What Is the Theological Basis for Wheaton College's Decision to Fire Larycia Hawkins?

This Washington Post article attempts to clarify the theological issues surrounding Wheaton College's decision to fire Larycia Hawkins, but I remain confused after reading it. 

According to the article, Wheaton College decided to fire Professor Hawkins on account of her statement that Muslims and Christians worship the same God, and on account of the fact that Muslims and Christians have different views of the nature of God. Specifically, Christians believe in the doctrine of the trinity, while Muslims do not.

The problems with this explanation are twofold. The first is that not all Christians are Trinitarians, but non-Trinitarian Christians (such as Unitarians and Jehovah's Witnesses) are usually regarded as worshiping the same God as Trinitarian Christians. The second is that, more generally, it seems that Muslims and Christians (or members of any religion) could worship the same God (i.e., the same divine being) even if they have different theories about his nature (i.e., different accounts of the essence of that being). It is logically possible for different people to have an attitude towards or relationship with the numerically same being even if they have different beliefs about the being's ultimate nature. By analogy, a brother and a sister could both love their father if they had different beliefs about their father's character, or even about his underlying nature as a substance.

In fact, Muslims claim to worship the same God as Jews and Christians (the God of Abraham), they accept all of the same patriarchs and prophets as Jews and Christians (excepting only Muhammad), and they even accept that Jesus is the Messiah--so it is difficult to make sense of the claim that Muslims do not worship the same God as Christians. There are many disagreements between Muslims and Christians, but they do not appear to be in disagreement about which God they worship. (The matter is otherwise, for example, with Hindu monotheists, who do not universally identify the one God they worship with the God of the Hebrew Bible.)

Having said that, it is well within the rights of Wheaton College to fire a faculty member for not adhering to their theological requirements, but it seems they should do a better job articulating what those requirements are and how Professor Hawkins has violated them. 

What is made clear by the Washington Post article is that there have been several previous incidents in which Hawkins has offended the scruples of Wheaton College administrators, but the previous issues have more to do with politics and morals than with theology per se. Wheaton College should have the legal right to fire faculty who do not maintain their preferred political or moral beliefs, but it seems disingenuous to fire someone over an alleged theological dispute if the real problem lies elsewhere.

Update: Edward Feser already tackled this issue in much greater depth at his blog, and again in a recent post.

Recent Study on Religion and Altruism

Here is a short critique of the recent religion and altruism study which has raised such a ruckus on social media. I do not agree with all of the points of the critique. The first point seems the strongest--the study did not control for enough possible confounds.

The second and third points of the critique seem weaker. The second is that the dictator game used in the study is not an effective measure of altruism. It's true that altruism is a difficult thing to measure, but the dictator game is widely used in research as a measure for altruism, and it's not obviously terrible (yeah, that's pretty faint praise--but this is social psychology, and everyone can agree that social psychology is tricky and messy and that we shouldn't expect transcendent perfection immediately in its methods and results, RIGHT?). For example, it has been used to show differences in sharing with strangers among people who live in different countries.

The third critique is that the effect size is small. But this is actually very typical for social science research. There typically are a lot of factors that go into causing complex psychological phenomena like altruistic behavior. It would be more of a surprise if the effect size of having atheist parents were large.

Still, even though this critique is not that strong, and even though I am an atheist and would no doubt enjoy seeing the study's findings confirmed, I am still skeptical about the way the study is being reported.

I am also disappointed about the way the study is being lionized by its defenders and demonized by its critics. It would be better if both sides could just acknowledge the limitations of the study but also acknowledge that it does provide some interesting or useful information that could help guide future research.

But no, people aren't like that. We primates have to band together with our in-group and verbally assault the out-group. The atheists instantly celebrate the study, the religionists instantly look for flaws or limitations in the study. Motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, the works. I.e., the usual disappointment.

Not from a Pulp Magazine: Indian Temple Gold Edition

1. An ancient temple in India has treasure vaults filled with gold and gems, and is popularly believed to be protected by snakes and a god's curse.

2. The government in India is encouraging temples to deposit their gold in banks, so that it can be lent out at interest and help the economy by expanding credit.

3. Unfortunately, the rumored snake guardians and divine protection were not enough to prevent the theft of 266 kg of gold from Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Kerala.

Addendum: Video with pictures of some of the treasures housed in the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple.

Easter Legends

Portrait of Bede from the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493

An article on NPR's website which is dedicated to informing you about "What You Didn't Know about What You Already Know about Easter" contains a major error of its own. The article incorrectly attributes a story about the origins of Easter to the 8th century English monk Bede. In the story, a girl prays to the goddess Eostre for the sake of a wounded bird; the goddess Eostre descends to the girl upon a rainbow, and turns the wounded bird into a hare (thereby healing it, evidently), which thereafter lays colorful eggs once a year.

This is an urban legend; Bede never told this story. The NPR story quotes the story, claims the story is from Bede's The Reckoning of Time , and cites a website written by the University of Florida's Center for Children's Literature. The Center for Children's Literature website does contain the story, but does not attribute it to Bede--nor to any other source.

Bede does state that the English name for the holiday Easter comes from the name of the month sacred to the goddess Eostre, but mentions neither hares, nor colorful eggs, nor girls praying to save wounded birds. As far as I can tell, the story is a modern invention, but I have not yet discovered its origin.

Johannes Gehrts, Ostara, 1884

The Witches of Chiloe

This article tells the tale of a secret society of witches and warlocks which apparently operated in the late 19th-century in the island of Chiloe, Chile. Most of the evidence discussed by the article is suspect testimony from a trial in which many of the members of the society were charged with a variety of crimes (including murder).

Author Mike Dash argues that the secret society of witches was quite real (despite the superstitious exaggerations surrounding their activities), and that they appear to have combined the religious and magical practices of the island's indigenous shamans (the Mapuche Machis) with covert political activity aimed at resisting the authority of the central government in Santiago and establishing an alternative local shadow-government in Chiloe. According to the testimony of some of the witnesses in the trial, the secret society appears to have taken a turn to the dark side of shamanism (sorcery or witchcraft) as a result of internal political disputes.

Here are some pictures of the beautiful Isla Grande de Chiloe.

Addendum (3/1/15): And here are some pictures of the "calendar" designs used by Machis (shamans) on their drums.

Research on Secular Family Values

Phil Zuckerman has written an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times which summarizes recent research on the moral values of secular families. The article presents evidence that children from secular families are actually better off in terms of their moral development than children from religious families. Here is an excerpt:

The results of such secular child-rearing are encouraging. Studies have found that secular teenagers are far less likely to care what the “cool kids” think, or express a need to fit in with them, than their religious peers. When these teens mature into “godless” adults, they exhibit less racism than their religious counterparts, according to a 2010 Duke University study. Many psychological studies show that secular grownups tend to be less vengeful, less nationalistic, less militaristic, less authoritarian and more tolerant, on average, than religious adults.

Sacrificing Pigs in Honor of Chairman Mao

A recent celebration of Mao Zedong in China included pig sacrifice and other behaviors usually associated with the worship of gods in traditional Chinese religion.

On the one hand, slaughtering a pig for a celebration would not be specifically religious if it were simply being consumed during a feast given in honor of Chairman Mao.

However, as this picture shows, the pig's blood was evidently left as an offering in front of a statue of Mao. This does seem to closely reflect traditional Chinese rituals honoring gods and spirits.

Oddly, a Buddhist monk helped arrange flowers left in Mao's honor. (Is this a new instance of Chinese syncretic religion, but in this case with Buddhism combined with Communism rather than Daoism or other indigenous Chinese religious practices?)

In any event, a fascinating read. Tip of the hat to Slate Star Codex.