EliteWheaton College still a school of a different sort

For people like me who work at pluralist public universities, the recent decision by Wheaton College to begin termination proceedings against a tenured professor might seem outlandish. It should serve as a reminder that Wheaton, for all its elite academic reputation, is still a different sort of school.

It can be easy to forget. Especially for academic historians such as myself, Wheaton’s solid record of field-leading alumni— folks such as Mark Noll and Nathan Hatch— may encourage us to considerWheaton merely another elite academic institution. And for those of us who study the history of evangelical Protestantism in America, the Billy Graham Center on campus is among the best research facilities in the world. The work of archivists such as Bob Shuster have turned quaint Wheaton, Illinois, into the first destination of historians of American evangelicalism for years now.

YetWheaton is different from other elite four-year colleges. At Wheaton— and others like it— faculty are united by an explicit statement of faith. They are also united by their experience of constant and sometimes hostile scrutiny by conservative alumni, administrators, parents and nosy evangelicals everywhere. As happened in the recent suspension and possible termination of tenured Associate Professor Larycia Hawkins, Wheaton’s facultymust meet a very high bar of “clarity” in their public beliefs.

As Christianity Today reported, Professor Hawkins was suspended with pay after announcing her decision to wear a traditional Islamic headcovering— the hijab— for the next few weeks. The school insisted it did not suspend her for the headcovering but for her statement on Facebook thatMuslims and Christians “worship the same God.”

Though Wheaton has been called the “Fundamentalist Harvard,” it has come a long way fromits fundamentalist roots. These days, students and faculty have a great deal of freedom in how they believe, dress, behave, and love. As the suspension of Professor Hawkins shows, however, Wheaton’s traditions of suspicion and scrutiny of faculty remain deeply etched into the very bones of the institution.

Wheaton’s unique religious perspective had its roots in 1920s controversies between factions of evangelical Protestants. At the time, President Charles Blanchard moved the school unapologetically into the “fundamentalist” camp.

Blanchard’s first concern was to make sureWheaton’s faculty did not shake the faith of students. Too many schools, Blanchard believed, had shifted to liberal ideas about Christ and Christianity. Trusted evangelical schools such as Yale and Harvard, for example, no longer insisted on faculty loyalty to fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith.

Blanchard’s plan was simple. In 1923, he subjected all Wheaton faculty and potential faculty to a rigorous examination. Teachers were asked if they believed in the basic tenets of Christianity, and if they believed the Genesis account of creation. They were also quizzed about personal habits. Did they smoke? Dance? Play cards? Go tomovies, or even “associate with worldly people in other amusements?” Every facultymember was asked to sign an eight-point statement of faith that included such fundamentals as a belief in an inerrant Bible, in a creation as told in Genesis, in a truly divine Christ, and in the authenticity ofmiracles. Those who did not sign were shown the door.

It is not enough for Professor Hawkins merely to be right. It is not even enough that her ideas conform to those held historically by church leaders and evangelical intellectuals. In order to satisfy the many interested parties in the extended Wheaton family, she would have needed to be obviously right to all observers; she would have needed to be sure that her religious beliefs sparkled with “theological clarity.”