Biracial Marriage

[Magnetic Poles]

Ok not looking for an argument here, but for the poster(s), who have voted no to any black/other race category why is that? If you are against one, why not all? What makes a bi-racial marriage with a black person so disagreeable?

I was wondering the same thing. Looks to me to be pure racism against one particular race, but if I am wrong, someone tell us why.

 

[Joseph M. Smith]

OUr "blood" family is white -- English and German in background -- and our daughter's husband is African-American. So I have three of the most lovely, wonderful grandchildren in the world. Pictures, anyone? Obviously I do not have feelings against this marriage (indeed, I officiated at it). But I will agree with the poster who said that it is important to learn the cultural nuances involved. My son-in-law's father spent his government career in Equal Employment Opportunity work, so you can understand his concern for racial justice. And it is still true, here in the Washington, DC, area, that blacks and whites still operate in separate worlds to a large degree.

I am interested in something that was raised by another poster -- how these children will identify as they grow older. They are young now (the oldest is 6 1/2) and appear not even to notice that one set of grandparents looks quite different from the other set! But there is pressure to line up with either black or white. We will see. I am just glad that they will be in a school and in a church that is greatly diversified. When the kindergarten class listed the names of the students, you would have thought you were at the United Nations!

 

[mcdirector]

OUr "blood" family is white -- English and German in background -- and our daughter's husband is African-American. So I have three of the most lovely, wonderful grandchildren in the world. Pictures, anyone? Obviously I do not have feelings against this marriage (indeed, I officiated at it). But I will agree with the poster who said that it is important to learn the cultural nuances involved. My son-in-law's father spent his government career in Equal Employment Opportunity work, so you can understand his concern for racial justice. And it is still true, here in the Washington, DC, area, that blacks and whites still operate in separate worlds to a large degree.

I am interested in something that was raised by another poster -- how these children will identify as they grow older. They are young now (the oldest is 6 1/2) and appear not even to notice that one set of grandparents looks quite different from the other set! But there is pressure to line up with either black or white. We will see. I am just glad that they will be in a school and in a church that is greatly diversified. When the kindergarten class listed the names of the students, you would have thought you were at the United Nations!

There is pressure to line up. I went with the Cherokee/Choctaw side, my sister went to all the Scottish festivals

Go figure. Although I do wonder if it has anything to do with which side of the family we most resemble . . .

 

[Gwen]

I don't have a problem with bi racial marriages. I think the only guideline God gives us is, "Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers."

Hey, Bitsy, I'm part Cherokee and Scottish, too!

 

[Mr.M]

I believe a lot of people like to take the "Look at me, I'm above all that ugly prejudicialness of others" route to satisfy their need for some level of human righteousness/self-righteousness.

The fact is everyone is prejudice to some degree or another. While there might be a rare exception where that person is minimal in their prejudices (every one stand up and claim to be that exception), the fact is even the least prejudice person is prejudice.

Only a person who is deluding themselves to satisfy some imaginary social standard of acceptable thinking denies their own prejudices. Look at society, prejudices are quite normal and natural.

Most people of a particular race or ethnicity frankly prefer company with their own race or ethnicity on a macro social scale. Imagine being a visitor from outer space. You would find immediately that most Asians live with....Asians...most Africans with Africans and most Hispanics with Hispanics and most Anglos with Anglos. This is not an evil, this is normal. Just as people identify with their family and enjoy such familial identification, this reality of human behavior is not abandoned when someone leaves their front door. People for the most part, prefer their own kind.

This does not mean you can find your own kind only in your own race or ethnicity because as you get to know someone you may discover that beyond the normal immediate identifiers there is a very strong mental compatibility, but it does mean that quite naturally people will use the most common and immediate identifiers for selecting associations.

The question is not are you prejudice or do you approve of this or that but do you allow your prejudices to override and control how you treat people? For example. I do not care for interracial marriages but my prejudice is not going to supersede my divine imperative to treat people with kindness, patience, divine love and so on. It does not mean I have to select them for social events but it also does not mean I have to automatically exclude them either. It means simply that I have to be honest with myself and not play games and pretend I am above all of this and get to know people in light of my prejudices and treat them as a believer is commanded to treat them.

So now, I generally do not like interracial or interethnic marriages. I married a white person like me and frankly I was never attracted to other ethnicities and races for romantic considerations. Did I feel bad about that? Of course not. How ridiculous. There are many legitimate reasons for determining to not like such marriages.

However, simply because a person does not like something is no sound cause for final conclusions or prescriptive treatment of people. We are to rise above our prejudices as believers. Nothing ever says we are not to have them, we are to rise above them. I am sure this is not going to strum the hearts of the PC crowd but honesty is how one should live, even with themselves.

 

[rbell]

No problem at all with any of these or any other bi racial marriage. I do believe that anyone entering a biracial marriage needs to go into it with their eyes wide open. The will find people who don't approve, probably form their own families. The need to understand the culture of their spouse and be prepared to adopt some cultural elements from their spouse.

You can run into a lot of the same problems that will be encountered in a biracial marriage in a marriage between two people of the same race but who were raised in differing cultures and / or religions i.e. a White Anglo Saxon Protestant from New Jersey marries a White Catholic from Germany.

Bill

Yep Yep (+filler to count as a post!) :laugh:

 

[Tentmaker]

No problem here. I'm just looking forward to the time when we are all one color. And it won't be black or white.

 

[Cody2]

I don't have a problem with it at all. The Bible teaches we are to marry the different sex and they should be a believer.

2 Corinthians 6:14
"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?" KJV

 

[bobbyd]

I've performed a wedding for a bi-racial couple...so i better not have problems with it!

 

[pocadots1990]

We are all from Adam's race. To be in a biracial marriage, is not biblically wrong, but there are a lot of churches who will not accept it. That is very sad.

 

[4boys4joys]

A Little Help

One day your child of many races will ask you this. What will people think I am,when that day comes here is one way you can explain it. The first thing they see when they look at you is what they will think you are. If they see black first that is how they will define you maybe even treat you differently. They will have pre conceived notions about you based on some social prejudices they have learned, whether they realize that or not. Your goal is to one day show them that you are a child of God and that the color that covers your sin is the most important color of all. Then they will not see your heritage, but they will see your inheritance.

 

[Cutter]

Hate to burst everybody Kumbaya, feel good thread, but God is a God of order and not of confusion. Bi-racial marriages create more confusion than harmony. Since prejudices exist and we live in an imperfect world, the offspring of bi-racial marriages are subject to hardship because of the desire of their parents to wed another race.
Marriages are difficult enough to maintain apart from bi-racial distractions. I do not perform bi-racial marriages. I'm sure I will be called a racist and a bigot, but talk to many other races and deep down they feel the same way. I respect all races and freely share worship of God with all races, but to marry and lie with them is another matter and I hope they feel the same way about me. God made us different for a reason. Our cultures are different and rich with tradition. These things matter. It gives children identity and sense of belonging. Is your culture and heritage important to you or do you wish for it to eventually fade and pass away because no one cared to preserve it. Whether, African American, Asian, Hispanic, or Caucasian, we all have our personal touch by the Hand of God.

 

[Joseph M. Smith]

The most recent postings to this thread, even though they in many ways run counter to what I had posted earlier, do point out some of the issues that are important. One poster mentioned church acceptance ... when I first came to Washington in 1971 the Convention staff member who gave me an orientation drove me around the area and pointed to a church building, saying, "That's the church where the mixed-race couples go ... they don't feel welcome anywhere else." I believe that has changed, at least on the surface, but these things are subtle. A mixed-race couple may attend a church and think they are welcome, but not know that behind the scenes there is tongue-wagging and a quiet exclusion. It happens.

And then those posters who spoke about how children identify or are identified ... this is what I was getting at when I said I wondered how my grandchildren will be viewed. I have just finished reading the book, "Breaking Back", by James Blake, the tennis pro. He had a white mother and an African-American father, just as my grandchildren do. I noticed that on two or three occasions in the book, he refers to himself as African-American, clearly identifying with that side of his background. But he also speaks fondly and frequently of his father's involvement in his life and positive influence on it, and that gives me a clue: the parent with whom the child identifies most and tries to emulate may give that child his/her sense of racial identity. Interestingly enough, as Blake tells his life story, most of his friends are not identified racially, but I would surmise from the context that most are white. All of this to say that he seems to have a healthy attitude about race.

That's what I want for my grandchildren too. The family were all together recently for granddaughter no. 2's fifth birthday, and I just marveled and rejoiced at the children's total apparent indifference to the fact that one set of grandparents look quite different from the other set! Hallelujah. But the test will start to come now that granddaughter no. 1 is about to enter the first grade. Will the school and/or her classmates "need" to classify her? Will she "need" to identify with some group based on appearance?

Biracial couples are no longer as rare in the Washington area as they used to be, by the way, but what if one of these couples wants to move elsewhere in the US?

 

[abcgrad94]

We're all ONE race--Adam's race. There are many different nationalities and heritages.

The only time God frowned on mixed marriages in the Bible was when the Isrealites married idol worshiping people. The issue was spiritual, not social. God knew His people would turn away to the idols.

If two believers are different in color or nationality, Biblically they can marry if they so choose. The social problems that may result are man-made, but not endorsed by God. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart.

 

[Cutter]

The social problems that may result are man-made, but not endorsed by God. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart.

Exactly! That's why I said to consider the grief you are placing on your children. God loves them, as He does us all, but if they live and grow up, it will be in an imperfect world where they will suffer. If time permitted and all races homogenized, eventually only one race would exist, but it hasn't yet.

If you remember in the Bible why we were made different to begin with I think you will have a better understanding why God wants our differences to be appreciated and preserved.

 

[tinytim]

One race does exist... THE HUMAN RACE.
ABCGrad got it right.

 

[Sopranette]

Cutter, while I do respect your opinion and honesty, I'm going to have to disagree. People mention children will have a hard time being of mixed race or heritage, but it seems to me, the problems they encounter doesn't come from the fact that they are mixed, they stem from other people's inability to accept them as they are. This seems to be changing with each generation becoming more accepting of mixed relationships. Teenagers today don't seem to even notice anymore.
You also say God made us different for a reason, but wasn't Moses married to an Etheopian woman? I do not recall one instance where having wives or husbands from different races was wrong in God's eyes.
Scientifically speaking, the differences in racial features amount to less than 1 percent of our genetic makeup. We are almost identical beneath the skin and hair. If people are constantly looking into the past to make an identity for themselves, I can guarentee they will be less than happy with what they find. I've seen it time and again.

Love,

Sopranette

 

[Matt Black]

I have no problem with the ones getting married. I'm concerned for the children, though. A man and a woman can put up with flack from their families if they are ignorant in the matter, but children will have a harder time understanding why Uncle Ned doesn't like me.

What about "Uncle Ned is a racist bigot and needs our prayers in that area, even though he may be a Very Nice Man(TM) in all other respects"?

 

[rbell]

Hate to burst everybody Kumbaya, feel good thread, but God is a God of order and not of confusion. Bi-racial marriages create more confusion than harmony. Since prejudices exist and we live in an imperfect world, the offspring of bi-racial marriages are subject to hardship because of the desire of their parents to wed another race.
Marriages are difficult enough to maintain apart from bi-racial distractions. I do not perform bi-racial marriages. I'm sure I will be called a racist and a bigot, but talk to many other races and deep down they feel the same way. I respect all races and freely share worship of God with all races, but to marry and lie with them is another matter and I hope they feel the same way about me. God made us different for a reason. Our cultures are different and rich with tradition. These things matter. It gives children identity and sense of belonging. Is your culture and heritage important to you or do you wish for it to eventually fade and pass away because no one cared to preserve it. Whether, African American, Asian, Hispanic, or Caucasian, we all have our personal touch by the Hand of God.

Questions:

• Can you support your assertions with Scripture? (you cannot)
• Usually when people are against "Bi-racial" marriages, they only mean black and white. Would you marry a hispanic and an asian? How about a very dark-skinned caucasian and hispanic?
• Exactly how can you make such a monolithic case out of "culture?" I've met white folk that seemed to affiliate with "black culture," and blacks with whites. "Cultural differences" don't always follow skin color.
• I'm not going to call you names. I just think it's sad that you will take something further than Scripture does. Are the racial and/or cultural differences (and their impact on marriage, families, children, etc.) worth discussing in counseling? Absolutely. But IMO you're off base denying two people from marrying when no Scriptural reason for doing so exists.

 

[rbell]

God is a God of order and not of confusion.

You can use that out-of-context quote to justify anything. Bad use of Scripture.

Since prejudices exist and we live in an imperfect world, the offspring of bi-racial marriages are subject to hardship because of the desire of their parents to wed another race.

Since prejudices exist in our imperfect world, I shouldn't talk to Blacks of Hispanics...hardship might result.

but talk to many other races and deep down they feel the same way.

So now we vote on what is ethical or not? Is "right and wrong" determined by God, or consensus?

Is your culture and heritage important to you or do you wish for it to eventually fade and pass away because no one cared to preserve it.

Your culture is different than what the culture of your ancestors from 500 years ago is. It changes, like it or not. I'm more concerned with following Christ than maintaining White Identity.

Bi-racial marriages create more confusion than harmony.

Perhaps you could share that with Mike and Melissa...two very good friends of mine (Mike was a deacon chairman at one of my churches). He's quite black. She's quite white. Married for 20+years, happy as can be, 3 well-adjusted great boys.

I do not perform bi-racial marriages.

I'm sure you'll provide us with Scripture to back up this prohibition.

Whether, African American, Asian, Hispanic, or Caucasian, we all have our personal touch by the Hand of God.

Agreed. And that fact supports my assertion, not yours.