Thoughts on DEI Training

So this week I went through the dreaded DEI training from HR, at your typical big corporate/public institution.

Here are some takeaways.

1. There was no overt hostility to Christians or conservatives in the program.

2. There was no insistence that you pledge personal allegiance to their dogma, besides giving “right” answers to vague and obvious questions.  (“Should you be okay with a racial insult or should you say something?”)

3. There IS an assumption that underprivileged groups are the only ones discriminated against.  This is a huge blind spot in the DEI/Left community right now.  They simply cannot see that their over-reaction to making sure minorities are not oppressed, winds up oppressing the majority.  Reverse discrimination is not a possibility in their minds, but it is obviously real.  If a black woman accuses a white man falsely, and she is assumed to be truthful because of group identity and history, that IS oppression of the white man.  Justice should be blind and impartial.  But what I was taught was all one-sided.  The majority needs to walk on egg shells to make sure they don’t offend any minority.  Now, of course, everyone should be sensitive to everyone.  But everyone also has a responsibility to strive not to take offense at “micro-aggressions.”

4. One spot was especially egregious – the assertion that a minority person offended does not have to accept an apology or any remedial action from the offender.  The implication was, they have the right to simply stay offended and keep the offender in condemnation and contempt.  Yikes.


Overall, this is a mixed bag.  There are naïve and innocent people trying to keep people being nice to each other, after the racism in our past.  And there are more devious elements sneaking in Marxist assumptions, which divides us according to group and class, undermining social cohesion, right when the former group thinks they are bolstering it.

Christian Nationalism

World Magazine's latest issue has a cover story on Christian Nationalism.
It's quite good, featuring most of the main players and critics.  

It points out how the Left wants to paint the Right all as nationalists, to energize the Left to vote against the Handmaiden's Tale vision in their heads.  

It points out Christian Nationalists aren't aiming for that vision.  

But it does point to problems, especially in Stephen Wolfe's book, the main catalyst of the discussion right now.

Wilsonites and Canon Press won't like being called a "tiny fringe," but they are.  Most Christian conservatives who are politically engaged do not share the "Moscow Mood."  I think Wilson has an important point to contribute (see next paragraph), but Moscow's messaging often hurts them more than it helps.

One thing the article doesn't cover enough is the underpinnings of theology at play.  Cornelius Van Til's rejection of neutrality anywhere, including politics, is a major factor.  It inherently rejects the secular liberal political order, where we think the same "natural law" rules can apply to everyone.  Can they?  No, CN says, we need God's revealed, special-revelation-law to apply to everyone.

World makes it seem like the choice is either secular liberal democracy a la Rawls, or theocracy.  This is a major flaw of the article.  Wolfe's book didn't do very well describing a path between the two.  Maybe Wilson's Mere Christendom does better.

It seems to me we want Christian worldview underpinnings to our law and politics, without the government fining or jailing people for worshiping in a way the state deems idolatrous (an absurdity at this point), taking God's name in vain or having their restaurant open on Sunday.

Most of CN is just Quixotic dreaming: "what would it look like if society actually implemented God's Word?"  They're not going to.  The last sentence of World's article sums it up: "It’s a sucker’s game. … You risk getting distracted from the things that actually matter."

Trump and Christianity

One of our family members gets regular anonymous hate mail from a leftist.

This arrived yesterday, with a Ruth Bader Ginsburg stamp on it:

"Trump has said that he has NEVER asked God for forgiveness.  Please explain to everyone how that is Christian."

1. I believe I remember Trump saying that.  I don't dispute the veracity of it.

2. It is not Christian.  Trump is a misguided or sub-Christian, at best, in his personal spirituality, in my estimation.

3. The writer assumes the Right's nominee needs to be Christian to be a valid candidate, and that conservative Christian voters will only vote for a Christian.  It's true pointing this out may make some Christian voters less motivated to vote for Trump.  But I think that would be a mistake.  Christians can vote for a politician who they don't think is a true Christian.

4. Thanks to the media, the Left now thinks most of the right are Christian Nationalists, who insist Christian doctrine be made law.  They project their own intolerance onto the Right.  The Left today is far less tolerant than the Right.  We just want to restrict people's freedom to kill others, whether that's a mother her baby, an illegal who just arrived, or a gang member in the inner city.  A DA is not free to not prosecute crimes, because he thinks the system is racist.  A president is not free to not enforce border laws, because he wants more votes for his party in the future.  A mother is not free to kill her baby, because she can't envision a good future if she doesn't.

5. Even with Trump's recent abortion statement, pre-born people in utero will be safer in a Trump presidency than they have been with Biden.  Trump will do more to preserve pre-born life than Biden will.  Even if he won't do enough, that's not a good enough reason to stay home and not vote against Biden.

6. On other issues more in the headlines, Trump is obviously better:
a. Better border policy
b. Not pressuring Israel to back off from Hamas.

7. It's pretty clear to me that both Biden and Trump are willing to use religion for their political purposes.  Neither seems very sincere on that front.  Trump is reading the political weather well on the abortion issue.  All the energy is on the pro-choice side, right now, and he's trying to blunt that.  I think he's being smart, politically, but it's disappointing.  We can expect more from our church leaders, but maybe not from our politicians in such a divided landscape.

8. Turnout decides elections in this climate.  Those who are angrier turn out more.  So our thought leaders are tempted to stoke anger in us, on both sides.  Instead decide to vote on principle, not emotion.