WHEATON, Ill. (RNS) — The president of Wheaton College, a flagship evangelical institution in Illinois, and two other school officials have removed their names from a letter that called for cooperation with Muslims.
The open letter, drafted by Yale Divinity School's Center for Faith and Culture, was originally published with 130 signatories in The New York Times in November in response to a letter from more than 100 Muslim leaders.
“I signed the statement because I am committed to the business of peacemaking and neighbor-love,” said Wheaton President Duane Litfin in a Feb. 8 open letter to readers of The Wheaton Record, the student newspaper.
But after prompting from some evangelical critics, he restudied the document and decided that he did not agree with its language seeking forgiveness for Christian sins against Muslims. He also thought discussions of “our common love for God” might be misunderstood.
“The statement was not carefully enough crafted to avoid encouraging that basic premise of civil religion; i.e., that we are all worshipping the same God,” said Litfin. “As a matter of principle over the years, I have made it a point to avoid becoming complicit in this cultural premise, denying as it does the unique claims of Christ.”
Litfin's colleagues, Provost Stanton Jones and Chaplain Stephen Kellough, also had their names removed from the statement.
Andrew Saperstein, the associate director of the Yale center's Reconciliation Program, said the three are the only ones who have asked for removal of their names from the document, which has grown to about 600 total supporters.
“While I'm disappointed that he [Litfin] chose to withdraw his name, I have great respect for the way in which he did so,” Saperstein said.
Saperstein, a drafter of the document and an evangelical Christian himself, said he didn't think the response specifically stated that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, but said that determining ways to communicate “theological truths” can cause concern among conservative Christians.
“This is territory that a lot of Christian leaders in the West just haven't tried before and so I think it's raising some challenges,” he said. “It's stirring up very important dialogue within the conservative evangelical community.”