Signals we send

Year C - Advent - A Real Christmas on Vimeo

This post brought to you by the mutual conversation and consolation of the brethren.

Take one minute and watch the teaser video for the current WELS-ordained sermon series "A Real Christmas." Pay attention to the signals we are sending. The scene opens with two children of differing race interacting with an Advent calendar. The words on the screen speak to guilt over not creating a 'perfect' Christmas. An almost faceless mother (we presume, based on the wedding band) a few shades darker is reading a Bible to her kids.

Now let me be clear - I have no issue with interracial marriage or adoption. Both are free, but very serious choices for the Christian to make after careful and prayerful consideration that God's will be done. What I take issue with is the projection of values that our synod leaders criticize us for lacking, namely

WELS Congregational Services is the same entity that distributes the WELS statistical summary and produces The Foundation series of sermons and advertising to align the synod in messaging and form, treating our churches no different than McDonalds' treats their franchises. What signal are we sending? The message is clearly aimed at women, particularly mothers, to assuage their "mom-guilt." But "mom" is not inclusive, so we say "parent", but the eyes take in a female with two children. Our brains know better. But why are we targeting moms? We know that if you want to capture the family, you need to capture the father, and the family follows. The composition of white child, less white child, and even less white mother projects and image of diversity that, internally, we are criticized for not having obtained. This projects to the world a worldly pleasing image of diversity, equity and inclusion. 

That's the signal we send. 

(A better signal to send might be not a mother but a father leading his wife and children in family devotion, surrounded not by two but by a number of children well above the replacement rate.)

The same phenomenon is at play in the messaging presented by the Cultural Engagement Center at MLC. The banner has a sequence of five images.

We start off displaying diversity with African children that are clearly not in Minnesota. This is likely a mission trip. Great work performed by MLC's faculty and students.

We continue displaying diversity in an on-campus food service setting. I'm told that the students in this picture have long since graduated - I guess we have to 'dig deep' to find the diversity we want to display.

A hat tip to the primary constituents of MLC as they travel to Germany - this covers the "study abroad/teach abroad" mission of the Cultural Engagement Center.

We continue displaying diversity in the chapel

And now we have two white females with no connection to the Cultural Engagement Center's diversity or study/teach abroad mandates.

The first four pictures make a lot of sense in the context of the Cultural Engagement Center. The Cultural Engagement Center lists four main objectives: Diversity Support, Study Abroad, Teach abroad, International Student Services. These map nearly 1:1 with the pictures presented: Diversity support by picture 2, Study Abroad by picture 3, Teach Abroad by picture 1, and International Student Services by picture 4.

But what do we make of picture five? 

They aren't diverse. They don't appear to be abroad. Imagine you are from the Higher Learning Commission working on updating MLC's accreditation. Part of your accreditation score includes the presence of diversity, equity and inclusion on campus. You page through pictures in the banner. Diversity - check, diversity - check, diversity - check, diversity - check. Then you get to a picture of two white women in Minnesota standing close to each other in isolation of any other form of diversity. Might an accreditor whose mind is primed for diversity think... sexual diversity?  

Is that a signal we risk sending?

I'm sure these women are perfectly chaste, perhaps with a boyfriend or so committed to their studies that they don't have time for boys (a different problem for a later post), but are we leading a heathen horse to water? Each of us lives in an echo chamber; some intentionally and some incidentally. It should go without saying that I am not accusing MLC of trying to promote lesbian inclusivity on campus. Rather, I am pointing out that in most critically conscious corporate venues this is exactly how that message would be conveyed. You don't mean to communicate that message; however, that is precisely the message you are communicating.

I feel my thesis is justified when reading the first complete sentence on the page. 

"The Cultural Engagement Center is a welcoming space for our diverse students where they feel seen, heard, and valued."

Apparently, we can't say that MLC as an institution is a welcoming space for diverse students to feel seen, heard, and valued - we need a safe space where this can take place. A not-so-subtle jab at the faculty? The predominantly white student body? 

That is the signal they send.