Idols of ideology pervade our culture, and “diversity” is a leading idol of our day.
Consider Garth Brooks’ latest news-making, as he has boldly declared he will serve Bud Light in his new Nashville bar, Friends in Low Places. Brooks said, “Diversity. Inclusiveness. That’s me. It’s always been me. I think diversity is the answer to the problems that are here and the answer to the problems that are coming. So I love diversity.”
He thinks diversity is the answer to our problems. What problems is he talking about? He sees the back-and-forth bickering, shouting, and unrest, and he thinks diversity will solve the problem.
The buzz words of the decade are “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” You hear these everywhere. They say the more diverse a college is, the better. You will hear about “DEI initiatives,” by which companies and schools actively promote diversity, equity, and inclusion among their employees and staff. Not having DEI initiatives is seen as backward and bad.
New York State Education Department is pushing hard on DEI in schools across their state. They say, “The Board expects that all school districts will develop policies that advance diversity, equity and inclusion – and that they implement such policies with fidelity and urgency.”
Closer to home, Louisiana has recently had some DEI wars on policy decisions. Some lawmakers attempted to legislate that all LA universities report to state government how they are including DEI in their programs, but so far the proposed law has been voted down.
Is Diversity a Virtue?
DEI ideology says that a group of people with diverse external, immutable characteristics is morally better than a group of people of homogenous external, immutable characteristics. In other words, a group of men is not as good as a group which includes both men and women. A group of one ethnicity is not as good as a group of mixed ethnicities. I assume we should also include age in this diversity equation? It must be morally better to have a group crossing age ranges than to have only old or only young. This is the teaching of DEI. They make diversity itself a virtue.
But how can something immutable (you cannot change) be virtuous? How can a multi-colored and multi-cultural group be better than a group of one color and one culture? Actual virtues—such as integrity, humility, self-control, and endurance—are learned and cultivated. You cannot decide the color of your skin, but you can decide to be honest. You cannot choose your sex (controversial, right?), but you can choose to keep your word.
Students of DEI choose people not based upon their credentials and skills but on their sex and skin color. This is how Vice President Harris was chosen—because she was an interracial woman. Joe Biden did not even consider choosing a man for the position. A man would not have been diverse enough, women would not have felt included, and that just wouldn’t have been equitable. Quite possibly our country would be in much worse shape if a man were in the Vice President’s seat right now.
Airbnb was pushing diversity in 2016:
We’d had a successful year of hiring in terms of volume, but realized that in our push for growth we were not being as mindful of culture and diversity as we wanted to be. For example, only 10% of our new data scientists were women, which meant that we were both out of sync with our community of guests and hosts, and that the existing female data scientists at Airbnb were quickly becoming outnumbered. This was far from intentional, but that was exactly the problem — our hiring efforts did not emphasize a gender balanced team.
Don’t Search for Moral Validation in DEI
It’s one thing to intentionally not hire women because they are women, but it’s a totally different thing to hire based solely upon skill level and competency, excluding sex as a factor. Why not just hire the most qualified? Someone is always “underrepresented,” so companies will be perpetually searching for moral validation in DEI but never finding satisfaction.
As I visited St. Tammany Parish Jail yesterday, I discovered there are only two female dorms in the whole jail, while there are around twenty male dorms. That hardly seems fair—the women are wildly underrepresented in our jail system.
It is odd that certain jobs aren’t so concerned about gender equality as others. Take construction workers for example. Only 10% or 11% of construction workers are female. Why would that be? Because construction work is hard and often dangerous. Men gravitate towards those jobs because they are built for it. Why would women want “equity” in this job market?
At the end of the day, diversity has nothing to do with moral goodness. Not even churches should be trying to be diverse for diversity’s sake. Jesus did not tell us that we should strive for diversity—He just said to preach the gospel to all nations and all peoples. We are to scatter the seed of God’s word indiscriminately and love all who respond. If we are in the heart of Africa and all who respond have ebony skin, we should not be upset that there are not more of other shades of skin in the group.
If we are in an area which has many people groups in it, we should expect some diversity in those who respond to the gospel. But, again, diversity should never be our aim—preaching the gospel should be.
We should not bow to the world’s idol of DEI. Let us not buy into this false moral system. A group of people is not morally better than another based on characteristics they cannot change. They should be judged based on their character, not the color of their skin. It seems like some famous person may have said that.
May God give us wisdom to discern the right paths, and may we love indiscriminately.
“Judge the people with righteous judgment. You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality.”
Deuteronomy 16.18–19