In part one of this article, I presented two reasons why inter-ethnic marriages are a bad idea. Today I’m going to explain why those reasons don’t hold water.

To review, my reasons were:

• God created diverse people groups. He obviously wanted his world filled with all of these different peoples. “Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.” He doesn’t want all of these diverse colors melted into one “gray” race — does he?
• Wisdom dictates that we marry those with whom we share as much as possible in common. Marriage is difficult enough without adding differences to the mix that are inevitably more than skin deep.

As I stated previously, there is a grain of truth in both of those arguments.

• God did create diverse people groups. Originally, of course, there was one man and one woman; not much diversity there. However, unless you are a deist, you must believe that the presence of diverse peoples now is indicative of creative intent. That goes double for Calvinists.
• Wisdom does dictate that we marry those with whom we share as much as possible in common. Your spouse is most likely different from you in many ways. Some of those differences are complementary — I hope — but some are not. While you may, and should, appreciate many of those differences, it is your commonality that ties you together.

The first reason fails on two counts. First, while God did indeed create diversity, he never decreed it, nor gave any commands that we maintain it. He created male and female for each other, and explicitly condemned homosexuality. He created man and animal and explicitly condemned bestiality. But when he diversified the human race, he spoke not one word about maintaining that diversity. Second, if God wants to maintain his ethnic rainbow, can he not do so without our efforts? And can anyone really think that the various colors of the world are ever going to disappear? That would require a globally coordinated effort enforceable by law! The peoples of the world would have to come together as they did at Babel, and we know how that ended, don’t we?

The second reason may not be quite as stupid as the first, but it is more seriously wrong. I affirmed above that “Wisdom does dictate that we marry those with whom we share as much as possible in common.” A possible corollary to that might say that wisdom dictates that we marry those with whom we have as few differences as possible, and that thought was implicit in the reasoning I was taught and believed for years. But is that a necessary corollary?

Irreconcilable differences do exist (James 4:4; 2 Corinthians 6:14–16), but if a couple is united in their love for Christ, if they have a common “zeal for God” that is “in accordance with knowledge” (Romans 10), they need never worry about irreconcilable differences. Love does indeed “conquer all” — not romantic love, but genuine love that is rooted in a mutual love for Christ. This is a gospel issue. Is your gospel so small that it can’t encompass all (non-theological) differences and even turn them into assets for your benefit and for the glory of God? Did your gospel save you from hell, but not much else? We who have been “transformed by the renewing of [our minds]” (Romans 12:2) ought to think differently.

As I review, there is something dissatisfying about that final paragraph, something missing. With that said, I am going to publish anyway, trusting that I haven’t completely failed to communicate the point.