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"Anyway, I was walking by the church the other day, admiring its beauty, when I noticed a banner attached to poles. Written on the banners were the following words: “We are people who believe in justice, come believe with us.” Other banners on other poles substituted the words “hope,” “peace,” and “grace” for the word “justice.”
Lovely sentiments and lovely invitations. They happen to ornament an Episcopal church, but (except for the word “grace”) they might just as well have ornamented the front window of the headquarters of the Communist Party. Who doesn’t believe in justice and peace and hope?
As for grace, it’s an ambiguous word, which sometimes has a Christian meaning but often does not. You might have thought that a church named “Trinity” would have a banner that said, “We are people who believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Come believe with us.” Or perhaps, “We are people who believe in Jesus Christ, true man and true God. Come believe with us.”
But no. Banners like that would not be “inclusive,” and in the secular (or secularist) culture that dominates present-day America, the greatest of all values is inclusivity. Its opposite, exclusivity, is a great sin. Racism is a great sin, and so is sexism, and so is homophobia, and so is transphobia, and so is xenophobia, and so is Islamophobia.
These “isms” and “phobias” are great sins against the supreme value of inclusivity. This value used to be called tolerance; but the word “tolerance” has negative associations. It’s as if the merely tolerant person is saying, “You’re wrong, but I’m willing to put up with you.”
By contrast, the person who believes in unlimited inclusivity is saying, “You’re right, and I want you in my circle of friends. Everybody is right – except of course those awful people who practice exclusivity.”"