The President’s Anti-DEI Orders are Anti-America—and Anti-God
David R. Weiss – January 27, 2025

There’s a lot going on. Little of it good. And I hardly know where to begin. Let’s start with DEI (that is, efforts to promote diversity, equity, inclusion—which also encompasses accessibility).

The president made no secret of his disdain for DEI policies during his campaign. And I get it. For someone so deeply invested in the wanton exploitation, abuse, and humiliation of people, DEI is more than a mere inconvenience. In fact, DEI policies are an assault on the chosen lifestyle of those who hold obscene wealth and who lust for unlimited power. No wonder it rankles the man’s undies. (I emphasize chosen lifestyle, because, unlike sexual orientation or gender identity, no one is born a sociopathic oligarch; that’s a lifestyle you choose—and it reeks of sin.)

But there are deeper contradictions to his anti-DEI fervor.

For instance, we close the Pledge of Allegiance with this stirring declaration: “with liberty and justice for all.” You don’t even need to be a “very stable genius” to recognize that, as a nation, we haven’t yet lived up to that promise. We’ve rarely even truly aimed for it. For women, religious minorities, persons of color, and those differently abled or LGBTQ, America has only begrudgingly even begun to make good on these words. Honestly, plenty of Americans continue to believe in a trickle-down effect of “liberty and justice” that starts with white men and stops trickling soon after it reaches (some) white women.

This is why DEI matters. It’s one clear manifestation of our acknowledgement that bias and injustice have marked our national past. And that we are indeed committed to take real steps (not simply rehearse empty rhetoric) to make good on the words in our Pledge as we move into the future. DEI is about fulfilling the dream of America for all of us, not just for some of us.

It’s NOT about tilting the table unfairly against white men or giving preferential treatment to unqualified persons. It’s about recognizing that historical circumstances and societal systems have unfairly disadvantaged whole categories of people—and that only by actively, intentionally, and systematically undoing those disadvantages can we move toward an America with liberty and justice for all. DEI policies express the core conviction that America’s greatness—the fullness of liberty and justice for all—rests upon the vibrancy of its diversity, equity, and inclusion.

I suppose it’s possible our current president doesn’t actually believe in these values, but for all the breath he’s spent talking about making America great, it would be a travesty (or worse!) if he imagines our greatness comes by quashing diversity, eschewing equity, and preventing inclusion. Quick reminder: that’s pretty much exactly what Great Britain tried toward the Thirteen Colonies in the eighteenth century. We responded with a revolution.

However, there’s a second contradiction (in my mind an even more damning one!) in the president’s determination to end DEI as an extension of his claim to having been “saved by God to make America great again.” He even doubled down on this god-talk, pledging “we will not forget our country, we will not forget our Constitution, and we will not forget our God.” About that “we”—is that his claim to be speaking on behalf of his party or his administration? Or is it, as I fear, a Freudian slip into the “royal-we,” reflecting his monarchical aspirations … or delusions?

In any case, here’s the problem. God is so deeply committed to DEI that it’s embedded in the divine name itself. It happens in that famous biblical scene with the burning bush. God appears to Moses, as the Voice from the burning bush explains, “For I have heard the cry of those suffering under a regime that denies diversity, equity, and inclusion. And I am coming to redeem them. To lead them out of Egypt and set them in a land where they can flourish.” (Here and elsewhere, paraphrased from Exodus.)

God appoints Moses to be the catalyst for this liberation—to act as God’s DEI czar, so to speak. Moses is understandably intimidated. He stammers, “If I’m to go back and tell my kin that—against all the oppressive power of Egypt—some unseen holiness is going to set them free, they’re going to want to know WHO this god is. So, please, tell me your name.”

In response God offers as the Divine Name, the first-person form of the Hebrew verb “to be.” Often translated “I am who I am,” and sometimes (mistakenly) regarded as the evasion of a name, this is, in fact, God’s direct self-disclosure. In this name God declares, “There is no box that can contain me, no flowery speech that can impress me, and absolutely no regime—Egyptian, Zionist, or Trumpian—that can presume to control me because ‘I am who I am.’ And whoever would be in relationship with me must meet me as Holy Surprise and on terms of Radical Humility.”

You know how the story plays out. Pharoah is about as anti-DEI as you can get. Über-Trumpian (ahem) in his policies. Tariffs? “Let them gather their own straw to make bricks.” Mass deportations? “Kill every baby boy that is born!” Arrogant? “Who is this ‘I AM,’ that I should listen and let these people go? I do not know your god, but I find him neither compelling nor smart—indeed, he has a nasty attitude. And you, Moses, you are boring and uninspiring. Go away. These people are mine to do with as I wish.” And so it goes, until Pharoah finds himself repeatedly plagued by episodes of Holy Surprise.

But this sense of the NAME—“I am who I am—which MEANS I am committed to the wellbeing of the least of these … and to overturning the power of those who oppress them”—this is the character of God consistently revealed across the arc of the biblical story. Second-born sons (or lower) repeatedly become chosen ones, women act decisively-courageously-wisely, a Jubilee resets the entire economy, foreigners become divine instruments, the prophets rail against social and economic injustice (and—against fancy worship that ignores the suffering of people), eunuchs (queer people!) are praised for their faithfulness, and God declares—in a fit of rampant wokeness(!): “I am not yet done gathering in the outcasts!” (Isaiah 56:8) This is DEI on steroids!

Mary echoes it all in her Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), and Jesus embodies it in his ministry. His parables, healings, and meal fellowship obliterate theboundaries of exclusion. From shepherds and wizards (Magi), barren women and bleeding women, lepers and demoniacs, tax collectors and revolutionaries, Samaritans and Gentiles, persons with all manner of disabilities, the man is a DEI-magnet for every imaginable outcast person. In Jesus, the DEI-activity of God is made manifest. The gospels name it as “the kingdom of God.” The Aramaic literally says, “the-activity-of-God-acting-as-king,” and it is nothing less than God bringing diversity, equity, and inclusion to human community. NOTHING LESS THAN THIS!

One last image. Saint Irenaeus of Lyons (122-202 CE), a bishop (no doubt, a nasty one) suggested with evocative richness, “The glory of God is a human person fully alive.” The words were written against the Gnostics, a group who denigrated the human body—both its needs and its desires—as unholy. Against this attitude, Irenaeus responded by saying that in our humanity—our fragile needs and our unpredictable longings, our rampant diversity and our capacity for generosity and compassion—THIS is where the glory of God is revealed. Of course, Irenaeus wrote in Latin: “Gloria Dei vivens homo.” Let me put it back into English for you: The glory of DEI is humanity fully alive.

Our president (and those around him) are dead set on emptying America of its promise—and dead set on opposing the liberating work of the biblical God. He will fail. You can choose to ally yourself with the president—or with God. Don’t imagine you can do both. They are on opposite sides.

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David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind at www.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.