“She said you know I have a problem with Christianity. And here’s my problem. Christians are generally against racism but when it comes to the homosexual they discriminate against the homosexual. How do you explain that?…
Here is want I want to say to you. The reason that we believe that discrimination ethnically is wrong is because the race and ethnicity of a person is sacred. You do not violate a person’s ethnicity and race. It is a sacred gift. And the reason we believe in an absoluteness to sexuality is because we believe sexuality is sacred as well…. You will help me if you would tell me why you treat race as sacred and desacralize sexuality.
Ravi Zacharias
6 minute mark of video
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connected with God (or the gods) or dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving veneration.
So, according to Ravi sexuality is sacred therefore one is not to marry across unnatural boundaries of sex (i.e. — men with men or women with women). Likewise, according to Ravi, race or ethnicity is likewise sacred. Therefore it would seem we must likewise conclude, according to Ravi, that one is not to marry across unnatural boundaries of sacred race just as we are not to marry across unnatural boundaries of sacred sexuality. If both race and sexuality are sacred, per Ravi, then both race and sexuality as sacred constituent aspects of who we are and of who God created us to be and so must be respected and honored when it comes to entering into marriage. If Ravi is going to say that Christians can not abide homosexual marriage because of the sacredness of sexuality then, if race or ethnicity is equally sacred, per Ravi, how could Ravi consistently, and without contradiction, advocate that entering into inter-racial marriage is something a Christian should advocate?
Ravi might want to rethink this one. If these connections were widely made Ravi’s popularity would suffer, I’m sure.
How did you come to the conclusion that “one is not to marry across unnatural boundaries of sacred race just as we are not to marry across unnatural boundaries of sacred sexuality”? Ravi who is Indian, is married to a white American woman.
Sam,
Please note this line in the post
If Ravi is going to say that Christians can not abide homosexual marriage because of the sacredness of sexuality then, if race or ethnicity is equally sacred, per Ravi, how could Ravi consistently, and without contradiction, advocate that entering into inter-racial marriage is something a Christian should advocate?
This is a gross misunderstanding of Ravi’s remarks. Homosexuality is a violation of God’s design for sex, and racism is a violation of God’s design for race. Interracial marriage is not a violation of either, so your commentary falls apart.
Your second sentence, Anthony, may well be true, but that is NOT what Ravi said. He calls both ethnicity and sexuality sacred and then says that despite each of them being sacred that sexuality being absolute is not to be violated in terms of the boys going with girls. However, per Ravi, sacred ethnicity apparently can be violated and is not absolute and so inter-racial marriage obtains.
It was not a good analogy on his part and if I have grossly misunderstood what Ravi said it is because he did not communicate well. If both ethnicity and sexuality are sacred and if sexuality, per Ravi, is absolute so that men don’t go with men in marriage, then ethnicity being absolute, per Ravi, that means, (like honoring the gender differences) ethnic differences must be honored… per Ravi.
This has nothing to do with “my” commentary. I have given ZERO commentary. I’ve merely teased out the meaning of Ravi’s statement.
Within the bounds of God’s design and purpose all three of the topics are sacred and deserve respect . You seem to present a view that Ravi’s explanation is self-contradicting. But it is predicated on the Creator’s intent for man. When Ravi speaks of sexuality, ethnicity, and race it is within the parameters of God’s definition. Then, in the case of sexuality, it is man who has perverted its use and God who has rejected those perversions. The questioner presented the contrast of race and homosexuality. Your argument adds words that Ravi did not say and meaning that he did not articulate.
Let’s keep it simple. God did not condemn race or interracial marriage. He does not condemn ethnicity or ethnic blending, nor does he condemn designed sexuality. He blesses it, “be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth”. But he does condemn homosexuality. When you lumped them together, you assumed they have the same status. They do not! The 3 categories in pure form are sacred-to be respected and the fourth is to be rejected.
The sacredness of race and ethnicity is not a barrier and or confinement. Ethical sexuality can be honored across the bridge of race and ethnicity. There is no contradiction.
Since you extrapolate from Ravi’s statement and interpret both what He said and what you added and think, you have definitely provided commentary.
DH offers,
Within the bounds of God’s design and purpose all three of the topics are sacred and deserve respect . You seem to present a view that Ravi’s explanation is self-contradicting.
BLM
Only because it was self-contradicting
DH,
But it is predicated on the Creator’s intent for man. When Ravi speaks of sexuality, ethnicity, and race it is within the parameters of God’s definition. Then, in the case of sexuality, it is man who has perverted its use and God who has rejected those perversions. The questioner presented the contrast of race and homosexuality. Your argument adds words that Ravi did not say and meaning that he did not articulate.
BLM
I merely teased out the logical implication of Dr. Z’s words.
DH,
Let’s keep it simple. God did not condemn race or interracial marriage. He does not condemn ethnicity or ethnic blending, nor does he condemn designed sexuality. He blesses it, “be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth”.
BLM,
It is true that God does not condemn race. However, when God says that,
“It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
The idea of fitness is inclusive of the idea of someone who would correspond to Adam in every way. “Helpmeet” here implies a helper suitable, completing, who could mirror Adam. As Adam was created in the image of God (knowledge, righteousness, holiness, and dominion), Eve was to be a mirroring partner; she reflected what Adam needed. Marriage thus formed a social unit furthering man’s calling, work. Given that Eve was to correspond to Adam are we really to believe that correspondence wasn’t complete in terms of culture, interests, ethnicity, and race? Did God bring Victorian Adam, Zulu Eve?
I will not say that God condemns racial and even ethnic blending. I will say however, given the importance we see everywhere in the Scriptures that God esteems the distinct nations and races and in seeing God’s esteem we should be very very slow about saluting racial and sometimes even ethnic blending in marriage.
I am not alone in this conviction but am merely standing in the middle of the great river of Church history as it existed universally before 1950 or so. Here are just a few supporting quotes from the Church Fathers on the point I am making and that you seem to be in contradiction of. I have many many more quotes like these.
“Difference of race or condition or sex is indeed taken away by the unity of faith, but it remains imbedded in our mortal interactions, and in the journey of this life the apostles themselves teach that it is to be respected, and they even proposed living in accord with the racial differences between Jews and Greeks as a wholesome rule.”
St. Augustine on Galatians 3:28
“Now, we see, as in a camp, every troop and band hath his appointed place, so men are placed upon earth, that every people may be content with their bounds, and that among these people every particular person may have his mansion. But though ambition have, oftentimes raged, and many, being incensed with wicked lust, have passed their bounds, yet the lust of men hath never brought to pass, but that God hath governed all events from out of his holy sanctuary. For though men, by raging upon earth, do seem to assault heaven, that they may overthrow God’s providence, yet they are enforced, whether they will or no, rather to establish the same. Therefore, let us know that the world is so turned over through divers tumults, that God doth at length bring all things unto the end which he hath appointed.”
John Calvin
Calvin’s Comm. on Acts 17:26
At the point where Calvin says, “every people,” he has established that different people groups exist and that Christianity does not destroy the reality of people groups which is what would be the case with unchecked inter-racial marriage. Calvin implies a good deal more than that but at this point all we are seeking to sustain is that the Historic church, reaching behind the past 70 years or so understood that Christianity didn’t eliminate the idea of race, ethnicity, clan, and kin as your view does.
“Love imagines that it can overleap the barriers of race and blood and religion, and in the enthusiasm and ecstasy of choice these obstacles appear insignificant. But the facts of experience are against such an idea. Mixed marriages are rarely happy. Observation and experiences demonstrate that the marriage of a Gentile and Jew, a Protestant and a Catholic, an American and a Foreigner has less chance of a happy result than a marriage where the man and woman are of the same race and religion….”
Dr. Clarence MacCartney – Presbyterian Minister
Calvin Seminary Professor Dr. Martin Wyngaarden was getting at much the same thing when, picking up these themes from a few chapters later in Isaiah, he wrote in his book The Future of the Kingdom in Prophecy and Fulfillment: A Study of the Scope of “Spiritualization” in Scripture (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2011) on page 94:
Now the predicates of the covenant are applied in Isa. 19 to the Gentiles of the future, — “Egypt my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, mine inheritance,” Egypt, the people of “Jehovah of hosts,” (Isa. 19:25) is therefore also expected to live up to the covenant obligations, implied for Jehovah’s people. And Assyria comes under similar obligations and privileges. These nations are representative of the great Gentile world, to which the covenant privileges will, therefore, be extended.
And again, on pp. 101-2:
More than a dozen excellent commentaries could be mentioned that all interpret Israel as thus inclusive of Jew and Gentile, in this verse, — the Gentile adherents thus being merged with the covenant people of Israel, though each nationality remains distinct.
For, though Israel is frequently called Jehovah’s People, the work of his hands, his inheritance, yet these three epithets severally are applied not only to Israel, but also to Assyria and to Egypt: “Blessed be Egypt, my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, mine inheritance.” 19:25.
Thus the highest description of Jehovah’s covenant people is applied to Egypt, — “my people,” — showing that the Gentiles will share the covenant blessings, not less than Israel. Yet the several nationalities are here kept distinct, even when Gentiles share, in the covenant blessing, on a level of equality with Israel. Egypt, Assyria, and Israel are not nationally merged. And the same principles, that nationalities are not obliterated, by membership in the covenant, applies, of course, also in the New Testament dispensation.”
DH
But he does condemn homosexuality. When you lumped them together, you assumed they have the same status. They do not! The 3 categories in pure form are sacred-to be respected and the fourth is to be rejected.
BLM
I’d say they do indeed have the same status… or at least a very similar status. Further, I’d say the Church Fathers agree overwhelmingly with me and disagree with you. And perhaps even Ravi?
DH
The sacredness of race and ethnicity is not a barrier and or confinement. Ethical sexuality can be honored across the bridge of race and ethnicity. There is no contradiction.
BLM
But there is contradiction as the Church Father’s suggest and as Church history demonstrates.
DH
Since you extrapolate from Ravi’s statement and interpret both what He said and what you added and think, you have definitely provided commentary.
BLM
And here I am providing even more.