#1518 The I Word

 

…22And this righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no distinction, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.… Romans 3: 23-24

9What then? Are we any better? Not at all. For we have already made the charge that Jews and Greeks alike are all under sin. 10As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one. 11There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.… Romans 3: 9-11

Let's get a definition of inclusion that everyone has access to on the internet:

Inclusion is, by the Oxford Dictionary definition, 

1. The act of including or being included within a group or structure.
2. The practice or policy of providing equal access to opportunities or resources for people who otherwise might be excluded or marginalized, such as those who have physical or intellectual disabilities and members of other minority groups.

As I stated before in Diversity, I believe that we as human beings are made in the image of God, everyone, and I believe what the Bible says, and science now confirms, that we all come from the same common parentage. We have the greater in our common than we do in our differences. It is one race, the human race, and from that comes all manner of diversity, giftedness, different shades of melanin, even albinism, and ethnic, tribal or cultural diversity. The greater I would appeal to is our humanity, being made in the image of God, for we can find within the cultural, things that should not be defended, in that they go against the first order of being human. For example, and we gave this before, Hitler and Nazi Germany, a culture that I believe to be wrong and against the image of God in it's fellow creatures. Another example that I would not defend or protect would be cultures that do human sacrifice, groups that practice cannibalism, cultures that sexualize children or abuse them in other ways. It is not racist nor wicked to want to exclude such behaviors, quite the contrary. 

In the verses at the beginning of this we are all included, regardless of our opinions, regardless of geography or skin color, all have sinned, all fall short, no one is righteous of themselves. The outcome of that, what is owed to everyone in accordance to that commonality is this:

…22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the fruit you reap leads to holiness, and the outcome is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6: 22-23

Now some will start pulling their hair out, and if they haven't already then here comes the Biblically exclusive statements about the answer to the inclusive statements above:

5“Lord,” said Thomas, “we do not know where You are going, so how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. 7If you had known Me, you would know My Father as well. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him.”… John 14: 5-7

Notice Jesus doesn't say "A way", like the coexist movement, no, He is "The Way", as in the only way, and "no one" comes to the Father, no one is made right with God by another way. We all belong to the group that needs Christ, needs something not found within us, but outside of us, provided for us. This angers many, but I believe the Creator has the right over His creation.

The Bible doesn't allow for there being your truth and my truth, Buddha, Mohammad, humanism, atheism (which is just like humanism), Jehovah's Witness, Mormonism, Roman Catholicism and Christianity etc. as all equal ways which come to the same end. I would argue that all but one reach the same end, and that is not an apostate form of Christianity, not a Christ that you made in your imagination, but the Christianity that trust not in self but Christ alone as your redemption from the wrath of a Holy and just God, Who being so, and being the eternal, infinite being, will be in the same capacity forever opposed to sin. It is this Christianity, marked by being born again, granted the grace of repentance, trusting in the sacrifice of Christ for the sin of which you are guilty, that is the way God provided. Now people get angry and say that isn't fair, like Cain they think God must accept my vegetables, and when they find he does not then they hate their brothers and sisters who believed and obeyed. They did not want God, did not want His way, His provision, and they even go so far as to say they don't need it because they do not accept His definition of sin. Some see themselves as righteous, some say there is no God, or if it is the God of the Bible then they are so smart and beyond the One Who created them, far more compassionate then Him, that they would choose to die in their sin with the hope that there is no God to answer to or that hell is not so bad as some preachers tend to think. Well, you are right, those preachers are finite beings with finite understanding, and so I would imagine that it is not as bad as they say, but rather far worse. 

1“Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever does not enter the sheepfold by the gate, but climbs in some other way, is a thief and a robber. 2But the one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen for his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.… John 10: 1-3

…7So He said to them again, “Truly, truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8All who came before Me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9I am the gate. If anyone enters through Me, he will be saved. He will come in and go out and find pasture.… John 10: 7-9

…7to open the eyes of the blind, to bring prisoners out of the dungeon and those sitting in darkness out from the prison house. 8I am the LORD; that is My name! I will not yield My glory to another or My praise to idols. 9Behold, the former things have happened, and now I declare new things. Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.”… Isaiah 42: 7-9

The prophet Isaiah spoke these things about Jesus 700 years before He arrived.

…5But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. 6We all like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. 7He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth.… Isaiah 53: 5-7

So what about DEI? How does this all play out in the work world, the unstable world? As a Christian I believe that regardless of what you believe I still have to look across the table and see myself. I have hired and worked with people of all ethnicities, with the hypomelanistic, the hypermelanistic, atheists, cult followers, homosexuals and transgender. In fact, I would challenge anyone else's claims to inclusion, as I only favor things that are in accordance with the job. I include people that fly and stand under a host of banners, many of which I disagree with politically, religiously and morally, but all I ask is that they respect the rights of others to look different than them, their right to work and provide for themselves and their families. I ask that they also respect the rights of others to disagree, and to promote values that actually help at work, like attendance, job knowledge, experience, and work ethic. I disagree with people who lean towards and have openly stated in front of me, that, "I will pull the race card, the girl card,' or, 'I check off more boxes than you because I am gay, or transgender, or a cat that uses these pronouns." Yes, that is in quotes. As a Christian I believe you can not only disagree with me but even hate me and still I must see your value as one being made in the image of God. 

…19Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but leave room for God’s wrath. For it is written: “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, says the Lord.” 20On the contrary, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.… Romans 12: 19-21

I do not agree with the concept I have seen with much of the DEI related talks and material, the concept of intersectionality. Calling CRT a theory is beyond a stretch as well. It is in no way inclusive to say that because you check off these boxes that you should not have a voice. It is in no way inclusive, and it is also outright and downright racist to say that because you check the box of whiteness, and then intersect with the sin of being heterosexual, top that off with being male, middle aged, and God forbid, Christian too, then you should not be able to talk about race or inclusion. The truth does not belong to any group based upon their color or sex. It is something that must be found, and must be able to stand on it's own, it is for those who love it, and it is colorless, blind and indifferent to our feelings. Regardless of your ethnicity you can only speak what you know, and to speak the truth you must know it, and yet some have recognized it but spoke other than the truth in order to deceive. But here is another inclusive statement regarding men and the truth:

…18Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19And this is the verdict: The Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness rather than the Light because their deeds were evil. 20Everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come into the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.… John 3: 18-20

I recently listened to a Ted Talk where someone was discussing the topic of DEI and the ideas of "covering and authenticity". He went through a host of different groups who identified as covering, basically not being their authentic selves, not coming out if they were gay, bisexual, or even suppressing their hurt over perceived wrongs committed by people who said something that hurt their feelings. Some people even covered because they were white and that was not one of the supposedly marginalized groups, but they felt like they were being overlooked for promotions etc., because they were not in one of the groups recognized by intersectionality. Others hid their feelings he said because of the stoic position that men shouldn't cry or be that emotional. Some people hid that they felt sick or were struggling because they did not want to project weakness. I will not say that there is never racism involved in some peoples' decision making process, in fact, I would say most of the answers and knee jerks coming out of this DEI stuff is quite racist, and I refer you back to the two previous posts. But I would ask you this, if authenticity is important and when you come out as gay, and I tell you that you were never actually hiding it that well to begin with, what is it that you want from me? I am still going to treat you the same, expect the same work from you, expect the same respect from you, and I am still going to defend your personhood, but are you going to be inclusive of me if I don't agree with you? Let me put it to you like this, you tell me, "Calvin, I don't think that I can be myself around you because I haven't been authentic with you, I have been covering', and I say, 'speak up man or woman, spit it out." And you say, "I am gay, or I believe myself to be a woman trapped in a man's body, Calvin, what do you think?" Like I have tried to make clear all along, and this is my answer. When someone ask me a direct question I give them a direct answer, I tell them the truth. "My friend, I love you, and above you, I love the God Who made you but Who has also spoken on these very things. I believe Him to be eternal, so unchanging, not bound by time or mistakes, but sovereign overall and perfect. I will not change what He says regardless of governments or current cultural demands, no man has that right, and if I did tell you other than what He says then that would not be authentic on my part, and it would be the most unloving thing I could do to another human being. To tell you what you want to hear right now, to tell you that this is not sin, that God will not judge according to His word, that would cruel on my part, to believe in the God of the Bible, to know that there are eternal repercussions for sin, and then to tell you, don't worry about it, that is truly hateful. Now I ask you, is there room in your "inclusion" for me?" I go by what God says, and He has been very clear on all these things. Listen carefully, we are all under a time of great grace, where we are not under a Theocracy, that it is not do this and you shall live, as though the law can save, but these things are still considered sin and Christ will come back one day to judge. I ask that you read this and think about it, not for my sake, but yours.

…12If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both must surely be put to death. They have acted perversely; their blood is upon them. 13If a man lies with a man as with a woman, they have both committed an abomination. They must surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. 14If a man marries both a woman and her mother, it is depraved. Both he and they must be burned in the fire, so that there will be no depravity among you.… Leviticus 20: 12-14

…4If you see your brother’s donkey or ox fallen on the road, you must not ignore it; you must help him lift it up. 5A woman must not wear men’s clothing, and a man must not wear women’s clothing, for whoever does these things is detestable to the LORD your God. 6If you come across a bird’s nest with chicks or eggs, either in a tree or on the ground along the road, and the mother is sitting on the chicks or eggs, you must not take the mother along with the young.… Deuteronomy 22: 4-6

…9Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who submit to or perform homosexual acts, 10nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor verbal abusers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.… 1 Corinthians 6: 9-11

If you can see yourself in any of these verses, I know I can as someone who has been a fornicator, a liar, a gossip, a drug addict, a thief and rebellious towards my mom and God. If you can see yourself, see what God calls sin as sin and repent, He saves sinners. Herein is great hope for you.

…31Jesus answered, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” Luke 5: 31-32

Below is a great link to Voddie Baucham teaching on Social Justice and the Gospel. I would encourage you to listen so that you are not stuck in a bubble about these things. Culture has a tendency towards sucking up which leads to everyone following the masses like in the Emperor's New Clothes. It is not healthy and it mistakenly attacks those who disagree and accuses them of being unloving because they prefer to tell the truth. Do I, as a Christian, believe we should make sure that people are included in our places of work, that they be respected as our equals, that they be able to work without harassment or bullying? Absolutely, and I have fought openly against those who have promoted hostile working conditions. I understand how people feel when treated like that because I have experienced it myself. I have epilepsy, and as new Christians me and my wife were at a job fair, she was waiting in the lounge area while I went back for an interview. I made it through the first part of the interview and was accepted, but I had listed my epilepsy on the sheet and when they noticed this, one of them went out into the lobby and told someone else, "we don't want this one, he has seizures." Well, my wife was out there with our new baby, and she is not shy about these things and told them, "you can't do that; it's discrimination." They back pedaled and gave me the job, but it was more than a little awkward showing up where people didn't want you, but I did, and I worked hard. I have had seizures at another place of work and HR ask me not to "come back till your doctor can say that you won't have another; you need to go on disability." I told them, "you can't do that, it's against the law, it's discrimination, and I will see you or a lawyer on Monday." They made some calls and then someone higher up said, see you Monday. I also learned as a Christian that I need to have some grace with them, and also as a father that I need to be more responsible about my condition, so I went back to a neurologist to see what had changed in the last 15 years, and they did some testing and I have now gone seizure free for over six years with my current treatments. I am a huge proponent of making work available to those who want to work, even if it means putting in a wheel chair ramp, elevator, or making special work benches to accommodate the handicapped. I love places like Publix where they give jobs to the mentally disabled, and it's exciting to see just how excited they are with being a part of something, contributing. My wife volunteers with a lady who has down syndrome and is about 70 some odd years old, and she gets great satisfaction being where the people are and seeing a job well done. So I think inclusion like that is important, but not without honesty, not without the truth, not excluding logic and reason. 

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#1516 The D Word

 

…25God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that crawls upon the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 26Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it.” 27So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.…Genesis 1: 25-27

…19By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread, until you return to the ground—because out of it were you taken. For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” 20And Adam named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother of all the living. Genesis 3: 19-20

I believe the Bible to be God's word, and so as a Christian, a follower of Christ, Who was the Word become flesh to dwell among us, I take my world view from here. As far as diversity goes, I believe, according to Scripture, that every human being comes from Adam and Eve. Even modern science, though much slower than the Bible, would agree that all humans have a shared common parentage, not races, but rather the human race. We are all related to one another, and so racism is a foolish concept. We are all made in the image of God, and so therein is the ultimate premise for equality. In the corporate world, as far as hiring, I have never had to worry about diversity and inclusion because I don't hire those traits. I hire for skill, experience, and where I can detect it, integrity. Once you are hired then my job shifts to behaviors, does he or she come in as scheduled, on time? Do they get along with the other employees and treat them with respect? Do they do their work? Are they lazy? etc. 

In recent years, and I find it unfortunate, there has been much talk about DEI, CRT and other programs that take the focus off of the actual job, it's genuine requirements, and focus on things like melanin levels, and or sexual preferences, which should not keep someone from having a job in the corporation, but should also not give preferential treatment or means to bypass legitimate qualifications. I will give you a real world example:

We had a board of 5 individuals, including myself, and we were interviewing people for a position in a new area. We had finished interviewing 3 gentlemen and were now interviewing a young lady. She was a wonderful person, very polite, easy to get along with, but she was struggling with the questions relating to the job. We take notes during these interviews and at the end we all vote, and we had agreed to a process where everyone had to be unanimous or we moved to the next individual or asked for another interview. We voted and I was the only no vote, the only one that didn't agree to hire her for that position. Someone even went so far as to call me sexist. So I asked them, why, after interviewing 3 other people, who all answered the technical questions better, (one I disqualified for a behavioral issue, but 2 others were better interviews with experience that aligned better with the job), are we passing on them and picking her? One of my peers answered, "because I think diversity and inclusion are important." I asked him, "so you are going to hire her because she's a girl?" He restated, "I think diversity is important." They all held to this and patted themselves on the back like they had made some great moral stand, but in actuality they had done the opposite of what they were congratulating themselves for. You see, if you tell me to hire someone because they are a girl, then that is patently sexist, and if you tell me to hire someone because they are hypomelanistic or hypermelanistic then that is the clinical definition of racist. The story with that girl didn't end there though, my colleagues offered her the job, she accepted, but then later declined. Her reasoning? In her own words she declined because she was "not qualified"  for the position. In their race to score social brownie points on the latest snake oil chart, my colleagues had stooped to being dishonest and unprofessional, but the young lady told the truth. I told my bosses and peers that I would like to hire her now, and they asked why? I said, "because she's more honest than you, and I could train her to do the hiring with me and probably build a much better team." They rolled their eyes and moved on probably learning nothing, but this has been a problem with many of these programs. They are all based on racism or sexism or whatever ism of the week as being the issue as to why there are so few girls, people of color, gay people, etc. in the particular positions that are being discussed. The snake oil salesmen require these conditions in order for you to buy the treatment that they are selling for it. They never ask, "how many of the people that apply are female?" I can say that from my own experience it's probably in the neighborhood of 1 in 50 for the tech positions, maybe less that were female. That is changing in more recent years with apprentice programs, but those are the odds, and so it's far more likely that I will hire a male statistically, just from those numbers. I am looking for the best person for the job, most qualified, best team player, most experienced, and that has nothing to do with gender, race or sexual orientation. The snake oil salesman can't make his money that way though, but when you break down his program it almost always, without exception, makes racism the answer to racism, sexism the answer to sexism and so on. 

Here's an article by a very good, rational Economist, Walter E. Williams, and if anything I hope it just causes people to think rather than knee jerk and band wagon. I will continue with Equity in the next post.

by Walter E. Williams

Recently by Walter E. Williams: Department of Injustice

The terms affirmative action, equal representation, preferential treatment and quotas just don’t sell well. The intellectual elite and their media, government and corporate enthusiasts have come up with diversity, a seemingly benign term that’s a cover for racially discriminatory policy. They call for college campuses, corporate offices and government agencies to “look like America.”

Part of looking like America means if blacks are 13 percent of the population, they should be 13 percent of college students and professors, corporate managers and government employees. Behind this vision of justice is the silly notion that but for the fact of discrimination, we’d be distributed equally by race across incomes, education, occupations and other outcomes. There is absolutely no evidence that statistical proportionality is the norm anywhere on Earth; however, much of our thinking, laws and public policy is based upon proportionality being the norm. Let’s look at some racial differences whilst thinking about their causes and possible remedies.

While 13 percent of our population, blacks are 80 percent of professional basketball players and 65 percent of professional football players and are the highest paid players in both sports. By contrast, blacks are only 2 percent of NHL’s professional ice hockey players. There is no racial diversity in basketball, football and ice hockey. They come nowhere close to “looking like America.”

Even in terms of sports achievement, racial diversity is absent. Four out of the five highest career home-run hitters were black. Since blacks entered the major leagues, of the eight times more than 100 bases were stolen in a season, all were by blacks.

The U.S. Department of Justice recently ordered Dayton, Ohio’s police department to lower its written exam passing scores so as to have more blacks on its police force. What should Attorney General Eric Holder do about the lack of diversity in sports? Why don’t the intellectual elite protest? Could it be that the owners of these multi-billion-dollar professional basketball, football and baseball teams are pro-black while those of the NHL and major industries are racists unwilling to put blacks in highly paid positions?

There’s one ethnic diversity issue completely swept under the rug. Jewish Americans are less than 3 percent of our population and only two-tenths of 1 percent of the world’s population. Yet between 1901 and 2010, Jews were 35 percent of American Nobel Laureate winners and 22 percent of the world’s.

If the diversity gang sees underrepresentation as “probative” of racial discrimination, what do they propose we do about overrepresentation? Because if one race is overrepresented, it might mean they’re taking away what rightfully belongs to another race.

There are other representation issues to which we might give some attention with an eye to corrective public policy. Asians routinely get the highest scores on the math portion of the SAT while blacks get the lowest. Men are 50 percent of the population and so are women; yet men are struck by lightning six times as often as women. The population statistics for South Dakota, Iowa, Maine, Montana and Vermont show that not even 1 percent of their populations is black. On the other hand, in states such as Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, blacks are overrepresented in terms of their percentages in the general population.

There are many international examples of disproportionality. For example, during the 1960s, the Chinese minority in Malaysia received more university degrees than the Malay majority – including 400 engineering degrees compared with four for the Malays, even though Malays dominate the country politically. In Brazil’s state of Sao Paulo, more than two-thirds of the potatoes and 90 percent of the tomatoes produced were produced by people of Japanese ancestry.

The bottom line is there no evidence anywhere that but for discrimination, people would be divided according to their percentages in the population in any activity. Diversity is an elitist term used to give respectability to acts and policy that would otherwise be deemed as racism.

Walter E. Williams is the John M. Olin distinguished professor of economics at George Mason University, and a nationally syndicated columnist. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page.

…27For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.… Galatians 3: 27-29

Catfish and Cheese grits from BLM answer

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