Virgin Mary, while the Immaculate
Conception is a Catholic doctrine applying to the conception of Mary (Dec. 15 memo, p. 2).
We Comment: As Hawkins notes, her statement was attempting an enumeration of doctrines
on which Christians have had long discussions and disagreements over the ages. Moreover, in
discussing the previous entry in her list, she emphasized that, while Christians all agree in
affirming the doctrine, they understand its details and outworking differently. It seems fair,
then, to view her parenthetical remark here as performing a similar function. The virgin birth is
a doctrine that is central to Christianity. But Christians can understand the details of its
purpose and function differently. And those who affirm the doctrine of the Immaculate
Conception do so in part because they think this doctrine initially plays, or at least is necessary
for, the function played by the doctrine of the virgin birth. (So, if the function of the virgin
birth is to explain how Jesus can be born as a human without taking on original sin, then the
question arises of how this is possible if He is born of a woman who has taken on original sin;
the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is one available response to this question.) It makes
sense, then, that, depending on ones persuasion, one might make primary appeal either to the
virgin birth or to the Immaculate Conception to explain how the function in question is played,
while agreeing in affirming the doctrine of the virgin birth.
We note that we do not affirm the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. And we
stress that Hawkins public statements provide no reason to believe that she affirms it. (Nor do
we have any other reason to believe that she affirms it.) But she is surely correct to identify it as
an example of an area of legitimate disagreement among orthodox Christians that falls under a
broader Christian doctrine that all orthodox Christians agree in affirming as true and deeply
important. Her statement, then, is sensible enough.
But even if Hawkins had simply made a terminological mistake here, it is not clear how
it could amount to a violation of the Statement of Faith. Accordingly, it seems out of place for
Jones to discuss it in his request that Hawkins clarify her statements to show their consistency

27

with the Statement of Faithparticularly when Hawkins had at least strongly implied her
affirmation of the virgin birth in her statement (singling it out as one doctrine that Christians
can, and seemingly should, all affirm despite their disagreement about other theological
points), and when the Statement of Faith makes no mention of the doctrine of the Immaculate
Conception.

Area of Concern 4b
Hawkins: I stand in human solidarity with my Muslim neighbor because we are formed of the
same primordial clay, descendents of the same cradle of humankind--a cave in Sterkfontein,
South Africa that I had the privilege to descend into to plumb the depth of our common
humanity in 2014.
Jones does not cite the Statement of Faith in this area. The only relevant thesis seems to be
the following: WE BELIEVE that God directly created Adam and Eve, the historical parents of the
entire human race; and that they were created in His own image, distinct from all other living
creatures, and in a state of original righteousness.
Jones: Please clarify your views on Human Origins in light of your comments in the third
paragraph of your initial Facebook posting (Dec. 15 memo, p. 2).
We Comment: In her response to Jones, Hawkins reaffirms that all human beings originate
from the same parents, created through an original creation. She notes, seemingly correctly,
that no specific reference is made in the statement as to the process of that historic, original
creation. The burden would seem to be on the College to show that Hawkins above statement
is inconsistent with this reaffirmation of the applicable portion of the Statement of Faith. Jones
does not attempt to show this in his memo.

Some Remarks on the Function of the Statement of Faith

The College has not publicly provided any further arguments that Hawkins statements
contradict the Statement of Faith, taken on its face. But a recent statement written by Jones, sent
to the faculty on January 20 and read before students at a Listening Session on January 21,
takes a different line against Hawkins, suggests that her statements conflict with the Statement
of Faith in some broader sense. Jones notes that the college has no explicit position on what

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can or cannot be said on the question of whether Christians and Muslims worship the same
God, and suggests that he himself thinks it logical to judge that there must be some
referential overlap or similarity in the divine being that each [monotheist] is referring to in each
of the monotheistic religions. It would seem to follow from this that at least this central
statement of Hawkins is consistent with the Statement of Faith and, indeed, is inherently
plausible.
But, Jones suggests, it is not enough for a faculty member simply to grant passive
acknowledgement to the Statement of Faith, or to refrain from contradicting it explicitly.
Instead, we must view the Statement of Faith as a living breathing instrument [that must be]
interpreted wisely and responsibly in the context of a community. In itself, it is not clear just
what it means to view the Statement of Faith in this way. The conclusion Jones appears to draw
is that, when a member of the Wheaton faculty views the Statement of Faith in this way, her life
will be marked however imperfectly, as in my case by [the] convictions to which it
gives expression. Moreover, Jones maintains, the more controversy or confusion a remark or
action generates about our core institutional identity, the greater our responsibility for clarity
as an expression of modeling the statement of faith. So, what the College objects to is not
Hawkins views themselves. It is perfectly acceptable for members of the Wheaton community
to conduct wide ranging discussions about the complexities of these matters in this
community, seemingly including asserting the view that Hawkins assertedas Jones himself
comes close to doing in this very statement.32 Instead, the Colleges grounds for initiating the
process to terminate her, Jones implies, are her failure to model the Statement of Faith clearly in
publicly expressing this view (as evidenced, seemingly, by the controversy that it provoked), as
well as her failure to remain adaptable and responsive in working out our core theological
commitments in these discussions in a manner that is sensitive to our various audiences.
We note first that this statement appears entirely to concede that Hawkins statement
that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, taken on its face, is not inconsistent with

32

It is not entirely clear what Jones means by saying that there must be some referential overlap or
similarity in the divine being that each [monotheist] is referring to in each of the monotheistic
religions. It is true that, for any given pair of terms or concepts, we may have more or less reason to
think that they refer to a common object. It is also plausible that our concept of reference is somewhat
vague, so that we cannot say definitively in a number of difficult cases whether the reasons suffice to
warrant either the claim that the terms do co-refer or the claim that they do not, but must instead
remain agnostic. According to standard views of reference, though, two terms or concepts cannot
exhibit some referential overlap; either they co-refer, or they do not. In our view, then, Jones claim
is most charitably read as the claim that it is only logical to think that there are some cogent reasons,
perhaps dispositive ones, for thinking that all the major monotheistic concepts of God co-referand
so for thinking that Hawkins statement that Christians and Muslims worship the same God is
correct.

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the Statement of Faith, taken on its face. For Jones notes that the College has no explicit position
on this question. Assuredly he would not concede this if her statement explicitly contradicted
the Statement of Faith. Nor would he be at such pains to maintain that one can contradict a
Statement of Faith in more subtle ways than merely by the explicit denial of some explicit
aspect of that statement. It seems, then, that, if Jones statement is appropriately attributed to
the College, his statement represents the Colleges concession that this statement of Hawkins
does not strictly contradict any provision of the Statement of Faith. This concession would be
welcome, since, as we have seen above, the claim conceded is supported by powerful
arguments.
The question, then, is whether the College is correct to claim that a community
members statement or action can conflict with a confessional statement in a way other than by
expressing the explicit denial of some explicit aspect of that statement. Now, there is one
obvious way in which this can occur: the community members statement might express the
explicit denial of some logical consequence of the Statement of Faith rather than an explicit aspect
of it. We have argued, however, that the Statement of Faith does not have any clear
consequences that contradict the claim that Christians and Muslims worship the same God (or
with any claim strictly entailed by it). And Jones statement does not make the case that it does.
So, it is safe to conclude that this is not what Jones had in mind.
Instead, he seems to hold that a community members statement or action might conflict
with the Statement of Faith even if it does not explicitly deny any explicit aspect or clear
consequence of the Statement. This will be true, Jones implies, if two conditions are met. First,
the statement or actions controversial or confusing character must render it unclear to the
audience to which it is addressed (or before which it is performed) that the community
member accepts and seeks to model the Statement of Faith, properly understood. And second,
the community member must fail to remain adaptable and responsive in working out her
relation to the Colleges core theological commitments in a manner that is sensitive to the
various audiences who might encounter her statements. If these two conditions are met, the
community members statement or action may conflict implicitly with the Statement of Faith,
understood as a living breathing instrument functioning in the context of a community. And
it could do so even if it is not contradicted or prohibited by any provision of the Statement of
Faith or any clear consequence of it.
The Colleges justification of its account of this subtler sort of conflict by reference to the
Statement of Faiths status as a living breathing instrument interpreted by a particular
community strikes us as suspect and even troubling. On this account, the communal context of

30

the Statement does not affect the way its content should be understood: Jones does not seem to
argue that this communal context helps give the Statement the meaning it has, and that
Hawkins statement conflicts with what the Statement actually says, so interpreted. Instead, he
seems willing to grant that Hawkins statement is consistent with the Statements content, but
that, in its communal context, the Statement has an additional force: it imposes additional
demands or requirements on community members, disallowing them from making even some
statements consistent with its content.
We think this appeal to additional force provided by the communal context entirely
illegitimate. To see why, consider whether appeals to this contextual force would be persuasive
if used in defense of a community members statements. Suppose a faculty member at Wheaton
College were to deny the doctrine of the virgin birth or the existence of Satan and evil spirits.
And suppose that he grants that these denials were in clear conflict with the explicit content of
the Statement of Faith. But now suppose he defends himself by arguing that, in our present age
of electric lights, radios, and modern medicine, it would be silly to require conformity to the
actual letter of the Statement, and that these contextual factors license him in considering only
its more permissive spirit. Finally, suppose he is supported even by more local contextual
factors, as his particular audience members and even a substantial percentage of members of
the College community agree with him. Should we judge this to suffice for his conformity to
the Statement of Faith? Surely not: we should reply that conformity to the spirit of the
Statement of Faith does not float free of conformity to its letter. That is, we should reply that
the force of the Statement of Faith is proportionate to its content, requiring his conformity to
just those principles that the Statement of Faith actually says. Now, if this principle is indeed the
reasonable conclusion to draw from this hypothetical case, it is unclear why the College would
be warranted in departing from it in Hawkins case. Why should we think that it may
rightfully demand her conformity to a free-floating spirit of the Statement that goes
significantly beyond what it actually says? It seems quite unprincipled to hold that the
Statements content and force, letter and spirit, must be strictly held together only when this
would increase the demands it makes on faculty members, and must not be when this would
relax its demands!
We do think that the communal context of a document can have an important bearing
on its force. But this is only because its communal situation can importantly bear on its content
(or on what it actually says), and its force (or the demands or requirements it imposes on those
who accept it) is a function of its content. For the content of a document is a product of many
factors about the communal context it occupies: it is written in a particular language, for
instance, and addressed to a particular audience with particular presuppositions and practical

31

aims. This is why hermeneutics and the imaginative projection of oneself into the situation of
the original audience it commends to us are so important. But there can also be a living,
breathing dimension to content or meaning, in the following very minimal sense: interpreting a
text against a backdrop of our own presuppositions and practical aims, some (though certainly
not all) of which may differ from those of the original audience, we may be equipped to
uncover implications of the text and aspects of its meaning to which we and others had
previously been blind. And these will naturally correlate with previously unobserved demands
we discover the text to make on us. But to say this is very different from saying that, without
discovering that the texts content actually carries an implication to which we were previously
blind, or speaks to a situation we previously had not envisioned, we might nevertheless find
that the text requires something new of us, even though this new-found requirement lacks any
clear foundation in what the text actually says. We find the idea that this situation could obtain
to be absurd. (Again, those who would reject appeal to it as the warrant for dispensing with the
letter of Biblical or confessional texts in favor of programs of modernization or liberalization of
their message should find appeal to it no more plausible in this case.)
What of Jones suggestion that the controversial nature of Hawkins claim, relative to
her particular audience, has some special bearing on her standing with respect to the Statement
of Faith? If this is to be interpreted as implying that a claim that is quite consistent with what
the Statement of Faith actually says could come to conflict with the Statement of Faith simply
because it provokes controversy, in which many people misunderstand it and so become
confused about the Colleges core institutional identity, then we think this suggestion should
be categorically rejected. So interpreted, it will rest either on the idea that the Statement of Faith
might impose requirements in particular contexts that lack a foundation in what it actually
says, against which we have just argued, or else on the idea that the meaning of a claim
changes according to the understanding of it an audience has, which seems perniciously
subjectivist.33
Further, so interpreted, this suggestion seems self-defeating. For it is highly plausible
that the Colleges own statement that Hawkins claim that Muslims and Christians worship
the same God . . . appear[s] to be in conflict with the Colleges Statement of Faith (Dec. 16
statement) itself has been the subject of significant controversy and misunderstanding and has
led to confusion about the Colleges core institutional identity. Yet, far from treating its
statement as thereby proven inconsistent with, or reflecting a flawed understanding of, the

33

We note that this idea that a statements meaning actually changes with its reception by an
audience goes significantly beyond our minimal claim above that a particular audience may be
equipped to uncover new dimensions of meaning that a statement objectively had all the while.

32

Statement of Faith, the College has continued to treat it as borne out by a proper understanding
of what the Statement of Faith actually says, its controversial nature notwithstanding. We think
this entirely proper. But consistency then demands that the same standard be used in assessing
Hawkins statement: namely, that it be assessed as the basis for action concerning her
employment only relative to what the Statement of Faith actually says.
It is possible to interpret Jones suggestion in a less rigorous way, as claiming merely
that statements and actions that may be understood without difficulty and correctly judged to
be consistent with the Statement of Faith in some conversational contextsespecially contexts
internal to the Wheaton communitymay nevertheless be misunderstood and thought
inconsistent with it in others. Accordingly, members of the community should be especially
careful when communicating in those contexts. And they should remain adaptable and
responsive should such misunderstanding arise, trying to communicate effectively in the
conversational context at hand. So understood, this suggestion seems reasonable. But it is not
obvious to us that Hawkins has not met itindeed, the opposite opinion seems more plausible.
True, her original claim was misinterpreted. But that particular claim was not the focus of her
initial post, and she likely did not think it would have as wide an audience as it did or become
such an intense locus of scrutiny. And it does not seem unreasonable of her to fail to foresee
this. In any case, she quickly followed up that post with another in which she provided a
defense of her claim by an Evangelical Christian with extensive theological training (Miroslav
Volf), which defense should have sufficed to show the consistency of her claim with the
doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation to the satisfaction of any reasonable observer, and so to
remove the most important elements of confusion that her claim might have caused with
respect to the Colleges core institutional identity. And she provided a further statement to
Jones in which she provided another defense of her claim, now in her own words. We have
already argued that this defense, too, should have sufficed to show the consistency of her claim
with Christian orthodoxy to the satisfaction of the College. If the College remained concerned
to demonstrate this consistency to the wider public, presumably it could have issued a more
detailed statement on the matter, perhaps incorporating portions of Hawkins reply to Jones to
show her agreement with its construal and qualified defense of her claim. The College seems to
have judged that public misunderstanding of the implications of Hawkins claim and its
bearing the Colleges core institutional identity would be dispelled more effectively if it
initiated termination proceedings against Hawkins, even though her claim was in fact
consistent with the Statement of Faith, and perhaps even though the College was aware of this
consistency. Its reasons for judging this path more effective remain thoroughly mysterious to
us.

33
True, dialogue between Hawkins and the College about the implications of her claim

seems to have ceased not long after she delivered her defense of her claim to Jones on
December 17. The College blames this on Hawkins: Regrettably, Dr. Hawkins has clearly
stated her unwillingness to further participate in clarifying conversations.34 And this might be
construed as her failure to remain adaptable and responsive in working out our core
theological commitments in discussion. It is difficult to assess whether this is an accurate
explanation of the end of Hawkins dialogue with the College. To reach an accurate assessment
on this point, for example, we would need to know what conditions (if any) the College
demanded Hawkins meet in order for such dialogue to continue, and to determine whether
this demand was reasonable. But perhaps only the Colleges administrators and Hawkins
herself presently know the answer to that question.
This ignorance does not prevent us from assessing whether this alleged failure of
Hawkins, if true, would constitute an adequate basis for her termination, however. We do not
think that it would. As we noted above, we think Jones suggestion that faculty members
should communicate carefully in public contexts and should remain adaptable and responsive
in addressing public misunderstandings is a reasonable one. But we do not think this warrants
the College in terminating the employment of any faculty member who makes a public remark
with insufficient care (particularly when the remark is in fact consistent with the Statement of
Faith) or of any faculty member who at some point declines, absent further evidence against
her, to submit to further critical examination of her beliefs or to devote further effort to
demonstrating publicly their consistency with the Statement of Faith (particularly when the
faculty member has already made sound defenses of the consistency of her remark with the
Statement of Faith both publicly and before the administration). This nigh-unbounded right to
terminate faculty membersin effect, the right to terminate them whenever they make an
orthodox remark that enough audience members misunderstand, or whenever they decline to
submit to a critical examination of their beliefs by the administration that is based on no
evidence and imposes a vague and seemingly limitless burden upon them to prove their
orthodoxycertainly is not entailed by the Colleges right to terminate faculty members who
contravene the Statement of Faith.
Now, if and as long as it is controversial whether the statement at issue conflicts with
the Colleges Statement of Faith, it does seem reasonable to construe dialogue with the
administration concerning the implications of the statement as a condition of employment. But
once it seems implausible to claim that the statement at issue conflicts with the Statement of

34

See the Colleges Dec. 22 Statement Regarding Dr. Larycia Hawkins Review and Resolution
Process.

34

Faith, once the faculty member in question has made a cogent defense of it to the College
administration, once she has circulated a cogent defense of it before the general public, and
once several further cogent defenses of it have meanwhile been publicly circulated,35 it seems
to us that adaptiveness and receptiveness regarding her statement, or further dialogue with the
administration about its implications, can no longer constitute conditions for her employment.
At any rate, their imposition cannot be justified by the more basic condition of employment of
affirming the Statement of Faith. At some point, surely, the burden of proof reverts to the
College administration. At some point, surely, the College must supply further reasons for
thinking a faculty members statements inconsistent with what the Statement of Faith actually
says if it is to impose its demand for further dialogue and public clarification. At some point,
surely, it must justify its claim that a faculty members efforts toward dialogue about and public
clarification of her statements do not suffice to show its consistency with the Statement of Faith,
rather than merely asserting this claim. Based on the evidence currently available to the public,
it seems clear to us that the College has now reached this point regarding Hawkins.
In our view, then, Jones is quite mistaken to think a faculty members statement or
action might conflict with the Statement of Faith, and so constitute grounds for termination of
her employment, even though it does not explicitly deny any explicit aspect or clear
consequence of the Statement. Indeed, Jones did not suggest that this might obtain in his initial
memo to Hawkins, when he requested she clarify her remarks with reference to the Statement
of Faith. If it was an essential premise of the Colleges initial objection to Hawkins remarks,
one would think that Jones should have mentioned this, as it might very well have impacted
the approach Hawkins took to defending herself. It is unclear why the College has fallen back
on this view of the function of the Statement of Faith, and of the conditions for contradicting it,
at this late point. Given our genuine affection for and gratitude toward the College, we
certainly hope that it has a more principled reason for appealing to this view than its
recognition that the considerations raised by Jones memo did not succeed in showing that
Hawkins statements contradict the Statement of Faith, together with its determination from
the outset to terminate her, regardless of the cogency of the reasoning it must employ to effect
this outcome.
The College could go some distance toward demonstrating that this was not its motive
if it made a public statement precisely delineating and carefully defending its position on the

35

In our view, cogent defenses of the consistency of Hawkins claim with Christian orthodoxy (and
even with Evangelicalism) have now been publicly circulated by at least three prominent Christian
thinkers: Bruce McCormack, John Stackhouse, and Michael Rea.

35

Statement of Faith, as well as elucidatingin consonance with the Faculty Handbookjust

what sorts of departures from the Statement constitute grounds for the termination of a
tenured faculty member. Ideally, this statement would include a demonstration that the
College has consistently operated on the basis of this view of the Statement of Faith in past
dealings with faculty members, to show that it is not applying it selectively and so favoring
some faculty members over others. (Of course, if it cannot provide such a statement in its
defense, the College could equally demonstrate its good faith by releasing a statement that
recognizes the theological and procedural inadequacies of its actions against Dr. Hawkins,
apologizes to her, and invites her back to her position as a tenured member of the faculty in
good standing.)
At any rate, if it is unclear why the College is only now articulating this view of the
Statement of Faith, it is clear that the view is wholly unwarranted. It does not provide a
sufficient basis for the Colleges action against Hawkins.

Conclusion
We conclude that the concerns raised by Wheaton College in Provost Jones memo to Dr.
Hawkins do not provide an adequate basis for termination of her employment. For nearly all of
them, on at least some reasonable interpretation, are plausibly taken to be true. And all of
them, on any reasonable interpretation, are consistent with the Colleges Statement of Faith.
We close with two exhortations, one to defenders of Hawkins and the other to Wheaton
College.
First, we hope that this defense of Hawkins statements has encouraged those whose
hearts and imaginations were captured by her initial efforts to show the love of Christ to her
Muslim neighbors. Given the close connection between sound Christian theology and sound
Christian practice, it seemed to us that a full defense of Hawkins should not attempt to sharply
separate her practice from her theology. Rather, recognizing the roots of the former in the
latter, it should demonstrate that the latter is above reproach. If our argument has been sound,
it may provide supporters of Hawkins practical efforts who shared our understanding of the
relation between theory and practice with some reassurance that these efforts canand, in
Hawkins case, arerooted in a sound theological understanding of the points at issue.

36
In that case, we hope that our critical reflection on Christian practice can motivate us

Christians, and especially defenders of Hawkins, to carry out the practices of honoring, aiding,
defending, and most of all loving our Muslim neighbors she exemplifies with renewed energy
and conviction. As practice requires us to engage in theological reflection to guide it rightly, so
theological reflection requires us to engage still more deeply in practice; we know God and His
truth about us when we do this truth, as the Apostle John never tired of reminding his audience
(1 John 1:6-7, 2:3-4). We hope this will be the legacy of the Wheaton College community in this
case: that, although at first theological inquiry, while valuable in itself, inadvertently
threatened to hinder and distract from Christian practice, ultimately it instilled community
members with a renewed sense of obligation, with regard to their neighbors in general and to
their Muslim neighbors in particular, to be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in
love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God
(Ephesians 5:1-2).
Second, we invite Wheaton College to consider carefully our argument for the
consistency of Hawkins assertions with its Statement of Faith. If, on reflection, it judges this
argument to be sound, and if the Colleges chief grounds for proceeding against Hawkins are
the ones presented in Jones memo, or if its grounds essentially depend on the understanding
of the function of the Statement of Faith espoused by Jones in his recent statement, then we
urge the College to cease pursuing its case against Hawkins and to reconcile to her, welcoming
her back as a member of the College community in good standing. But if the Colleges chief
grounds for proceeding against Hawkins are other than those we have considered, then we urge
the College to state its reasons publicly. In our view, theology, more than any other discipline,
must be practiced communally if it is to be sound. For one thing, each of us is a unique
individual, with her own set of features, aptitudes, and passions, who nevertheless bears the
common status of bearer of the image of God. For this reason, each of us testifies in a unique
way to the character of God and of His work in creation, which is the subject matter of
theology. For another thing, as we have noted, coming to know and deeply understand
theological truths requires that we practice them, and so that we live them out in communal
life in the common world. But this is most of all true because, of all the disciplines, theology
concerns the subject matter that is most definitive of the nature and telos of the human person,
and so is the domain of inquiry in which the human heartperverse, mysterious, and devious
above all else (Jeremiah 17:9)has the most to lose, as well as the most opportunity to lead us
astray. Our fellow believers, then, are essential guardrails for our thinking about God, not only
because they can show us and tell us of aspects of the divine character that we had not
adequately appreciated, and not only because they are our partners in the practical activity on
the basis of which we come to know the truth, but also, and especially, because they are well-

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positioned to warn us when, through ignorance or self-deception, we run the risk of going
astray in our theologizing.
For this reason, we have attempted to state clearly and precisely our reasons for taking
Dr. Hawkins statements to be quite consistent with the Wheaton College Statement of Faith.
And we encourage readers of this document to circulate it among interested parties and to
correct us if we have erred. Likewise, we encourage the College to state clearly and precisely its
reasons for taking Hawkins to be in violation of the Statement of Faith, to circulate this
statement publicly, and to consider prayerfully any criticisms of its reasoning that are
subsequently offered. Only then can the cogency of its rationale for its proceedings against
Hawkins be adequately demonstrated; until then, we should remain skeptical that it is in the
right with respect to its dispute with her.
Based on the available evidence, we feel confident in our defense of Hawkins and in our
claim that the college ought to reinstate her. Whatever happens, however, we pray that God
will work these circumstances together for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28),
including all the members of the Wheaton College community, and that the body of Christ will
be built up until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of
God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ (Ephesians 4:12-3).36

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Thanks to Stephen Scheidell for helpful discussion of these matters.