Should Christians Support Interracial Marriage? BY TYLER O’NEIL for PJ Media
In an episode attributed to “those racist evangelical Christians,” a small-town mayor rejected a candidate for city administrator because he’s black. Worse, a city council member defended the mayor, arguing that she was right because race mixing isn’t Christian. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Theresa Kenerly, mayor of Hoschton, Ga., admitted she pulled the resume of Keith Henry from a packet of four finalists “because he is black, and the city isn’t ready for this.”
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The worst comments came from Hoschton City Councilman Jim Cleveland, who said Kenerly “might have been right.”
“I’m a Christian and my Christian beliefs are you don’t do interracial marriage. That’s the way I was brought up and that’s the way I believe,” Cleveland declared. He then insisted he wasn’t racist, just anti-race mixing. “I have black friends, I hired black people. But when it comes to all this stuff you see on TV, when you see blacks and whites together, it makes my blood boil because that’s just not the way a Christian is supposed to live.”
The city councilman did not just say he has a bias against interracial marriage and race mixing, he said it isn’t Christian. In reporting this story, Patheos’ Michael Stone baldly declared, “Many conservative Christians are racist,” as evidenced by their support for President Donald Trump. This ridiculous attack is wrong on many levels. While some Christians may be racist, the vast majority are not — and the Bible condemns racism.
Make no mistake: Cleveland is wrong. Dead wrong. While the Bible does not explicitly say, “Interracial marriage is fine,” the idea of dividing people according to race is not biblical.
First, God chose Abraham in order to bless all the nations and the families of the earth through him (Genesis 22:18, 28:14). When God set up the laws for Israel, He encouraged Israelites to welcome the stranger and the sojourner and to “love him as yourself” (Leviticus 19:33). The holy days applied to sojourners in Israel, but they would have to get circumcised in order to keep the Passover. They could offer sacrifices (Leviticus 17:8, 22:18; Number 15:14).
