INTERRACIAL MARRIAGE


Just as God created many different plants and animals - for example, many varieties and colours of roses - for greater beauty, so God created the three broad races and colours of human skin - white, yellow and black. God does not reveal in the Bible the precise origin of the different races but is fair conjecture based on Acts 17:26 that in Eve were created ovaries containing yellow and black genes also, so that some of Adam and Eve's children were black and yellow as well as white.

Adam and Eve were given by God all the genes capable of producing children having the varied characteristics that are now manifested in the different races. This does not mean any of those children were a mix of racial appearance though just in those first few generations they carried genes that produced some offspring of a different race to their own (natural beneficial mutations of God's design). Once the 3 broad races (black, white and yellow) and 16 sub-races (eg. Negroes, Indians, Polynesians, Melanesians, etc. within the black race) were manifest after a few generations they then produced only after their kind. Jewish tradition indicates that Cain was black and that Abel was reddish in skin colour (Book of Enoch 84:5). Seth was white in skin colour (Genesis 5:3).

A similar thing to Adam and Eve must have happened with Noah and his wife (some traditions give her name as Namaah). If Ham was white and he married a Negro woman there is no way naturally that any of their children could have been Aboriginal or Indian. There had to have been some supernatural injection of genetic material from God into Noah and his family. Evidence for this can be found in the name of Ham which literally means “burnt” or black. Also, without such an injection of extra genes into the family of Noah, marriage between brothers and sisters or between first cousins would have become genetically dangerous for their children a lot earlier than when God finally forbid it at the time of the Exodus.

There is no specific command that says "thou shalt not marry someone of a different race" in the Bible. You can look from Genesis to Revelation and you will not find one. On the other hand, you will not find one direct example of God giving approval for any interracial couple in the Bible.

Unfortunately neither point of view, for or against interracial marriage, can be proved by DIRECT evidence. Whichever point of view is the correct one can only be proved by INDIRECT evidence and those on both sides of the argument need to keep that point firmly in mind.

There are many scriptures where God forbid Israel from marrying Gentiles. Those commands are primarily religious in nature to prevent them from straying from God's ways. Because of other verses and principles in the Bible, the church under Mr Armstrong concluded that those scriptures where Israel was forbidden to marry Gentile nations are, secondarily, racial in nature to preserve the wonderful varieties that God has created in the human race.

In the WCG under Mr Armstrong the teaching against interracial marriage was built upon principle much in the same way that smoking was declared a sin. You will find no specific command against smoking but it does violate the principle of glorifying God in your body (1 Corinthians 3:16-17, 6:1-20).

The prohibition against interracial marriage was church teaching in the Worldwide Church of God for some 50 years up until 1991 when Joseph Tkach changed the teaching near the beginning of the doctrinal apostasy in Worldwide. There was a brief time in the late 70's when the policy was relaxed behind Mr Armstrong's back when he was travelling very heavily meeting world leaders. Many interracial marriages did occur in the church in this brief time.

The prohibition against interracial marriage was re-inforced by Mr Armstrong when he put the church back on the track in the early 80's. In his 1982 sermon on interracial marriage he made clear his view that it was a sin and that he never allowed interracial marriages despite the comments made by some who are for allowing interracial marriage.

The United Church of God took a neutral point of view on the subject until 2005 when it finally produced a doctrinal paper on the subject available on their website and now allows interracial marriage. Soon after that Church of God Eternal (part of CGCF, formerly Global, that did not merge with United) produced a doctrinal paper supporting Mr Armstrong's view prohibiting interracial marriage.

In this article I would like to go through the principles Mr Armstrong looked at when he made the church judgment that interracial marriage was not God's will and why I personally still hold to that point of view.

I wish this doctrine was more easily proven one way or the other in the Bible as this doctrine does affect people's lives, but, from my humble point of view the evidence leans more against it than for it.

God originally set the bounds of national borders, intending nations to be separated for the most part to prevent interracial tension which destroys peace and harmony. "When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance (speaking of land or geographic boundaries) He separated (notice, HE separated) the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people" (Deuteronomy 32:8).

In a letter from the Personal Correspondence Department of the Worldwide Church of God, dated January 1988, the Church's long-standing teaching is described the following way:

"God created Eve with the capability of producing children having the varied characteristics that are now manifested in the different races...The children and grandchildren of Adam and Eve would have naturally separated into families of racially similar people, and as they continued to marry within their own groups, distinct racial traits would have become established. God tells us that He separated the families of man and decreed the boundaries of their dwelling places (Deuteronomy 32:8; Acts 17:26).

“Natural barriers, such as mountain ranges and oceans, would have served to keep the racial families apart and prevent amalgamation. Thus, God intended that there be different races and He caused them to develop."

God intended nations to be SEPARATED, for the most part, to prevent intermixing on a large scale. This is a major reason why God confused the languages and forced the nations to spread out from each other at the Tower of Babel. On pages 148-152 of Mystery of the Ages Mr Armstrong writes:

"Men 'took them wives of all which THEY chose [Genesis 6:2].' There was rampant and universal interracial marriage. [The Bible emphasises] that Noah was unblemished or perfect in his generations - his ancestry [The word used is the same word used for unblemished animal sacrifices - Genesis 6:9] …

"These people were not only of one language, they were of three races or families - white, yellow and black…God intended to prevent racial intermarriages. But man has always wanted to violate God's laws, intentions and ways. They wanted to become one race or family through intermarriage of races... God had set the bounds of the races, providing for geographical segregation, in peace and harmony but without discrimination. But the people wanted to be of one amalgamated people. One purpose of the tower of Babel was to unite them, and to prevent them from being scattered."

God actions in separating the families of man and preventing the amalgamation of the people strongly imply that God desires to have pure races and not mixed ones and interracial marriage goes against that desire of God's. That's why generally in the heart of men and women we are usually genetically more attracted to those of our own race. Racial differences and their accompanying cultural differences can also present serious hindrances to a successful marriage.

God commanded Israel in Deuteronomy 7:3, "Nor shall you make marriages with them (the Gentile nations around them). You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly.”

There was an exception to this law that God made in Deuteronomy 21:10-14. If they went to war against certain nations around them and saw a beautiful virgin they could marry her with certain conditions.

Some would argue that God allowed them to marry someone of a different race. First of all, it has to be remembered that most of the nations around them at this time in history were white. Much like divorce, this situation God only allowed because of the hardness of their hearts. It was, in a sense, the lesser of two evils. The parents of the woman they spared in these cases had been killed in the war and she would have lacked for someone to provide for her. Because Israel was a physical carnal nation, unlike the church today, God allowed this exception.

This case law was also an exception to the command not to marry a non-believer. In Deuteronomy 7:3 they were commanded not to marry with Gentile women lest their hearts would be turned away from God. This case law where they could take a captive Gentile woman to be wife where she had lost her parents was the only exception God allowed because they were carnal men without God's spirit, unlike in the church today where we have no such exception (1 Corinthians 7:39, 2 Corinthians 6:14).

Some people quote Galatians 3:28 to say that there is nothing wrong with interracial marriage since we are “all one in Christ.” What the verse says is: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” This has nothing to do with interracial marriage. It means that there are no second class christians.

Greeks are no less important than Jews in God's eyes. Women are no less important to God than men. We all have the same access to God and all can have a direct relationship with Him. Spiritually there are no different classes based on those physical distinctions. Having said that, those physical distinctions are still real. Men are still men in the church and women are still women. We haven't lost our physical gender or our racial appearance and qualities because we are christians.

If God does want the races kept pure and doesn't condone interracial marriage there is a simple reason for why there is no specific "thou shalt not marry outside your race" command to the Israelites. The command not to marry someone of the Gentile nations covered that. It was primarily to keep them religiously pure but it also served to keep them racially pure.

Why is there no command against interracial marriage in the New Testament? Perhaps partly as a test from God so that we have to rely on indirect evidence and exercise wisdom and discernment which God wants us to grow in and perhaps partly because it was not really an issue in the first century church because the Jews had been so used to being so separate from Gentiles where there had been Pharisaical laws forbidding them to even eat with Gentiles let alone marry them.

We have an earlier precedent to the command God gave to Israel in Deuteronomy 7:3 not to marry outside the nation of Israel. Abraham prevented his son Isaac from intermarrying amongst the dark Canaanites then in the land. To his chief servant he said: "You will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell but you shall go to my country and to my kindred (his own racial people) and take a wife for Isaac" (Genesis 24:3-4).

This was NOT a religious matter because the white kindred back in his former land were pagans (Genesis 31:19). This was a racial matter. A little later we read that Esau went against his parents wishes when he took wives of the pagan Canaanites in the land (Genesis 26:34-35).

In The Eternal Church of God's doctrinal paper on the subject of interracial marriage they write:

“The concept that Abraham's and Isaac's son were not to marry a Canaanite woman just because of her religion cannot be correct. We read in Genesis 11:28 that Abraham (then called Abram) lived in Ur of the Chaldeans... Joshua 24:2, 14 tells us that Abram's relatives were idol worshippers. The Broadman Bible Commentary states: 'Both Ur and Haran [where Abram went, when he left Ur] were important centers of moon worship, and his living there indicates that Terah [Abram's father] probably was involved in that cult. The fact, however, that Terah practiced idolatry (Joshua 24:2) does not mean that he was not also acquainted with the true God. Laban asserts that the God of Nahor and Terah was the God of Abraham' (Genesis 31:53).

“The Bible strongly indicates that Abraham's relatives, Laban, Rebekkah and Rachel, were still involved in idolatry at the time when Abraham's servant appeared to seek a wife for Isaac, and when Jacob came to live with that family. We read that upon Jacob's departure, his wife Rachel stole the housegod idols of her father Laban (Genesis 31:34, 30). From this it follows that Abraham's and Isaac's request of their sons not to marry a Canaanite woman (the Canaanites were idol worshippers) was not ONLY based on religion (as Laban and his household were still engaged in idol worship, too). It HAD to also be based on race.”

At Sarah's pushing Abraham took an Egyptian concubine in Hagar to give them a son (Genesis 16). God made it clear to Abraham that was not how He planned for him to become a father of the birthright nations and produce the line of the promised seed (Genesis 17). What God allows to happen is not to be confused with what God approves of.

Moses married an Ethiopian we are told in Numbers 12:1. Aaron and Miriam held this against Moses as a mistake in his life but were themselves punished, not for calling something a sin that wasn't a sin but for a different matter of assuming a position of authority that wasn't theirs. God's view of the marriage is not stated.

Josephus tells us that prior to his conversion Moses, as prince of Egypt, led an army against the Cushites or Ethiopians and from that conquest he entered into a political and marital alliance by marrying an Ethiopian princess named Tharbis (Antiquities of the Jews 2.10-11). Moses fled Egypt and then married Zipporah, daughter of the priest of Midian (Exodus 2:21, 18:1-6).

Moses was separated from seeing Tharbis for 40 years. It is unclear if Tharbis sought Moses and joined him during the Exodus from Egypt or Aaron and Miriam were simply dragging up some mistake that was way back in his past and no longer a present issue. Either way we have nothing to indicate God's opinion of the marriage.

In Israel's time the command not to intermarry with the nations around them was dual - primarily religious in order to keep them in the worship of God and, secondarily, a racial one to keep their seed pure.

When Israel disobeyed God He said to them in Jeremiah 2:21: "I planted you a choice vine, wholly of pure seed. How then have you turned degenerate and become a wild vine?" (KJV). As Nehemiah pointed out quite strongly, it was by marrying amongst the other races around them (Nehemiah 13:26-27) how this happened.

Notice carefully a couple of statutes that show God's mind on maintaining distinctions that He has created throughout nature.

In Leviticus 19:19 God says: "You shall not let your livestock breed with another kind. You shall not sow your field with mixed seed. Nor shall a garment of mixed linen and wool come upon you."

In Deuteronomy 22:9-11 we also read: “You shall not sow your vineyard with different kinds of seed, lest the yield of the seed which you have sown and the fruit of your vineyard be defiled. You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. You shall not wear a garment of different sorts, such as wool and linen mixed together.”

Herman Hoeh makes the following comments about these passages:

"Why does God not want us even wearing a garment of mixed fabric which is not going to harm or poison the wearer?...God wants His people to learn the lesson - don't mix varieties - keep each variety PURE - DON'T MIX THE RACES!...

“It is a sin, violating God's law, to interbreed even different breeds of animals! God makes it unlawful to interbreed varieties He has created through different mutations.

"When God, for a wise purpose beneficial to mankind, blesses us with different varieties HE WANTS THOSE KEPT PURE! He does not want man to UNDO what He has wisely DONE!...

“Every breeder of fine livestock knows that champion prize-winning animals must be PURE-BRED! Stock-raisers recognise this law, as applied to animals. We should be able to recognise it applied to ourselves" (Plain Truth, October 1963, p.29-30).

Rushdoony adds these comments about the same passages:

”The commandment, 'Thou shalt not kill,' is a law which clearly favors fertility. To harm or destroy the fertility of men, plants, and animals is to violate this law. Hybrids are clearly a violation of this law, as these case laws of Leviticus 19:19 and Deuteronomy 22:9-11 make plain. Hybrid plants and animals are sterile and frustrate the purpose of creation, for God made all plants with their seed 'in itself' (Genesis 1:12).

“Hybridization seeks to improve on God's work by attempting to gain the best qualities of two diverse things; there is no question that some hybrids do show certain advantageous qualities, but there is also no question that it comes at a price, bringing some serious disadvantages” (The Institutes of Biblical Law, p.255).

Now Dr Hoeh may have went a little too far in some of his comments, as can be seen in comparing his comments with Rushdoony's commentary. The law against interbreeding different breeds of animals appears to be directed primarily against interbreeding different species that produce sterile offspring (such as a horse and donkey to produce a sterile mule), not primarily against cross-breeding within the same species.

His point about animal breeders recognizing the physical benefits of purebred animals (eg. purebred horses and cattle) compared to animals cross-bred within the same species still is a valid point.

He also made another valid point about why God doesn't want us even wearing a garment of mixed fabric and that is that He wants His people to learn the lesson of not mixing varieties and maintaining the distinctions that He has set in nature.

Paul would often use draw principles from Old Testament statutes in order to make a case for a particular point of view. In 1 Corinthians 9:9 he wrote: “For it is written in the law of Moses, 'You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.' Is it oxen God is concerned about? Or does He say it altogether for our sakes?” He then went on to make a point that ministers are allowed to draw a wage from the tithes given to the church.

Yes, we are supposed to draw principles from these “lesser statutes” and apply them to our situations where appropriate because they teach us about the mind of God in areas where we do not have specific instructions.

Similarly Paul would use laws or principles found in nature to make a case for certain things. He said that homosexuality is against nature (Romans 1:26-27). The physical plumbing is all wrong for homosexual sex. Paul also said: “Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him?” (1 Corinthians 11:14). He said that it is against nature and a shame for a man to have long hair.

Just as smoking goes against the natural laws of good health and is a sin as a result, we can use the physical principles in making a judgment on the subject of interracial marriage.

God wants us to keep the racial varieties pure in order to bring out the best qualities in each. In animal breeding s from mixing varieties are called hybrid vigour and they occasionally appear in the first generation but this is lost in future generations giving way to stock that have less of the genetic strengths of the original parents.

Animal breeders (such as horse and cattle breeders) are very well aware of these principles in animals and, for the most part, strive to breed purebred animals. Genetic qualities are sometimes with interbreeding (eg. in the human species we have the example of the freakish golfing talent of Tiger Woods) but this is much more the exception than the rule.

These same genetic laws occur in the human species as well. The genetic strengths of each contributing race in a line of descendents gets diluted through repeated interracial marriage. (We are talking about genetic strengths or natural talents here NOT superiority or inferiority in terms of human worth to God). We're also not just talking about a dilution of the strengths of the white race but also the strengths of the black and Asian races as well.

Those who are left-wing in their views and push political correctness see any restriction on interracial marriage as racist. Quite the opposite is true. Sufficient interracial marriage within a line of descendants will destroy the wonderful distinctive qualities found in each race, whether they are black, yellow or white.

The good distinctive qualities of a race can be destroyed altogether with sufficient enough interracial marriage in a particular line of descendants producing a homogenized human equivalent of a tabby cat, such as the coloureds in South Africa.

In Hosea 7:8-9 God says: “Ephraim [Britain] has mixed himself among the peoples. Ephraim is a cake unturned. Aliens have devoured his strength.” Demographically Britain in 2000 was a little over 20% non-white; 50% of Indian males had white wives and 25% of African males had white wives. In this prophecy God appears to be against the mixing that has happened to Ephraim.

If God is in favour of the prohibition against interracial marriage then it is a pro-race teaching, not racist, in order to maintain the best strengths of each of the races including those of the non-white races. Many are more interested in the short-term benefits to care for these long-term effects that God is concerned for. In the short-term, many children who come from mixed marriages can sometimes struggle from the lack of a clear racial identity.

While two people of different racial backgrounds can have a genuine love for one another this is not all that matters when it comes to whether or not it would be good for them to marry each other.

The interests of the children of such a union also need to be taken into consideration. I believe God does not believe it is showing love for our future children to risk mixing their appearance and not give them a clear sense of racial identity because of what we want and who we want to marry.

God wants us to show love for our future children and not selflishly ignore their interests. Let me ask the reader “Would you prefer to be clearly of one race or a blurred mixture of two races?” If the first answer then let your actions protect any future children you might have from the consequences of an interracial union.

In determining what is God's will on this issue would it not be fair to say that it would be the opposite of what Satan would be trying to push onto this world? Interracial coupling and marriage is being constantly pushed by our left-wing media in movies and music videos all the time along with homosexuality and other things.

The degree to which interracial marriage and coupling is being pushed should send off a red flag to the converted christian that this practice may not quite be God's will. By, and of itself, it is not enough to prove it but combined with the principles and verses we have looked at in this article we can get a clearer perspective of what God's will is on this matter.

God's view on matters can often be different than what we might naturally want them to be (Romans 8:7) and this is a test on us whenever there is a conflict as to whether we will believe what we want to believe or submit to God's will on a matter.

Those of the white race are understandably more concerned with this issue because of the genetic fact that most of the physical traits of the white sub-races are recessive, not dominant (eg. blue eyes, blond hair, white skin are all recessive). In a mixed family the non-white genes are more dominant and will come through more often than the white recessive genetic traits.

This genetic fact may be part of the reason why the birthright was not passed on through the family of Esau. Clearly against the wishes of his parents, Isaac and Rebekah, Esau married two Hittite women (Genesis 26:35-35, 28:6-8).

His children took mostly after their mothers rather than Esau, and Esau's descendants (today's Turks and Palestinians), while having their own particular strengths, did not have the leadership, administrative and inventive strengths that have made the British and American people ideally suited to play the leadership roles that God had in mind for His birthright peoples.

This does not mean that the white race is better than other non-white races. Just as children in a family have different talents - one may be very intelligent, another good with music, another is a good leader and another good at athletics - so it is in the human family. No one would say that the very smart child is of greater worth to God than a child of average intelligence who is blessed with a different strength. The same applies with the different races who are all a part of the human family. One race may be blessed with more individuals who are inventive and good at leadership while another race may have a higher number of individuals with different strengths such as great musicians and artists, etc.

All the different races (black, white and yellow) and sub-races (eg. such as Negroes, Indians, Polynesians, Melanesians, etc. within the black race) have their different talents and strengths. God created those talents within each of the various sub-races. Those talents don't increase or decrease their spiritual worth in His eyes but God is still concerned that each race is “all that they can be”.

God not only cares for their spiritual character but also wants them to be the best they can be physically eg. He wants all of us to enjoy good physical health (3 John 2) but no one would say that anyone is less important to God because he has poor health. Our physical traits, be it poor health or loss of genetic purity have nothing to do with our worth in God's eyes.

God has given us health laws for our physical benefit. One example is that of not eating any products that come from a pig (Leviticus 11:7). To eat pig products is a sin, even just a little when we eat it knowingly. Having said that, I ate bacon for years as a child but never suffered any ill health from breaking that law. Despite there being no negative physical consequences it was still a sin.

The physical consequences of mixing the seed of different races sometimes have little or no negative physical consequences in the short term but that doesn't automatically mean God is in favour of it, just as my lack of consequences didn't mean eating bacon was OK. My breaking the health law of not eating bacon is still a sin even though I got away with not feeling the negative effects of my actions.

Sometimes children of mixed marriages take solely after the racial look of one parent and there is no loss of purity in appearance. On other occasions children are a mixture of the two and this can also result in a loss of racial identity for the child who feels not wholly one race or the other.

I was conceived out of wedlock so technically I am a bastard, being a child of fornication. The act of conceiving me was a sin but that does not make me any less important to God. Just because I was born of fornication also does not mean I will defend fornication.

A similar situation applies with a child from a mixed marriage. That child is no less important to God because the parents were not following God's principles on this matter. Is something horribly wrong with a child of a mixed marriage? Sometimes children of mixed marriages take solely after the racial look of one parent and there is no loss of purity in appearance and there is nothing wrong physically.

On other occasions children are a mixture of the two. They are not a physical ideal but then again a lot of us are not physically ideal as God would like us to be either. For example, as I write this, I am 15 kg overweight. I am not all I can be in God's eyes physically and I have “missed the mark”. When it comes to where we fall short physically, sometimes we are at fault like my example above and at other times we are the victims of someone else's sin or circumstances eg. someone disabled by someone's bad driving.

God cares for our physical being and has given us laws to prevent loss of physical qualities. We've looked at the law of clean and unclean animals. Another example is the prohibition against incestous marriages (Leviticus 18). As odd as it might sound at first, there is nothing wrong with romantic love per se between brother and sister. There was a time before the Exodus when such marriages were allowed by God such as Abraham marrying his half-sister (Genesis 20:12).

After enough genetic degeneration in the human family it then became physically dangerous to have children from such relationships and God put up that boundary. Interbreeding between the races is not dangerous healthwise like with incest but there is a loss on a minor scale of genetic strengths that God is also concerned about. It's another boundary we should respect like the boundary (for our good) of not marrying an unbeliever (1 Corinthians 7:39, 2 Corinthians 6:14).

Just as God wanted Adam and Eve to respect Him by respecting a boundary He had put in place not to eat the forbidden fruit, so too God wants us to respect the many other boundaries He has put in place such as not eating animals that God didn't create to be eaten by humans or the boundary of not profaning God's holy time, the Sabbath. Breaking them in God's eyes is still a sin even if the negative effects don't hit us for quite a long time.

Notice again what it says in Deuteronomy 32:8: "When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people". God set down boundaries. Associated with the tabernacle and the priesthood were quite a number of boundaries God put in place for the Israelites. He wants us to respect the boundaries of the laws that He has given us.

Satan tempts us to ignore God's boundaries by saying God is too restricting. One author notes that Satan hates boundaries citing his complaint about the hedge (Job 1:10) that God put around Job (C.M. White, Answers to Questions About Interracial Dating and Marriage, p.6). The heavy multiculturalism in our western world being constantly pushed by our politically correct media is rapidly breaking down the “bounds of the people” God speaks about in Deuteronomy 32:8.

If God didn't want the races mixed then why didn't He design the laws of genetics so that children would always have all the racial characteristics of one parent and not the other instead of a mix?

“God has not made it impossible for any sin to be impossible? Why should He? After all, He did not make it impossible for us to (mis)use our tongues to lie or mis(use) our hands to slap someone and so on. While He does not want anyone to sin He does not prevent it” (C.M. White, Answers to Questions About Interracial Dating and Marriage, p.8).

All the other physical traits we receive from our parents are governed by the genetic rules of dominance and recessiveness. Why should God suspend the laws of genetics in the area of racial appearance and physiology so we are unable to reap the consequences if we break God's law in this area?

God wants to test us to see what's in our hearts (Deuteronomy 13:3) and whether we will respect the boundaries He has set in place like His sabbath, a boundary some were simply not willing to obey when God tested them in the wilderness during the time the manna fell (Exodus 16).

The earliest recorded case of interracial marriage is that of Nimrod (Genesis 10:8-9) and his wife Semiramis. Nimrod was a powerful black man and Semiramis a beautiful white woman. Together with their son, Tammuz, they became the great trinity of the ancient world and pillars of Satan's counterfeit religious system that he has foisted upon this world. Of interest, the most common interracial combination in this world today (black man / white woman) just happens to be the same as that of Nimrod and Semiramis.

We do have people in the church who are children of mixed marriages and, of course, the question would be asked, "How would a interracial marriage prohibition affect their options for marriage?" We don't live in an ideal world and the church's policy under Mr Armstrong was that such a person was free to marry of the race they were closest to physically (sometimes this will give them two options).

Some interracial couples were married before they came into the church. Their situation was treated in Mr Armstrong's day in a similar way to that of where one mate was converted and the other wasn't – they were to remain together, especially for the sake of the children. Like with the situation of people who had remarried before they came into the church, God is not in the business of breaking up families because of mistakes made before they were called into the church. God's justice is tempered with mercy.

Regardless of whether or not we feel someone has made a wrong decision in marrying someone of another race I am strongly against people being judgmental in such situations. Whether we feel they've made a mistake or not we should always strive to be friendly to them and accepting of them since the decision cannot be undone once made.

Today, in the church, we have to marry amongst spiritual Israelites only. Marrying outside the church is, in effect, a case of interracial marriage in the spiritual sense.

In conclusion, Rushdoony offers the following comments about the importance of marrying someone compatible to us:

”Man was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26), and woman in the reflected image of God in man, and from man (1 Corinthians 11:1-12; Genesis 2:18, 21-23). 'Helpmeet' means a reflection or mirror, an image of man, indicating that a woman must have something religiously and culturally in common with her husband. The burden of the law is thus against inter-religious, inter-racial, and inter-cultural marriages, in that they normally go against the very community which marriage is designed to establish” (The Institutes of Biblical Law, p.256-257).