While I mourn many things that are being lost in the last few months here in America, one that grieves me the most has been the absolute shredding of many markers of equality in our culture. As I watch what is happening, it’s now clear to me that this equality was a lot less solid than I had thought.
As a bit of background, a very significant part of my journey since 2020 has been having my eyes opened to the lived experiences of people very different than me. I’ve become very sensitized to oppression and how it looks and acts in our society. The change this has wrought in me is a determination to work for equality and equity in many different frames: race, gender, sexuality, immigration, class, among others.
Looking back on my life, I have realized that my tribe (if I may appropriate a cultural term to describe the group of upper-class white cisgender heterosexual conservative Christians in the social majority in America) paid a lot of lip service to equality, but only from a very idealistic perspective, and with the implicit assumption that our tribe was absolutely the correct standard.
With that said, I think we did try to nudge the needle towards equality. For example, while most in my tribe vehemently objected to the Equal Rights Amendment, we at least didn’t want women suppressed unfairly, and I never heard anyone object to the idea of equal pay or opportunities for women (at least, outside the pulpit). And we tried hard to overcome racism – at least, in certain ways.
Promise Keepers was once a big deal in my life, in the mid 1990s. I was there in 1997 on the National Mall in DC with 750,000 other men, seeking God for national restoration and personal growth. One of the hallmarks of that movement, at least in its early days, was racial harmony and the breaking down of racial barriers. At least half of the speakers were non-white, and there were specific moments of those massive events devoted to restoring racial unity in the church.
But today, with eyes and heart that have been significantly retrained to see these topics not from my white male cisgender heterosexual perspective, but from a much broader view, especially one that is willing to – and trying to – see where my perspective is limited if not completely wrong, for the last few years I could see how America still has a long, long way to go towards true equality.
And perhaps the biggest proof of this immaturity, this actual inequality, is what has happened since the 47th presidential administration took over, and Project 2025 was launched. With my former tribe fully in command of the government, I’ve been very disheartened to see so many markers of that equality being stripped away. Under the banners of anti-woke, anti-DEI, anti-CRT, anti-immigrant, and anti-welfare, the carefully and painfully crafted equalizing measures are disappearing faster than an ice cream cone that fell onto a hot sidewalk.
And even if the other party wins back control of the reins of power in a few years, the damage that’s been done in just a few months – and is likely to continue to be done – will take years if not decades to rectify.
And this brings me to my title – a shallow veneer of equality.
Coming through the 2024 election season, watching a massive swell of support for a Black woman candidate for president, and the fairly broad tolerance for other social issues, I felt like maybe America had finally turned a corner from some of the oppressive harms of its past, despite the pushback from conservatives.
But now I see I was wrong. If these things can be so rapidly dismantled, if rights can be stripped away so easily, if the poor are utterly abandoned, the immigrant chased away, the great deeds of non-white members of our society stripped from public view, the people on the fringes chased into hiding again, then we never were equal.
Instead, what we had was the privileged class handing out just enough pretend equality to silence their own consciences and suppress dissent from the oppressed. It wasn’t real change; it was pacification and mollification. It was self-talk for the white cis-het majority, so they could feel good about themselves but not really change anything. They didn’t want solutions; they wanted those people silenced and marginalized again.
And to me, this gives lie to one of the main talking points of Christian Nationalists, who are almost all in that majority tribe: the idea that America is destined to become the Kingdom of God, and lead the world into a glorious Godly eternity, that Heaven is on America’s side, because America is bringing the very light of Heaven into a darkened world.
When America’s supposed equality is so paper-thin that a cabal of politicians and judges can strip away the majority of the measures meant to protect the oppressed, it’s clear to me that there never WAS any real equality.
And in observing this, once again I find another reason to believe that America never was and never will be God’s special nation, to recognize that it will someday fall just as hard as any other empire, and for similar reasons. Even as those nationalists are celebrating their victory and rushing to implement Project 2025 because they’re completely convinced it will usher in that Kingdom even sooner, I see it as proof that everything they’re hoping for is utterly doomed – exactly for that reason. What looks to them like victory is in fact complete defeat, in every way that truly matters to eternity. The irony is stunning to me.
And it’s because Project 2025 and all this anti-woke, anti-DEI, anti-immigrant lawmaking and all these executive orders are shredding any equality we had, however tenuous it might have been.
And one absolutely defining characteristic of the Kingdom of Heaven is equality. The Bible contains thousands of verses about justice and righteousness, and not in the sense of “punish the wicked,” but in the sense of equality and care for the least and the marginalized and the oppressed. There is no favoritism or partiality in God. (James 2:1) Jesus’ primary message was about selflessness, not preservation of status. (Mark 10:45) The first shall be last. (Matt 20:16) Do unto others. (Matt 7:12) Lay down your life. (John 15:13) Give away your extra cloak. (Matt 5:40) Leave gleanings along the edges of your field. (Lev 23:22) Forgive debts. ( Matt 6:12, Luke 7:41) Visit the prisoner. (Matt 25:36) Worship with the eunuch. (Matt 19:12, Acts 8:36) Welcome the alien. (Zech 7:10) Don’t charge interest. (Deut 23:19, Lev 25:36) Honor the good Samaritan. (Luke 10:36) See the Kingdom arrive with every tribe and tongue and people group and nation gathered together in complete unity around the throne of God. (Rev 7:9)
But somehow, all of that is quite antithetical to the values and goals of this 47th administration, and their cheering supporters.
And that’s why I’m feeling like all that equality we celebrated was mostly illusion, mostly self-talk, mostly empty gestures. While many of us try our best to bring about true equality, and will continue to do so, regardless of the horrors coming out of Washington this year, the simple fact is that our society as a whole is NOT equal, not even close, and something approaching half of our society wants nothing to do with equality – and that half are by and large the ones who consider themselves the chosen representatives of Jesus. And I’m sorry to say that is perhaps more discouraging than any given thing that is being done by Washington. It means our nation isn’t as healthy as I had really thought, not by a long shot.
Am I hopeless?
No.
Am I hopeful?
Also no.
If anything, this makes me determined to fight even harder within my limited sphere of influence, for the rights of others, for the welfare of others. And it’s not just fighting FOR, it’s also fighting AGAINST. I have to oppose this toxic nationalism. I have to stand against these rollbacks of rights. And as much as I am undeniably a white upper-class cis-het male, I have to fight against centering my own rights over and against the rights of others. My own comfort and welfare cannot be allowed to rip away that of others who are not in the majority class.
Because ultimately, I think that’s what Jesus demonstrated, and it’s The Way that we should follow in His footsteps. That’s the vision of the Father that Jesus was showing to the world, and it’s the vision of Jesus and the Father that I hope to show them too.
That’s all for today. We’ll talk again soon. Until then, join me in finding some way to speak up for the oppressed and defenseless, to fight back this rising flood of inequality.
and 
or join our email notification list.