With the current political climate, the Diversity-Equity-Inclusion movement has taken quite a hit. Consequently, it’s been fashionable for some companies to scale back their initiatives in this area. Liberal religious people have expressed outrage at this about-face, but for the life of me I don’t see why. Look at Jesus’ ministry. It’s obvious he’d be anti-woke.
Diversity. The Lord’s vision for his church was that it would be uniformly Jewish. He would have nothing to do with those immoral, godless Gentiles. You wouldn’t catch him healing a Roman soldier’s servant or a Syrian woman’s daughter, nor talking to a Samaritan woman around a well.
Equity. Consequently, Jesus would never think that Gentiles deserved the same rights and privileges as his fellow Jews. Furthermore, neither should women be equal to men. That’s why he never talked with women, showed them respect, chose them to be the first people he revealed himself to on Easter morning, or invited them to follow him and eventually assume leadership roles in the early church.
Inclusion. Jesus’ church was to be composed of society’s righteous, and people had to pass a purity test in order to get in. That’s why he never drank wine with sinners, invited himself over to tax collectors’ homes, healed unclean lepers, let sinful women touch him, or welcomed poor people to banquets.
So Christians, why the outrage over rescinding DEI initiatives? We can safely turn back the dial and, if we’re religious, contentedly worship alongside folks who look, think, talk, feel, and act like us. Just like it used to be in the good-old-days America, when Sunday morning was the most segregated time of the week. After all, the kingdom of God is known for its uniformity, just as the Beatitudes state.
A few months ago I was behind a large white Chevrolet pickup at a stoplight. It had a bumper sticker proclaiming, “*#!@ Your Feelings!” Of course you can imagine the censored word, *#!@. I guess some anti-woke people register low on the empathy scale. But that’s OK, because the driver of that truck can happily feel that the Lord is on his side. Jesus was legendary for his cool stoicism. That’s why you’d never find a verse like this in the Bible: “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matthew 9:36)
Great, I’m hoping all church leaders will promote and teach like this. Thank you Greg.
I can”t understand why someone in a church service, hearing a minister talk about compassion to all people would be upsetting. Isn’t that why we listen to sermons to learn Jesus’s teachings?