Deacon Kyle Eller: What is inclusion, anyway?

A recording of a Canadian teacher berating a Muslim student for his lack of inclusion recently went viral. The student had, apparently, opted out of a “pride” event at his school, and this enraged the teacher, who informed this student that participating in “pride” events was expected of him in reciprocation for (among other things) the school acknowledging Ramadan during the year.

Deacon Kyle Eller

At the low point of her angry monologue, she told the student that if he did not believe that marriage should be understood in law to include two people of the same sex, “you can’t be Canadian. You don’t belong here, and I mean it. I really mean it.”

Hold that thought and then consider a meme that was making the social media rounds at about the same time: “I’d rather be excluded for who I include than be included for who I exclude,” it said.

It seems to me if you put those two things together, it neatly summarizes a pressing question: What, exactly, do we mean by “inclusion”?

Until it became an ideological word, even a creedal word, part of that secular trinity of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” that now dominates every cultural conversation and functions almost as a state religion, we all would have understood it perfectly. We’d have given the obvious definition in the Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary from 1999 that sits on my desk: “the act of including,” which in turn means “to take in or comprise as a part of a whole or group.”

“Inclusion” in this sense would mean recognizing a person as part of a community, such as a nation, despite differences and disagreements. It would mean the opposite of saying you “can’t be Canadian” unless you believe some particular thing about human sexuality.

As with so many of the words that have been successfully weaponized, that success depends on equivocation — on taking advantage of the fact that people use the word in different and contradictory ways. People still (rightly) value the concept of “inclusion” in its original meaning. That’s precisely what makes the accusation of being “exclusionary” so powerful, and when falsely made, so poisonous. The accusation attacks a person’s character and reputation, and the threat of it is a powerful means of coercion.

And that, of course, is the point of the meme. While posing as a self-congratulatory bit of virtue signaling, the meme is actually directed at those whom the person sharing it has judged to be “exclusive.” Paradoxically, it’s said precisely for the purpose of exclusion and condemnation.

The Canadian school where the recorded incident took place distanced itself from the teacher’s comments, declaring the views expressed contrary to the school’s values. Perhaps so. But be that as it may, I can’t help thinking that in the eyes of her ideological allies, the teacher’s real offense was “saying the quiet part out loud,” openly following these ideas to their logical conclusion before it’s politically expedient to do so.

I’ve lost count of the times in recent month I’ve seen people comment in ways that imply (or outright state) that those of us who, for instance, are opposed to biological boys in girls locker rooms and sports teams or to so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors are not real Minnesotans and maybe should leave. Some of those comments came from my elected officials.

It’s strange, isn’t it? I’m a native Minnesotan, lived nearly my entire life here, the only exception being going to a college about 30 miles over the border, where my Minnesota accent once got me accused of being from Canada. I’ve eaten many a hotdish at a potluck, I’ve been traumatized by the Vikings, and I regularly engage in the long Minnesota goodbye. I’m generally about as Minnesotan as a person can be. I know Minnesotans with a huge diversity of views about things. And I don’t think it would have occurred to me to suggest someone who disagrees with me about “drag queen story hour” is not a Minnesotan. I don’t think it would have occurred to me to imagine myself the arbiter of that. I’m content just trying to talk with them and listen to them and perhaps respectfully try to persuade them. That, it seems to me, is inclusive, and Minnesotan.

Inclusion, of course, is much discussed in the church these days, too. It’s right that we should — there is no more important community to be included in than the church founded by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to bring salvation to the whole world.

In the Second Vatican Council, the church speaks of herself in these terms: “Christ is the Light of nations. Because this is so, this Sacred Synod gathered together in the Holy Spirit eagerly desires, by proclaiming the Gospel to every creature, to bring the light of Christ to all men, a light brightly visible on the countenance of the Church. Since the Church is in Christ like a sacrament or as a sign and instrument both of a very closely knit union with God and of the unity of the whole human race, it desires now to unfold more fully to the faithful of the Church and to the whole world its own inner nature and universal mission. This it intends to do following faithfully the teaching of previous councils. The present-day conditions of the world add greater urgency to this work of the Church so that all men, joined more closely today by various social, technical and cultural ties, might also attain fuller unity in Christ.”

The church fosters inclusion by seeking something still deeper: unity, which can only be found in Jesus Christ, true God and true man, and the truth he has revealed to us about God and about ourselves. Membership in this community derives not from our geographic location or our cultural and family ties but from baptism and from faith in the person of Jesus and in all he has revealed.

We should be inclusive in the ways we pursue this unity. We should meet people where they are, love them, listen to them, dialogue with them, respect their freedom, propose rather than impose, walk with them gradually. But we can never lose sight of the fact that Christ is the true light of the world, and to abandon any of his teachings would be to deprive people of that light and to betray the truth and to destroy the very unity we seek.

Deacon Kyle Eller is editor of The Northern Cross. Reach him at [email protected].