Race and the Family

Finally Doug Jones also says that the family too must be colorblind. Jones asserts that interracial marriages are entirely permissible. He asks, “Do parents have a Biblical basis to prohibit such marriages due to race? Parents too must heed the sixth commandment, image of God in man, and consider others better than themselves. For parents to forbid such a marriage solely on the basis of race is sinful. The church would be in its proper jurisdiction if it counseled and ultimately disciplined the parents for their sinful attitudes.”

Really? This is perhaps the most tortured reasoning of the whole piece. Do we honestly think that we must hate everyone we wouldn’t want our daughter to marry? And where does Jones get the idea that the church has any authority to intervene? We read in Numbers 30 that a father has the right to refuse his daughter for any reason whatsoever. There are no qualifications listed for when she may go behind his back. Certainly Jones’ idea subverts the biblical authority of the father from some ill-conceived authority of the church. Would Jones discipline Isaac and Rebekah for not approving of Esau marrying Canaanites? (Gen. 26:34-35, 27:46)

Another problem is that Jones completely leaves out the fifth commandment that we are to “Honor thy father and thy mother.” The immediate application of the fifth commandment is that it would certainly be dishonoring to our parents to simply go against their wishes in marrying someone who they did not approve of. There are many times in the Bible when we are commanded to obey our parents. Christ rebuked the Pharisees by voiding the requirement of children to obey their parents through their own tradition (Matt. 15:3-6, Mk. 7:9-13). Paul commands children to obey their parents (Eph. 6:1-3, Col. 3:20) and lists those who are "disobedient to parents" with those who are unrighteous and unholy (Rom. 1:30, 2 Ti. 3:2). A broader application of the fifth commandment is that we ought to honor our fathers and mothers or our ancestors in general. This is why the fifth commandment ends with “that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.” (Ex. 20:12) Not everyone who dishonors their parents dies young and not everyone who honors their parents lives long. This speaks of the collective prosperity of the people or nation. If the nation does not regard its ancestors, heritage, and birthright it is destined to forfeit them.

Bearing this in mind, it is important that people keep this in mind when selecting a mate. It is unbiblical to think that ones heritage does not matter. Interracial marriage often is the result from pride and disregard for one’s ancestors and heritage. A specific application of this is made in the apocryphal book of Tobit: “Beware of all whoredom, my son, and chiefly take a wife of the seed of thy fathers, and take not a strange woman to wife, which is not of thy father's tribe: for we are the children of the prophets, Noe, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: remember, my son, that our fathers from the beginning, even that they all married wives of their own kindred, and were blessed in their children, and their seed shall inherit the land. Now therefore, my son, love thy brethren, and despise not in thy heart thy brethren, the sons and daughters of thy people, in not taking a wife of them: for in pride is destruction and much trouble, and in lewdness is decay and great want: for lewdness is the mother of famine.” (Tobit 4:12-13) Occasional intermarriage won’t kill a family or a nation, but a disregard for the heritage of one’s ancestors sure will.

A similar application could be made in adoption as well. The law stipulated that if adoption were necessary then it would be carried out by near relatives. An example of this is the law of levirate marriage that was designed to prevent familial property and inheritance from being removed from tribe to tribe. (Num. 36:1-13) Another example is Esther who was raised by her cousin Mordecai (Esther 2:7). When whites adopt colored children from the world over, they take them from their native people and heritage and try to change them into whites. Adoption is a necessary reality today, but for these reasons should probably be confined to one’s own ethnicity and people.

We ought to view race as simply an extension of the family. When faith and folk come together, it often leads to the best expression of both of them. How sad is it to see the modern church blur the lines of family, kinship, and race in order to keep up with the times. No matter how stubbornly people today try to deny the importance of race, it will continually dominate our lives. The best thing for Christians to do is to come to terms with the biblical view of race and kinship.