Source: RNS
(RNS) Wheaton College professor Larycia Hawkins, who faced termination from her tenured post at the evangelical school for publicly saying Christians and Muslims worship the “same God,” has announced in a joint statement with the college that she will leave.
The statement on Wheaton’s web site referred to a “confidential agreement under which they will part ways.”
Wheaton President Philip Graham Ryken is quoted offering the history professor appreciation for her nine years at the college outside Chicago. “We are grateful for her passionate teaching, scholarship, community service and mentorship of our students.”
Hawkins is quoted praising the college, often called the Evangelical Harvard, saying that it represents Christian liberal arts in “its mission, programs, and in the caliber of its employees and students.”
Ryken emailed students, faculty and staff Saturday to announce that the “complex and painful” controversy has now “come to a place of resolution and reconciliation. With a mutual desire for God’s blessing, we have decided to part ways.”
Ryken called this “a time for prayer, lament, repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation,” and announced a reconcilliation service” in the college chapel for Tuesday, (Feb. 9) where he and Hawkins will both speak.
Ryken also announced there will be a review by the Board of Trustees on the issues raised over the last two months including “academic freedom, due process, the leaking of confidential information, possible violations of faculty governance, and gender and racial discrimination.”
Hawkins was suspended in December when the administration deemed her personal Facebook post in December — in which she spoke about solidarity with Muslims during the Christian Advent season — was a violation of the schools’s requisite statement of faith.
This provoked and uproar with students demonstrating in support of Hawkins and Rev. Franklin Graham publicly supporting Wheaton. “I can tell you – Islam and Christianity clearly do not worship the same God,” Graham said, in support of moves to fire Hawkins.
Categories: America, Christianity, Islam, The Muslim Times, USA