Diversity, Inclusion and Equity (or DIE as it is often abbreviated) is the current fashionable ideology and the purveyors of this secular propaganda are rolling in fat payments for their presentations to schools, businesses, colleges and churches.

The Problem With DIE 

Diversity, Inclusion and Equity must be good for everyone and for society right? No doubt there are good ideas, high ideals and noble motivations within the movement. It is so with all ideologies. They all mean well, and they are all rooted in some core ideas that everyone with common sense and a warm heart would endorse.

The problem with DIE (as with every ideology) is that the bad is mixed in with the good. The truths are often half truths mixed either with outright falsehoods or with the fullness of truth being absent.

Those who follow ideologies are most often blind to their weaknesses and fault lines. They are also impervious to criticism. Should you critique an ideology the idealogue will immediately brand you as an enemy — a heretic of the worst sort. Should you dare to critique the DIE ideology you will be named and shamed as a racist, a bigot and the worst kind of hater.

Rooted in Good Ideas … Christian Ideas

But the DIE ideology is rooted in good ideas. In fact, it is rooted in Christian ideas. As the historian Tom Holland has pointed out in his monumental work Dominion, all the good ideas of the ideologies, political movements, revolutions and radical secular agendas have their roots in the core ideas of the Christian faith. Christianity has formed Western culture and therefore the mindset of the modern world. Its influence is foundational and all the stronger where it is actually unrecognized and below the surface.

Holland points out, as examples, that the Beatles would never have had a mega hit with “All You Need is Love” if St. Paul hadn’t preached it first to the Corinthian Christians two thousand years ago. Communism’s championing of the working classes and its push for equity would never have gained traction if it were not first for the Catholic Church’s “preferential option for the poor.”

The Diversity, Inclusion and Equity campaign is also, at heart, founded on Christian principles. From the beginning, the Christian movement espoused diversity.

One of the big controversies among the first Christians, for example, was whether the church should be open to the non-Jewish peoples. St. Paul argues for diversity and full inclusion writing, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

DIE Imposed by Tyrannical Mandate

Within that mini-creed are the roots of diversity, inclusion and equity. The problem comes in determining just how that diversity, inclusion and equity is to be established. Too often it is something which is to be imposed by top down bureaucratic measures. Certain hiring and firing policies must be implemented. Specific ways of communicating and behaving are mandated from the top brass. Particular curriculum requirements are imposed and specific outward behaviors are either forbidden or required.

While diversity, inclusion and equity are high ideals for a modern society, they cannot be imposed simply by mandating different outward behaviors. Unless there is a change of heart and change of attitude all that will change are outward manifestations, and as long as the modification of outward behaviors is the only goal, tyranny must be the result: “You will change your behaviors because if you don’t we will freeze your bank account, destroy your business and, if necessary, lock you up. Dissent is forbidden.”

The DIE agenda, therefore will ultimately destroy itself. There will be no diversity because dissent will be outlawed. There will be no inclusion because those of different opinion will be excluded and there will be no equity because dissenters will be denied not only their civil rights, but their livelihoods and eventually their freedom.

There is a basic philosophical principle that when you elevate a secondary virtue to the exclusion of the primary virtue you destroy both. So, for example, when you elevate human erotic love to the exclusion of Divine Love you destroy both the human erotic love and the divine love. Likewise, when you elevate bureaucratically mandated diversity, inclusion and equity to the exclusion of the diversity, inclusion and equity that comes through belonging to Christ you lose both.

What is the Answer?

So what is the answer? The Christian answer is Diversity, Inclusion and Equity through Evangelism. When we share the Christian gospel we invite all to be included in the community of Christ’s universal family. Down through human history wherever the Christian gospel has been propagated true diversity, inclusion and equity follow. The process is not without difficulties, hypocrisy and failures, but it is also clear that Christianity has contributed to the great successes and progress in this field.

Within the church we should recognize with St. Paul that there is no separation, no exclusion and no inequity. Through evangelization we invite others to share in this ideal and live the life of Christ in all its difficulty and demands, but also with all of its rewards and abundance. True diversity, inclusion and equity are in Christ and are derived from Christ. Bureaucratic attempts to manufacture these conditions can never be more than a band-aid on cancer.

Dwight Longenecker’s latest book is Beheading Hydra — A Radical Plan for Christians in an Atheistic Age. Visit his website, browse his blog and be in touch at dwightlongenecker.com