Before taking office, Donald Trump promised a crackdown on diversity initiatives. In the weeks following the inauguration, some might say he’s overdelivered on his promise, shutting down federal DEI offices and putting all federal employees that work in such programs on leave.
According to historian Heather Cox Richardson, “he reached back to the American past to root out all possible traces of DEI, calling it ‘illegal discrimination in the federal government.” Perhaps most infamously, he wrongly blamed the deadly midair collision over the Potomac River on diversity requirements at the Federal Aviation Administration.
Cara Meredith
Whether or not the facts even fit any of the given situations is not a question we can begin to pose, not when we are left to sift through the rubble of such wicked, baseless destruction.
However, as a Christian I am not left without hope. If there is no fear in love, because perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18), then it can be said the opposite of fear is love. What does it then mean to love instead of fear, to embrace every member of the church because we rejoice in her diversity, we celebrate the equity of all and we believe in a radical inclusion made real through Christ alone?
“We believe the church should reflect all of the beloveds reflected in the very face of God.”
What does it mean to actually be who the church is called to be when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts? We do this not because of any political sway or leanings, but because as embodied image-bearers who bear an uncanny resemblance to the Creator, we believe the church should reflect all of the beloveds reflected in the very face of God.
Because if not the holy misfits who dot the pews and trip down the carpeted aisles of our sanctuaries, then who?
As such, we rejoice in her diversity.
Diversity
Just as variety is the spice of life, when we notice and celebrate the beauty of the world around us, we are left changed by the simple profundity of diversity.
In Genesis 11, ancient Scripture tells of the Tower of Babel. The passage often is interpreted as pride and rebellion against God, because the people attempt to make a name for themselves instead of letting God make a name for them. Sometimes interpreted as a “critique of the totalizing power of empire,” one could go so far as to say empires desiring total uniformity (including that of language) are not of God.
What happened at the Tower of Babel may have been a scattering, but it wasn’t a destroying; it may have been an upset, a confusion and a mystery, but it was not the end of the story — not when ours is a God who delights not in uniformity and homogeneity but in diversity and in all the differences that make us us.
From this diverse migration came a celebration of “different stories, different myths, songs, styles of communication, food [and] clothing.” Here, God imprinted humanity with the style of the divine, with cultural difference and diversity in mind.
“What happened at the Tower of Babel may have been a scattering, but it wasn’t a destroying.”
How, then, does this relate to our churches? It is everything. It is the broad spectrum of diversity found in “race, gender, ethnicity, sexual identity, socioeconomic status, age, ability, religion and political philosophy.” As such, we rejoice in this diversity — and in this rejoicing, we approach the polities of church life differently.
Preachers pull from a diversity of voices; committees fill seats so as to represent a variety of voices; Sunday school curriculum highlights the many faces of Jesus found around the world.
Because with diversity comes intentionality.
For we celebrate the equity of all.
Equity
As a parent, sometimes it feels like not a day goes by without hearing the words, “But that’s not fair!”
“Equity,” at first glance, means “fairness or justice in the way people are treated often.” My children should both get the same size slice of cake, the same number of chicken nuggets, the same split of a vanilla milkshake from In-N-Out. But equity also means “recognizing that we do not all start from the same place and must acknowledge and make adjustments to imbalances.”
For the Samuel Son, manager of diversity and reconciliation at the Presbyterian Mission Agency, the church must be committed to equity because we follow in the ways of the resurrected Jesus.
Of the “first band of Christ-followers selling their possessions and ‘distributing the proceeds to all, as they had need,’ (Acts 2:45),” Son writes:
Jesus was firmly ruling, and it was this reality that led this Jesus-community to create a different economic system aligning with Jesus’ new policy of equity. … With Jesus as Lord, the old economic system based on hierarchy and oppression wasn’t tenable. The early church saw that possession isolated, ruined mutuality and distorted one’s view of self, others, and moral responsibility.
“We do everything in our power to discard and throw aside any and all obstacles our human selves have placed in the paths of others along the way.”
How might the church today further lean into equity? We do everything in our power to discard and throw aside any and all obstacles our human selves have placed in the paths of others along the way.
If a week at church camp in the summer costs $1,399 per camper, then underwrite the cost of camp so every potential camper in your youth group has the opportunity to head to the woods for a week. If a single mother has a clear calling from God to preach and teach the gospel but cannot afford not to work, then remove any impeding obstacles in her way and pay for the cost of seminary.
The list goes on, far from the confines of economic equity alone.
Because we believe in a radical inclusion made real through Christ alone.
Inclusion
To “include” means to “make part of a whole or set.” Likewise, to practice “inclusion” means to involve and empower, “where the inherent worth and dignity of all people are recognized.” When this happens, a sense of belonging not only is promoted but sustained; a real sense of welcome becomes the very marker that defines us.
For Anna Lopez-Wooden, a Christian educator, the apostle John’s vision of heaven in Revelation 7:9 “presents a beautiful image of a diverse and inclusive community, highlighting the value of cultural diversity and the unity found in Christ.” Because God’s kingdom encompasses people from all walks of life, the church should lead the way in celebrating and embracing the richness found in different cultures.
As such, we seek to include more than ever before. Perhaps we notice who’s not sitting around our board meetings or preaching from the front of the room — and we take steps to make right our wrongs and mark ourselves by inclusion. For some of us, we empower those who have been marginalized, equipping people of color and women and members of the queer community to serve in positions of leadership in all our churches.
We practice a radical kind of inclusion because this is the way of Jesus.
And perhaps when this happens, the church really will be who she is called to be when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts alone.
Cara Meredith was raised in the American Baptist Churches in the USA but currently worships as an Episcopalian. She is a freelance author based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her books include The Color of Life and Church Camp: Bad Skits, Cry Night, and How White Evangelicalism Betrayed a Generation.
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