By Bruce Sidebotham, Telios Law for THE CHRISTIAN POST
Americans are often presented with one of two false dichotomies: to oppose racism you must embrace DEI; or if DEI is wrong, then racism itself must no longer be a problem. But there is a third view on which the Gospel runs that allows Christians to address the problem redemptively without embracing the zero-sum game that has defined the conversation.
History provides context, and so before turning to the Bible, we can turn to some observations American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington made shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In explaining the importance of flags, crosses, crescents, and even head coverings, he noted that cultural identity is extremely meaningful to people, and so symbols of cultural identity are imbued with that meaning.
The reason for this elevation of cultural identity, according to Huntington, is that culture is tied up with self-identity: “People define themselves in terms of ancestry, religion, language, history, values, customs, and institutions. They identify with cultural groups: tribes, ethnic groups, religious communities, nations, and at the broadest level, civilizations … We know who we are only when we know who we are not and often only when we know who we are against.”
