Thoughts on a Recent Accusation of Institutional Failure Against Wheaton College
The recent controversy over Wheaton College’s character is a disappointing one. For in the first case, Tim Scheiderer erred in his article accusing the college of wokeness. His article was not, alas, well written or well attested. It had no citations, and such hyperlinks as were included were only to other Fox News articles, most of which had no relevance to his claims. For example, his claim that Wheaton has substituted the term ‘sacrificial co-laboring’ for ‘service’ was buttressed by an article about Grand Canyon University being fined by the federal government. If one is going to accuse an entire institution of such a “blatant offense against Christianity,” he ought to at least give some actual evidence. To fail to do so invites an accusation of mere personal animosity and slander, which is a grievous thing indeed.
Then too, his article ought not to have been published at Fox News. Granting that any published statement might fall into the view of anyone, it matters where such things are published. Fox News may pay some lip service to our faith for its own business interests, but it is certainly not a Christian outlet, and that means it is not the proper place for an article such as Scheiderer’s (1 Cor. 6:4). To publish there meant exposing professing believers to the criticism of unbelievers (no doubt a large portion of Fox’s readership), as well as aiding an outlet that has probably done more harm to our faith than many of our avowed enemies: for Fox has conditioned people to be weighed down with the things of this life (Mk. 4:19), and in this many believers have been ensnared and made bitter and fruitless. In addition, it may be asked whether it is advisable to discuss such matters with contemporary, colloquial political terms like woke rather than in the language of scripture and of specifically Christian ethics.
But just because Scheiderer’s article went forth in an undesirable form and at an undesirable site does not mean that Wheaton is guiltless. It takes but little observation to see that it has a real problem with worldliness. One need look no further than President Ryken’s official response to the article to see that. For he speaks of the college’s “spokesperson.” If this person is a woman, why not refer to her as a spokeswoman? Why the squeamishness about sex-specific language where it is appropriate? Unless, that is, one is going along with the contemporary trend that imagines humans can be anything other than male or female, and that opts for sex-neutral language in an effort to avoid assuming anyone’s sex and thereby giving potential offense. “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matt. 12:34), and by his use of “spokesperson” President Ryken betrays an infection by worldly thought patterns.
The faults do not end there. President Ryken teaches in Wheaton’s School of Biblical and Theological Studies, which aims to “promote the development of academic skills necessary for advanced study and service in the church and society worldwide,” and employs four women as professors. If God forbids women to teach or rule in the church (1 Cor. 14:34; Tim. 2:12), how can they be employed in providing advanced training to those that will do so, or who will go on to teach in other institutions that train men for church leadership? Of the four, at least one (Prof. Aubrey Buster) appears to have preached in Wheaton’s chapel, hardly the only woman to do so. The other three are ordained, two as Anglicans (Prof. Amy Peeler and Prof. Emily McGowin), and one, Prof. Jennifer McNutt, as a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, whose apostasy has long since become something of a byword.
Amy Peeler, professor of New Testament, has feminist theology as one of her areas of expertise, per her Wheaton bio. Her latest book is called Women and the Gender of God, and was criticized by Denny Burk (here and here), by one of Prof. Peeler’s then-colleagues at St. Mark’s Church in Geneva, Illinois at Themelios, and by John Clark (here), the latter two being associated with Moody Bible Institute. Given it speaks of the relationship of the first and second persons of the Trinity by saying “addressing the personal and eternal divine source of the Son as ‘Parent’ rather than ‘Father’ may more correctly name this relationship,” their concern seems justified: for Jesus consistently addresses God as “Father” (Gk. πάτερ) in the New Testament, inc. when speaking of his eternal nature (e.g. Jn. 17:5), and not merely his Messianic sonship. (Peeler also says that “creation provides no justification for addressing God as ‘Father,’” which seems to contradict Paul’s argument at Mars Hill in Acts 17:22-30, esp. v. 29, as well as James’ calling God “the Father of lights” in 1:17 of his epistle. )1
Worse, Prof. Peeler contributed to a book titled Voices from the Edge: Centring Marginalized Perspectives in Analytic Theology, which purports to describe how “personal and social identities and their intersections serve as a hermeneutical lens for our interpretations of God, self, the other, and our religious texts and traditions.” It includes a chapter on “the epistemological and gendered implications of traditional approaches to the atonement; namely, the normalization of submission to violence and the idealization of suffering” (Seven, “Conceptualizing the Atonement”), and another arguing “for the possibility of individuals retaining their disabilities in the eschaton” and regarding “heavenly disability as a plausible part of speculative theology” (Nine, “Defiant Afterlife: Disability and Uniting Ourselves to God”). A couple of the chapter titles (Six and Eight) are so reprehensible that they will not be repeated here, but suffice it to say that one of them imagines that people who deny their sex here will continue to do so after death.
Suppose that Prof. Peeler’s contribution is orthodox. Ought it to have appeared next to such egregious false teaching? Does this not represent that being unequally yoked with unbelievers (2 Cor. 6:14) that God forbids? Surely it is a mistake for truth to ever be presented alongside falsehood, as though one can believe both or choose between them as one wishes. Truth is to be declared authoritatively, and in a way in which falsehood is mentioned only to be exposed and rejected.
Regrettably, Prof. Peeler’s contribution gives occasion for concern. Titled “Mary as Mediator,” its abstract states that Mary’s story can “provide a mediated space where various theological identities can meet, converse, and act on the social issues informed by her particularities as a poor, pregnant, Jewish woman.” Speaking of Mary’s alleged (but actually non-existent) sinlessness and her ministry, it asserts that “New Testament exegesis supports the conclusion that the text allows for different doctrinal decisions on these issues, but prohibits any stance that would so distance her from others so that her calls for justice are ignored in favour of continued oppression against the marginalized.” Eliding whether ministry is the best word to describe Mary’s life and mothership of our Lord, and granting that the abstract was presumably written by the editors, such statements raise real concerns about the content of Prof. Peeler’s doctrine here. Exactly what is meant in saying that Mary is a “mediator?” And exactly how is she thought to continue to call for justice for those that experience continued oppression now?
Also, no New Testament passage says that Mary is sinless, and such evidence is the other way. Romans 3:23 says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” for example, and James 3:2 says “we all stumble in many ways.” John, whom Christ appointed Mary’s caretaker at his death (Jn. 19:26-27), says that “if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 Jn. 1:8), and that “if we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us” (v. 10). This occurs as part of a general gospel appeal to all believers from John’s experience during Jesus’ earthly ministry (vv. 1-3), in which Mary was also present, which means there is no reason to regard her as excepted from John’s argument. Broadening the consideration to all of scripture leads to the conclusion that Mary is no exception to universal human sinfulness (Ps. 143:2; Prov. 20:9; Ecc. 7:20; Isa. 53:6). It is also a fair question whether believing Mary was sinless accords with the confession of the Anglican Church, in which Prof. Peeler teaches, and which says in Article XV of its Thirty Nine Articles, named “Of Christ alone without Sin,” that “all we the rest, although baptized and born again in Christ, yet offend in many things.”
All of which is to say that we must politely beg to differ when Pres. Ryken assures us that Wheaton is in fine health. For whatever the condition of many of its schools and faculty, at least one of them that aims to have a direct effect upon the church and upon the theological academy is in the vanguard of the movement to normalize in the evangelical churches and theology what has occurred in the mainline. Worldly theology (inc. so-called feminist theology) and a preoccupation with strange notions of justice (inc. women’s ordination) are promulgated by Wheaton and some of its faculty, not least in some of those institutional convictions (e.g. here) that Ryken invites the readers of his response to read, and by the practice of the school in hiring female theology professors who are ordained as ministers.
We already have abundant evidence of where such things lead in the cases of the Presbyterian Church in the USA, United Church of Christ, Episcopal Church, etc. There are few better ways to empty the pews than by going along with the spirit of the age in its professed desire for equality, and yet Wheaton stiffens its neck and blinds its eyes and marches on gladly, proclaiming its fidelity to Christ while at the same time disobeying the actual teachings of his scriptures, and setting itself up as a teacher of those who are to rule Christ’s church. “These things ought not to be” (Jas. 3:10), and those of us that see them as they are ought not to merely assail the wayward in polemic articles (at whatever outlet), but also pray diligently that Wheaton shakes off the worldliness by which it is beset and reforms its ways (1 Jn. 5:16).
I am largely working off of Burk here, cross-referencing it with a sample of chapter four at Google Books. It is noteworthy that Prof. Peeler is speaking of fatherhood in a very specific way, equating it to the physical act of human procreation. She is quite right in saying that is a totally distinct thing from divine creation, and that God is not the father of creation in that sense. My point is that it is mistaken to define fatherhood in such a way – for as the passages cited show, God has been pleased to use the language of fatherhood to describe his relations to the world, inc. as creator.