Equally Yoked

A Premarital Counseling Primer for Multiethnic Christian Couples

Akers

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781498229500
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

During the past fifty years, Western culture has experienced a significant shift in its overall stance regarding multiethnic marriage. As a result, more North Americans than ever marry spouses whose ethnicity (or culture) differs from theirs. This trend also is observable in Christian circles. Unfortunately, few resources exist to help multiethnic couples maneuver through the potential minefield of cultural collision. The purpose of this volume is to provide such a resource. Equally Yoked examines the subject of multiethnic marriage from a biblical perspective, before considering a history of the practice in North America over the last four centuries. Additionally, this book surveys the challenges that multiethnic Christian couples frequently encounter, and offers premarital counseling propositions that will prove valuable to both counselors and couples who originate from diverse backgrounds.

1

Introduction

During the past fifty years, Western culture has experienced a significant shift in its overall stance regarding multiethnic marriage. As late as 1966, seventeen of the fifty states still enforced laws that prohibited certain types of racial intermixing within the bonds of matrimony.1 The following year, however, the Supreme Court rendered such statutes unconstitutional after hearing the groundbreaking case Loving v. Virginia.2

The Commonwealth of Virginia was one of the states that did not permit couples from dissimilar ethnic backgrounds to wed. In 1958 Richard Loving (a Caucasian) and Mildred Jeter (an African American with Rappahannock heritage) held their wedding ceremony in Washington, DC, because the district had no such restrictions.3 Their attempt to curtail their state’s law, however, met with resistance when they returned to their Virginia residence.

Law enforcement agents in the small town of Central Point raided their home in the middle of the night. The sheriff arrested them and ordered that they serve a jail sentence of one year for their disregard of Virginia law. The judge offered to suspend the punishment if the Lovings would agree to leave the state for twenty-five years, but instead they decided to appeal the original ruling.4

Nine years later, their case appeared before the Supreme Court, and, after a unanimous decision in favor of the Lovings, Chief Justice Warren opined:

Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival . . . To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statues, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not to marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State.5

As a result of this decision, multiethnic marriages became legal in all fifty states. The percentage of such unions continues to rise.6

The Motivation for the Study

The primary motivation for this study is the sheer number of multiethnic unions presently occurring in the early twenty-first century. According to a 2010 study conducted by the Social and Demographic Trends division of Pew Research, “14.6 percent of all new marriages in the United States in 2008 were between spouses of a different race or ethnicity from one another.”7 A measurable rise of multiethnic marriages in Canada,8 as well as the fact that nearly two-thirds of Mexicans are mestizos,9 indicates that the blending of peoples is a significant North American trend.

Research indicates multiethnic unions are becoming more common in the North American branch of Christendom. Joshua Tom and Brandon Martinez, researchers at Baylor University, analyzed the data from 12,000 marriages and made two interesting observations regarding wedding trends. First, they concluded evangelical and mainline Protestants are as likely as their non-religious counterparts to marry someone of another ethnicity. Second, they noted almost twice as many Catholics versus other demographic blocs chose to wed a person of a different ethnicity.10

A secondary motivation for the study is the author’s own marriage. This writer is a Caucasian male whose family has resided in the same rural region of the Midwest for over two centuries.11 His wife, on the other hand, is of Salvadoran extraction. She is a descendent of Native American, African, and European ancestors12 who converged in Central America as a direct result of what many historians refer to as the Homogenocene Era.13 Accordingly, the author is part of the growing North American tendency to marry across ethnic lines. Not surprisingly, the writer’s interest in the subject of multiethnic unions—particularly within Christian circles—is a significant impetus for this work.

The Relevance of the Study

A work that focuses on multiethnic marriage is necessary for at least three reasons. First, as the previous section of this study reveals, significantly more North American Christians have elected to choose spouses from different ethnicities or cultures in the twenty-first century. Thus, this study provides a timely addition to the field of biblical counseling.

Second, multiethnic couples must prepare for the challenges and permanency of matrimony. Scripture depicts marriage as an institution that should endure as long as both partners remain alive. Jesus, for example, permitted divorce only in the case of immorality (Matt 19:3–9).14 Paul explained a Christian partner no longer is bound to an unbelieving spouse who abandons the marriage covenant (1 Cor 7:15).15 These cases are exceptions to the rule, however, because believers must “let no one separate that which God has joined together” (Matt 19:6b).16

Every marriage encounters trials, but multiethnic partners experience stressors that are unique to their situation. While some pressures are external in nature (e.g., potential familial or societal rejection), others originate from a failure to consider cultural differences (e.g., worldview, gender roles, communication). This study is relevant because its objective is to make multiethnic couples proactively aware of the issues their marriages could encounter. Such knowledge is key to responding to the complications in a manner consistent with scriptural principles.

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Table of contents

• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Multiethnic Marriage in the Old Testament
• Chapter 3: Multiethnic Marriage in the New Testament
• Chapter 4: A Historical Survey of Attitudes Toward Multiethnic Relationships in North America
• Chapter 5: Challenges of Multiethnic Couples
• Chapter 6: Premarital Counseling Propositions for Multiethnic Couples
• Chapter 7: Conclusion
• Bibliography