Jews ‘Canary in the Coal Mine’ in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Ideology

One would not think that Jews would be the target of the malign machinations of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) ideology and movement. After all, American Jews are historically political and cultural liberals, stalwarts for racial justice, and are themselves a minority. Why would they be targets of DEI?

They have become targets in recent weeks, not only in our country but in much of the world.

Domestically, the most enthusiastic of those who target Jews have been those associated with elite universities. It has been shocking to witness large rallies at which students chant “From the river to the sea,” “globalize the intifada,” “against the genocide,” “down with apartheid and colonial Israel,” and many others.

Not only has there been linguistic assaults, there have been actual physical abuses.

We now can understand the DEI logic against Israel specifically and Jews in general. Israeli Jews and Jews elsewhere who support them are oppressors because they now have the strength to fend off those who wish to liquidate them. They are now subjects of their own history, not objects, which has been their historic experience. Further, they are often classified as white, which in intersectional thought makes them doubly oppressive. Even further, many have settled in the land of their age-old heritage, joining those who have never left. A good portion of those who settled in Israel were driven out of their Iraqi, Yemeni and other Middle Eastern homes after Israel’s victory in the war of 1947-48. So they are colonialists, a third intersectional sin. Fourth, Israel and many American Jews are deeply involved in capitalist economies.

Even more problematic, the Jewish faith, continued nearly miraculously in many scattered communities through the ages, is one of the great tributaries in the formation of Western Civilization. It joined with the Christian and classical traditions, which, until the upheaval of the 60s, provided the moral guidance system of the West, including the U.S. 

That Judeo-Christian tradition, though challenged by several others, continues to play an important role in American life.

In yet another sin against the DEI ideology, the Judeo-Christian Tradition has strongly affirmed the sexual binary, honored heterosexual marriage and one of its purposes: procreation, the nuclear family, and held that there was a divine pattern below the surface of our common life, natural law. Further, there are divine commandments that transcend the state and other sources of power.

These convictions place it at odds with a key part of the cultural revolution: sexual ethics. Moreover, this tradition holds that we cannot judge people by their race or place in the class structure. It claims that the only indelible characteristics that humans possess are their creation in the divine image and their fallenness.

This Judeo-Christian tradition, according to the cultural Marxism underlying more sophisticated versions of DEI, is the real cause of oppression for racial and sexual minorities. Thus, it has to be challenged and excluded as much as possible. Jews, who share in that tradition (and have embedded it in the state of Israel) are guilty in many intersectional ways. They are the “canaries in the coal mine.”

The real target, however, is he who has exerted the cultural power that has promoted the Judeo-Christian tradition: the white, heterosexual, married orthodox Christian male. He is perceived to have been at the head of the powertrain that has sustained Judeo-Christian culture  (a majority of Christians have in fact always been female, and today most Christians globally are in Africa and the wider Global South). Therefore, insofar as he continues to express and communicate that tradition, he is the oppressor in chief, and has to be marginalized.

If he continues to transmit the unreformed Judeo-Christian tradition, he cannot be included in the DEI-shaped culture of elite universities, or in many of our private and public institutions. He excludes himself by having retrograde values that exclude others from the orbit of full embrace. He and his cohorts cannot take pride in the orientations and behaviors associated with the holy alphabet. Further, the color of his skin and his “whiteness” cannot be erased. Nor can his toxic masculinity. The only way he can be accepted is if he abases himself and fully affirms and supports the DEI ideology. Or, as in many cases, he can self-censure, keeping his beliefs private.

This dark picture sounds like a paranoid conspiracy theory, and to some extent it is. Many sectors of our population do not accept its tenets and there is something of a counterattack going on. Even the president of Harvard can be brought down by those who now challenge the DEI juggernaut. Further, DEI approaches are sometimes of a softer sort: they are extensions of affirmative action strategies carried out for forty years. They are not driven by hardcore Marxist cultural analysis and strategies but will probably be more difficult to eliminate in the near future.

Yet, the elite inhabit the heights of the culture and will not give up easily. They will join with progressive political powers to further their agendas. However, as they persist, they continue to disrupt the common culture that has guided us. There are many signs of that disruption: high rates of overdose and suicide among men; the collapse of marriage and family life among blacks and damage to that of Hispanics and the white working class; a diminishing fertility rate; cultural warfare over education of children and the young; depressed young without a sense of purpose or meaning. and widespread confusion about and obsession with sexual identity.

We are not without hope, however. American history is a story of religious revival and renewal. While American Mainline Protestant religious denominations have accommodated to the DEI agenda and suffered huge losses, a strong remnant has not. Indeed, orthodox Christianity is flourishing under the surface. It is a strong antidote to the confusion and decadence of the larger culture, and will possibly—God willing—provide a resource for renewal. It will not die before the DEI juggernaut.

Dr. Robert Benne was Jordan-Trexler Professor of Religion and Chair of the Religion and Philosophy department at Roanoke College for eighteen years before he left full-time teaching in 2000. He founded the Roanoke College Center for Religion & Society in 1982 and directed it until 2012. He is currently Professor of Christian Ethics, Institute of Lutheran Theology.