What does it mean to be “inclusive”? I am part of a team that is working on a major proposal. My little piece of it deals with a “culture of inclusion.” This is supposed to be more than just a checkbox, how-many-women-and-minorities kind of thing. It is supposed to be a pervasive culture where every voice is valued. At the same time, I’m the advisor of a campus ministry that is attempting to be more inclusive. So I’ve given a fair amount of thought to the philosophical, theological, and ethical foundations of inclusion. Maybe that’s overstating it, but anyway, it occupies my thoughts.
A recent column discussed one of the challenges of being overly inclusive. One of the hallmarks of progressive Christianity is avoiding orthodoxy, but that can end up draining away all meaning from the title. That is, there are people who claim to be progressive Christians who do not believe in the divinity of Jesus, or who do not believe in his bodily resurrection. Where is the line?
Let’s go back to basics. Once, the only people who mattered in the Western world were white men. We were the political leaders, scientists, theologians, engineers, everything. Gradually, and certainly incompletely, that has changed. Now at least some other voices are heard: white women; Blacks, Asians, Latinx, and other races and ethnicities; and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Usually those voices are given far less weight than white men, but now it’s more than zero.
As it turns out, people who are not straight, cisgender, white men actually know stuff, too. How about that! Not only do they have something to say, something to contribute to “their” people, but also to society at large.
The foundation of inclusion is humility. A humble person realizes that they don’t know everything. A person can be confident and still humble. That is, they could be confident within some realm of expertise, while recognizing their limits. For example, I had a conversation with someone at another university recently who is putting together a research team. I could confidently say that I have expertise in solar energy and microgrids, but he asked about several other topics that are outside my bailiwick. Or for another example, I recognize that the six courses I’ve taken through the University of Dubuque’s program for certified lay pastors are not even equivalent to a single semester that an M.Div. student takes. I’m only marginally qualified to preach and lead a church—confident enough to try, but humble enough to listen to mentors. Going back to the column regarding heterodox (even heretical) beliefs, humility means listening to modern voices, but not imagining that all of our inherited wisdom is wrong.
A group, organization, community, or society has a culture of inclusion when that humility extends to the realization that knowledge, wisdom, and inherent worth are present in unexpected places. A person doesn’t need to be an insider to be valued. A person doesn’t need to look or act like the rest of the group to have a valid opinion, or to have an insight that others don’t have.
The opposite attitude is assuming that someone who is “other”—Black, or female, or gay—and successful must have cheated. Exhibit 1: the birther conspiracy about President Obama. Exhibit 2: Kamala Harris must have had an affair with Willie Brown and used him to get ahead. It is unfathomable that these two Black people were successful on their own.
Everyone is a product of both their innate capabilities and their environment, including the opportunities they were given. The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to assume other people’s misfortune is due to their personal failings, while our own misfortune is due to bad luck or other people’s bad intents. To expand on the concept a bit, there is a tendency to assume that outsiders’ misfortune is due to their group’s failings, while insiders’ misfortune is due to bad luck or nefarious groups. Thus many whites believe that inner-city Black poverty is because their culture lacks a work ethic, while rural white poverty is caused by globalism and evil foreigners. A humble person would realize that the real world is messy and complicated, and that perhaps they should listen to actual Blacks and other people of color talk about their struggles against systemic racism.
I leave you now with a hymn by Marty Haugen, Let Us Build a House. I love his work—both lyrics and music. This particular version is an anthem that also incorporates “Come Build a Church” by Ken Medema.