Diversity as applied - not a Christain concept

It's often said that they want diversity of everything except opinion - when this is surely the only thing that really matters in discourse among people. As Walter Lippman says “Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.”  The imposition of DEI, IDE or DIE has become so widespread, and defended with such force, that everyone assumes it makes sense and has become established good practice, so this is telling from Simon Famshawe, LGB Alliance (ex Stonewall):

'I was seriously anxious that this idea about diversity which is about the embrace of difference and about its combination ... in companies that we were working with... was increasingly being used as a tool of conformity. So rather than inclusion for instance being of its essence about difference - I mean if we weren't different we wouldn't need to talk about inclusion - what was happening was that there was a danger that people were saying well in order to be inclusive you have to think like this, speak like this, behave like this, and if you don't we'll exclude you. So what I wanted to explore really and advocate for was that fundamentally human notion that the only thing that we have in common is that we're all different and where does that get us, and what does that throw up in terms of what we have to deal simply by being with each other.' 

Cases

Worcester College

In the Worcester College controversy Christian Concern said: The college reportedly told a student newspaper that the college would use its profits from the conference for "dedicated equality, diversity and inclusivity initiatives" - diversity that doesn't seem to extend to those who hold historic Christian beliefs.

This BBC implies it's wrong that 90% of governors are white. Why? Shouldn't journalistic standards require the BBC to also point out that only 3% - 4% of UK population is black?  In that context, 90% seems entirely reasonable. @NewCultureForum

Churches

Someone volunteered to be nominated for election to a wider church body that they felt qualified to serve on but got the response (from the church leader) that they were looking for diversity and he was not it...!

Disney

'“Brave Space Conversations” are now held at regular intervals—an absurd euphemism for struggle sessions designed to allow activists to vent their frustrations while drowning out dissenting voices.

“At Disney,” the company’s website promises, “inclusion is for everyone. We reimagine tomorrow as our way of amplifying under-represented voices and untold stories as well as championing the importance of accurate representation in media and entertainment.” But, as usual, “inclusion” only protects those who think like DEI activists. “Fairness” only applies to historically oppressed people groups. The only pain worth understanding is that felt by the subsection of LGBT cast members who believe that sex education ought to begin in kindergarten. Listening and seeing is restricted to the approved narratives, and even excludes those LGBT cast members who support the Florida legislation. I know many of them personally, and nearly without exception, they are all parents.' quoted by Rod Dreher

Only 5.6% of the population identify as gay, bisexual, or transgender (Gallup). however, Disney wants 50% of all their characters to be LGBTQIA. That is not called “representation”, that is called indoctrination of the next generation. Shane Pruitt

Diversity seems to be another one of these code words like ‘racist’ or ‘justice’ that in fashionable circles means something different to what it sounds like. Diversity seems to be code for - 'anyone from outside our group is not required' - the opposite of what it claims.

Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida, has outlawed DEI from the State's universities: 'DEI stands for ... Division, Exclusion, and Indoctrination, and that has no part in our public institutions.'

Not a Christian concept

'DEI' is obviously, profoundly, not a Christian concept. Surely it's the content of our character, abilities and experience, our gifting, our SHAPE as Rick Warren would have it, that is important. And this should be assessed against the topics to be decided. To do well an organisation needs a variety of people well-informed on the issues, who do not necessarily come to the same conclusions but at least can put forward the salient points in an argument. Any form of uninviting people based on immutable physical characteristics must surely be wrong.

It is also profoundly unhealthy for a community as a variety of immutable characteristics does not mean a variety of views and skills. One could argue that that is the whole point of this approach – that we exclude the majority view by promoting groups that will vote like us. We are not interested in true diversity and shared decision-making but in narrow sets of people who think like us, or if they are not quite sure what to think on this or that topic unrelated to them will support us as we are obviously on their side as we’re promoting them. This also has the benefit of excluding people who have thought about things and can provide a robust debate.

Where a particular subject requires facts on a certain ‘immutable group’ (like children) then a proper piece of research can be obtained. Just having a member of that group does not mean that they represent the views of the rest of the group – indeed often they do not and cannot.

As an example of the related ‘positive discrimination’ tried in the past, an electrician in the US was waiting to be allowed to enter a Trade federation which would mean he was better paid as clients would assume he was more skilled, but it was decided that other ethnic groups would be allowed in before him – even though he was more qualified. On the job he was having to teach them the work while being paid less. This is not good for anyone, least of all the person paying for the work. I suspect if the people setting this scheme up were asked what sort of surgeon they would like to operate on their child – the one appointed through positive-discrimination or the one best qualified – there would be no question.

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Of course it's also depressing for members of favoured groups who do put the work in and gain skills, as they feel others perceive their achievements as fraudulent or devalued. Every hard-working child who reads that their A Levels grades have been artificially inflated feels that they have been cheated, their concrete achievements rendered meaningless. It's disorientating and depressing, their future in doubt – what do I really know? Am I any good? There are sadly some who are happy to see a community’s well-being reduced - to forment pain and unrest.

Equality of opportunity is one thing – equality of outcome is something else.  Equality of outcome is now disingenuously called ‘equity'.  We all have to learn the humility to recognise that others may have better gifts than us in different areas - and rejoice in that!

Why

So this does not make sense - why set targets for jobs (ie wealth), committees (ie status & influence), based on skin, ethnicity, sex, age ... rather than knowledge, experience and character?   George Orwell saw this in a defeatist ideology that refused to accept a nation might win a fight for its life: “One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.”

So some promoters of ‘diversity’ may just be trying to be nice, but when pushed by untrustworthy actors they are naively promoting an uninformed homogeneity that in turn leads to divisiveness when the unwise decisions are unleashed on the excluded majority.

The political strategy of the left has always been to exaggerate supposed marginalized demographic representation in order to 'educate' the culture more rapidly and normalize a new set of perspectives on said demographic.

So this might be a 'social justice' issue - just not the way it's played! The Bible stands for real justice for our society's members based on their real motives and real actions, in a practical way that contributes to the flourishing of communities not their stagnation and destruction.