So our arguments turn to the cultural conflict anecdotes Adventists still use. I can’t help but wonder if this compromise solution is maintained through our fear of intermarriage, fuelled by a misapplication of Mrs White’s comments. Yet in the United States the Adventist Church is still predominantly split into a mainstream and an African-American church system. 3 Įven in the Pacific I’ve met a number of people who met at Pacific Adventist University or Fulton College and married someone who is not from their country of origin. Sydney, where I live, has the highest number of interracial couples of any Australian city. Our churches, reflecting our cities, are becoming more and more multicultural. Her advice is applicable in racially charged societies but in the South Pacific we live in a different cultural context. We are willing to argue that slavery in the Bible is a cultural phenomenon so why should we not apply the same rules to these statements? She rightly speaks against people who would seek marriage to score political points. We must remember that she speaks from a monocultural experience and from the middle of the American Civil War and the fight for abolition and equal rights. She advises that “time is too precious to be lost” 2. Second, that it can create “controversy” and “confusion”.
First, that mixed-race children will suffer “humiliation” and “disadvantage”, so it is irresponsible for parents to subject them to such treatment.
Ellen white estate interracial marriage skin#
“Miriam’s skin was leprous-it became as white as snow” (Numbers 12:10).Ĭhurch pioneer and prophetic voice Ellen White also addresses interracial marriage. His punishment? He turns her “ultra” white. In fact, God is upset with Miriam for speaking against Moses’ black wife. 1 The key point here is belief and worship, not race or cultural heritage. This addresses the question of not marrying outside Israel. Yet the weight of biblical evidence says we are all one race (human) made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26–28), we are all equal in God’s eyes and the only distinction made is between Christian and non-Christian (Galatians 3:28).
To this they added the injunction against Israelites marrying into the nations around them and the verse in Acts about God appointing boundaries for the nations (see Acts 17:26). God clearly separated the races, and separate they should remain or so the argument went. Historically, opponents of cross-cultural marriage focused particularly on Genesis 9-11-the stories of the Flood, Ham’s curse, the dispersion of races at Babel. There are three argument sources against interracial marriage that we, as Seventh-day Adventist Christians, should take seriously: the Bible, Ellen White and the “cultural conflict” argument. We need to talk about interracial marriage.