Islamophobia
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Britain’s Parliament held a boisterous debate Jan. 18 on a proposal to ban Donald Trump from the country in a rebuke of his call to block Muslims from entering the United States. The topic drew plenty of support from the British lawmakers, who don’t actually have the power ban anyone. The debate did allow members of Parliament to vent their frustrations about Trump’s comments.
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Opponents of lessons on Islam often claim that Christianity takes a back seat in public schools’ religious instruction. That’s what an Augusta County, Va., mother argued recently when she opposed a teacher’s use of the Muslim statement of belief in a calligraphy exercise. She held a forum at a local church to protest how her religion wasn’t allowed in schools, but Islam was.
U.S. President Barack Obama waves at the conclusion of his final State of the Union address in Washington Jan. 12. REUTERS/Evan Vucci/Pool.
In his last State of the Union address, President Obama made an impassioned case against religious bigotry and cast other key issues in moral terms.
He rejected “any politics that targets people because of race or religion.”
“This is not a matter of political correctness,” he said. “This is a matter of understanding just what it is that makes us strong. The world respects us not just for our arsenal; it respects us for our diversity and our openness and the way we respect every faith.”
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Rummana Hussain was one of those children whose Muslim parents envisioned her in a white coat with a stethoscope around her neck. Instead, she became a metro editor and reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times, where she covers criminal courts and remains the only Muslim member of the editorial staff. She knows “a couple” more Muslims at the Chicago Tribune, the state’s largest paper.
On Jan. 11, the first day of spring semester classes at Wheaton College, some students are protesting the termination of the professor who said that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. Student concerns are ongoing surrounding the circumstances of Professor Hawkins' review and termination process. Some have taken to Twitter in protest using the hashtag #ReinstateDocHawk:
Protests outside Wheaton's student union in 1990 after Wheaton administration took punitive action against Vanderveen and other students involved in publishing an underground newspaper called The Ice Cream Socialist. Photo courtesy by Carlos Vergara
What do we lose when we trade our humanity for social stereotypes rationalized by religious dogma?
That question is at the heart of an ongoing discussion my son, a junior at Kenyon College, and I are having around the recent suspension of a tenured Wheaton College professor, Larycia Hawkins, for wearing a hijab during Advent and stating publicly (via her personal Facebook page) that Muslims and Christians worship the same god.
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Wheaton College professor Larycia Hawkins says she is “flummoxed and flabbergasted” by the evangelical flagship’s decision to begin dismissal proceedings against her for expressing the belief that Muslims and Christians worship the same God.
Speaking at a press conference in the sanctuary of Chicago’s First United Methodist Church on Jan. 6, Hawkins reiterated that she has not wavered from the college’s statement of faith.
“Wheaton College cannot scare me into walking away from the truth (that) all humans — Muslims, the vulnerable, the oppressed of any ilk — are all my sisters and brothers, and I am called by Jesus to walk with them,” she said.
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The Jungle is an informal camp for refugees in Calais, France. It currently houses nearly 7,000 people who live under tarpaulins and in tents. They are fleeing war-torn areas, economic collapse, and climate change in countries like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Sudan, and Ethiopia. There is no drainage in the camp, so when it rains it is a mudbath, there are a few toilets and standpipes.
The journey to The Jungle camp has been dangerous and exhausting for most of them, and new arrivals have often worn out their shoes walking across Europe, some have lost so much weight they need a new size of clothing when they arrive. People arrive traumatized and afraid.
Image via Larycia Hawkins / Facebook
Wheaton College suspended Larycia Hawkins, professor of political science, on Dec. 15 after she said Christians and Muslims "worship the same God." Hawkins' primary purpose was to announce that she would wear hijab during Advent to show her solidarity with Muslims in the United States facing persecution.
Now, according to a statement released Jan. 5, Wheaton Provost Stanton Jones delivered to President Philip Ryken a "Notice of Recommendation to Initiate Termination-for-Cause Proceedings regarding Dr. Hawkins."
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Recently some American politicians have made shocking comments regarding Muslims — shocking because they have been cheered on and gained political mileage; shocking because the politicians pretend they are honoring the U.S. Constitution; and shocking because the politicians are willing to overlook the Constitution’s guarantee of equal rights for all in order to dehumanize Muslims.
American Muslims feel sad, depressed, and frightened about this trend. Fascism takes a long path, but it starts this way. At the same time, we are optimistic that these days that are upon us will pass and that Islamophobic politicians and their backers will fade in due course.
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Since the Dec. 2 attacks in San Bernardino, Calif., the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee has received more than a dozen phone calls from Muslim Americans locally reporting a variety of workplace discrimination and harassment complaints. Of those calls, one has triggered a lawsuit, and two similar workplace suits are in the works, said Fatina Abdrabboh, executive director of the Michigan office, who hopes the litigation sends a message to employers.
“We’re watching. This stuff can’t go unchecked … and if you think of putting someone in the back room or letting them go because of the headscarf, you can’t do it,” said Abdrabboh, who urges the public and employers not to “feed into this rhetoric against us.”
Via Twitter.
U.S. service members are using the hashtag #IWillProtectYou to show support for a young Muslim girl who believed her family would be forced to flee following Donald Trump’s call to ban Muslims from the country.
A women's fellowship in Rikkos, Jos, Nigeria. Image via Mike Blyth/Flickr
Maybe, as my alma mater Wheaton College would contend, it really is about doctrinal precision. Maybe for the sake of intellectual and spiritual integrity, there is a need to parry the ontological and epistemological arguments and counter-arguments, to determine the appropriate professional future of Dr. Larycia Hawkins, who dared to say on her Facebook page on Dec. 10 that Christians and Muslims “worship the same God.” But these issues look and feel differently in a place like Jos, Nigeria — where I was born to American missionary parents, six thousand miles from Wheaton’s campus chapel.
Image via Ahmadiyya Muslim Community / MuslimsForPeace.org / RNS
It was a Sunday that started off like most — a mad rush to get breakfast on the table, get the kids dressed, and head to our mosque. Dec. 13 was supposed to be a special day to honor the San Bernardino massacre victims at Baitul Hameed Mosque in Chino, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community’s Los Angeles center since 1987.
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Why and how did Greg’s post resonate with so many people on the meme’s second time around the Internet? Why did it take so much darkness before something profoundly positive happened? I think I come back to two powerful resources available to us as a church, if we have the courage to embrace it.
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I often find that the general public really has no idea that teachers are allowed to teach about the world’s religions in public schools. There’s a clear disconnect between what educators are doing and what the public thinks they can do. Then you add to this that people really don’t know that much about religions in general. The idea that a kid’s going to get converted by trying to write calligraphy, even if it’s a statement of faith — I mean, that seems like, really?
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Dr. Larycia Hawkins, the Wheaton College professor suspended this week for public comments suggesting Muslims and Christians worship the "same god," released a statement Dec. 17 elaborating her position and her remarks to the press on Dec 16. The full text of her statement is below. The college also released a statement explaining its actions on Dec. 16, and can be read here.
As the lead editor behind the dubious byline “the Web Editors,” it is within my job description to read all the Internet. And this is how the Weekly Wrap was born. This week, I decided to show all my biased cards and give you, fair reader, a glimpse behind how I decide what’s worth your spare few minutes on Fridays. As a religion writer and journalist, I give special attention to mainstream outlets that actually get faith right; I get sucked in by clickbait on the regular; I have a few favorite go-to publications (can you spot ‘em?); I link to a piece or two from our own publication that I think are excellent and perhaps underappreciated; I usually find at least one thing from my home state of Texas; and I cry ugly tears at most things having to do with babies. There are all my secrets. And here is the Weekly Wrap. —Sandi
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Vice President Joe Biden stood with clerics from different religions at Georgetown University on Dec. 16 and condemned the anti-Muslim rhetoric that has followed the recent shootings in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif.
“Look around. This is America,” Biden said, as he spoke on a stage with clergy wearing garb that varied from a priestly collar to a turban, and acknowledged the discomfort felt by many.
The vice president referred to the civil war in Syria and the millions of struggling refugees that some have said should be turned away.