That associate political science professor Larycia Hawkins posted photos of herself wearing a hijab — a Muslim headscarf — may not seem terribly out of the ordinary.
Larycia Hawkins (Image source: Facebook)
Larycia Hawkins (Image source: Facebook)
That she announced she’s doing so during Advent might not be that big of a deal, either.
But what may be eye-opening is that Hawkins is a faculty member at Wheaton College, an iconic suburban Chicago school that’s arguably the best-known Christian college in the world.
Hawkins made her announcement on herFacebook page Thursday, saying her outward gesture — she’ll don the hijab everywhere she goes during Advent — is a demonstration of “human solidarity with my Muslim neighbor.”
“I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book,” she wrote. “And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God.”
But since “theoretical solidarity is not solidarity at all,” Hawkins shared that she felt compelled to make hers an “embodied solidarity.”
“As part of my Advent Worship, I will wear the hijab to work at Wheaton College, to play in Chi-town, in the airport and on the airplane to my home state that initiated one of the first anti-Sharia laws (read: unconstitutional and Islamophobic), and at church,” Hawkins said, adding that she hopes others will join her cause.
Hawkins said she also sought the “advice and blessing” of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to make sure her gesture wouldn’t be “haram (forbidden), patronizing, or otherwise offensive to Muslims.” Well, it was all good with CAIR, she said.
“So please do not fear joining this embodied narrative of actual as opposed to theoretical unity,” Hawkins added, “human solidarity as opposed to mere nationalistic, sentimentality.”