What is Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI): Unity in Diversity

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Last Thursday congressperson Marjorie Taylor Greene took to Twitter advocating for Christian nationalism as an attempt to “save America” from woke domestic terrorists. Christian nationalism is the latest code language used to make America white, straight, and male again by returning power to the usual suspects who will fight against religious, racial, sexual, and gender pluralism. Call it whatever you wish, but this latest attempt by white conservatives to stamp out the burgeoning diversity of American public life is a blueprint every empire since Babel has employed to eradicate diversity by replacing it with a totalizing imperial identity. Such tribalism is rooted in fear of "the other" to a point the in-group creates false boundaries and then defends them with savage zeal.

How perfect that on the heels of Greene’s statement, the global Body of Christ just celebrated Pentecost as an alternative vision for human belonging. It’s also not lost on me that Pentecost falls during Pride Month.

In Acts we read that the disciples were huddled together in one place when suddenly the Holy Spirit descended upon them, sending them out to proclaim the Gospel. Miraculously, everyone from Parthia, Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia all “heard in their own language” (Acts 2:6), subverting Rome’s use of Latin as the imperial language of choice. Pentecost unified people from every tongue, tribe, gender, and nation without forcing anyone to give up their unique identity.

The Spirit reminds us that diversity is never a problem to overcome but a beautiful blessing to embrace. Divisions that once caused fear and prejudice are overcome by love. As theologian Stanley Hauerwas reminds us, “We are new people who have been gathered from the nations to remind the world that we are, in fact, one people.” But that oneness should never come at the expense of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Pentecost reminds us the Spirit is free to move as She wills. She will not be controlled. Whenever and wherever individuals draw lines of exclusion, the Spirit blows in like fire wiping the slate clean. Pride and Pentecost celebrate inclusion and community while creating space for diverse perspectives and voices that work together in chorus to sing a new song. A song of revolutionary inclusion.

Unfortunately, Marjorie Taylor Greene and her Christo-fascist cabal aren’t the only ones selling an exclusionary ideology. The same unifying spirit drove Putin to invade Ukraine, Trump to build his wall, England to Brexit, and a “white replacement” terrorist to mass murder African Americans in Buffalo. It’s why transphobes are fixated on “what is a woman” and Republican lawmakers are waging war on Disney. It’s why homophobic evangelicals are “taking back the rainbow” during Pride Month. For conservatives, difference and “otherness” is to be feared and ultimately destroyed. “These kinds of movements maintain their grip on power by rallying people around a common (racial or sexual) identity that is under threat from others." All while weaponizing diversity in an attempt to force conformity.

Like those first-century Apostles, the Holy Spirit continues to move us onward and outward in an open embrace to hear God’s message anew. And maybe if we listen hard enough, we’ll hear LGBTQIA+ and trans voices proclaiming the Gospel in new tongues no longer silenced by our pride. As Pentecost people living in a conforming world, may we continue to learn that viable unity must always find a way to include the very people our nation or church prefers to exclude. Naturalist Thomas Berry reminds us, “The greater the diversity, the greater the perfection.”

Amen.

Gary Alan
The Sophia Society