IFB Church Bans Interracial/Do fundies have problems MERGED

[Visionoyahweh]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/3 ... 21996.html

"I am not racist. I will tell you that. I am not prejudiced against any race of people, have never in my lifetime spoke evil" about a race, said Thompson, the church's former pastor who stepped down earlier this year. "That's what this is being portrayed as, but it is not."

:?

[Mommy22alyns]

Well, then what the fuck IS it? :?

[doggie]

Well, then what the fuck IS it? :?

I think it is like men and woman are the same but different argument.

[Chasingthedog]

I wonder what their religious validation for this is? I would LOOOVE to see that.

I wonder if they would get so up in arms about a white person and an asian, or a black person and a hispanic person? Nothing seems to get rednecks riled up faster than black and white relationships...

[Diggers]

I have to preface this by apologizing for possible tangential typing, verbal diarrhea, and/or over-sharing. I am full of rage and too many thoughts are fighting to get out all at once.

I have been reading this board for weeks, and had to de-lurk just for this. As one of the halves of an interracial marriage, this just simultaneously takes the cake and makes me feel like vomiting.

I mean, what in the ever-loving hell goes on in these people's heads? When is it ever ok to tell people who they can and can't marry?

My husband is African -- as in, he was born and raised on the continent of Africa in a nation that has experienced more than its share of post-colonial strife and subsequent brutal dictatorships -- and came to the US for college, which is where we met 11 years ago. He has told me that he had a difficult time relating to the African American students on campus, but at the same time tended to be lumped into that group by other non-African students. He'd never experienced the brand of racial tension that seems to be rife in US society until he came here. Our college was a very liberal, internationally-focused liberal arts school in the northern Midwest, so we didn't really encounter opposition to our union, if you will, unless we ventured off campus.

We now live in New England, but my parents, both from New Mexican families, just recently moved to the western tail of Virgina for my dad's job, and let me tell you, visiting redneck country for the first time in my life with the not-same-color-as-me husband was an eye-opening experience.

I think my point is that there are so many things to get upset about in this world that I cannot fathom using up any energy on something as trivial as interracial marriage. People who love each other should be allowed to get married, no matter their color, religious background, sex, gender, height, length of toenails, obnoxious shower-singing voice, whatever. How about solving some of society's real problems?

Mmmmk. I feel like I should have written an outline and a rough draft first instead of ralphing up my indignation all at once, since I'm positive I've forgotten something.

[emmiedahl]

It was succinct enough, Diggers. Feel free to ralph up indignation on the topic. I mean, my outrage is based on the purely theoretical, so I can understand why you are particularly pissed.

[mirele]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/30/small-ky-church-votes-aga_n_1121996.html

:?

Asshat needs to do him some geneaology. He'll likely find out that his family didn't tell him everything about their background--as happened in my father's family. Seems my paternal ancestors didn't pay too much attention to the color line, but they surely made a point of moving some distance after marriage.

[marmalade]

Anyone have a copy of "Journey of Man" handy to send this asswipe?

We're ALL Africans, dumbshit.

[Diggers]

Anyone have a copy of "Journey of Man" handy to send this asswipe?

We're ALL Africans, dumbshit.

Well, not, you know, according to the Creation Museum. And stuff. :?

[Happy_Anabaptist]

The first time I visited the South (N. Carolina) they told me there are black churches and white churches. And if we happened to stop in at a black church on a Sunday morning we would most likely be politely pointed to the white church down the street. I asked why things were that way. "They have their style of worship and we have ours. That's just how it is," was the response.

[Terrie]

Well, not, you know, according to the Creation Museum. And stuff. :?

If you go with the Genesis story, doesn't that make us all Middle Easterners?

[gustava]

The first time I visited the South (N. Carolina) they told me there are black churches and white churches. And if we happened to stop in at a black church on a Sunday morning we would most likely be politely pointed to the white church down the street. I asked why things were that way. "They have their style of worship and we have ours. That's just how it is," was the response.

The most segregated place in the south is on Sunday morning in churches. As for the black church pointing you down the street: it might have been for their own safety. I know that predominantly black churches today would most likely be more welcoming.

[oscar]

The first time I visited the South (N. Carolina) they told me there are black churches and white churches. And if we happened to stop in at a black church on a Sunday morning we would most likely be politely pointed to the white church down the street. I asked why things were that way. "They have their style of worship and we have ours. That's just how it is," was the response.

Our first realtor in NC refused to show us houses in black neighborhoods.

[titus2_4u]

An IFB church my relatives attended (not in the south at all-- in the midwest) wasn't formally against interracial marriage, but I heard several people warn against it because: "Sometimes their kids end up looking weird and people make fun of them."

!!!!!! You heard that right. They went to greater lengths to protect people's right to make fun of children with mixed racial heritage than protecting these children's right to exist at all.

[MamaJunebug]

This cracks me up. What good do they think they're going to do by excluding couples who come from different "people groups"?

My TSU's heritage includes Caucasian, Native American and African. Put him at a powwow, he fits in. Put him next to the owners of a Mediterranean restaurant, he fits in. One of the Juniors is like that, too; as a Caddo friend said, "Junior#1 will fit in anywhere in the world."

Me? Caucasian, period. Yet I identify with the Japanese-Americans who faced internment during WW2 and and the Arab-Americans who face extra scrutiny now. Why? Because in the 1910s, my family quit speaking German, and churches in the area cobbled their services into English and changed their signs to English language -- even in the stained glass that didn't get broken.

Why? Because Anti-German sentiment was so deep that camps for the interment of German-speaking Americans were on the drawing boards. It was mainly through the activism of a Lutheran pastor that my parent wasn't born in a camp in 1915.

So now when I hear that a nominally "Christian" group excludes couples because obviously they were born in different people groups? That "Christian" group is literally beneath my contempt. Not the people who are in it and unsure of what to do about it, but certainly the leaders who enact such rules and any members who thought-lessly follow such rules.

Welcome, Diggers - love your avatar! Stephen Fry /Jeeves/ forever!

[maybeizfundie]

:(

I noticed that the not-white fiance in the story is African, and wondered if that played a part in it becoming such a big deal within the church.

[Diggers]

Welcome, Diggers - love your avatar! Stephen Fry /Jeeves/ forever!

Thanks! Steven Fry makes my world better on a daily basis.

Also, this is what I imagine going on in oh-so-manly Bible study sessions (also I will use just about any excuse to share a Fry and Laurie clip):

arg, I can't figure out embedding.

[Diggers]

:(

I noticed that the not-white fiance in the story is African, and wondered if that played a part in it becoming such a big deal within the church.

So you think maybe if the not-white fiance were African American, it would have been acceptable? I dunno...

[MamaJunebug]

Thanks! Steven Fry makes my world better on a daily basis.

Also, this is what I imagine going on in oh-so-manly Bible study sessions (also I will use just about any excuse to share a Fry and Laurie clip):

arg, I can't figure out embedding.

Oh, those two! One thing I'll never figure out: Why BBC thinks a laugh track (and a very badly implemented one, at that) would ever be necessary for A Bit of Fry & Laurie?

[JumpingtheSnark]

I mean really, what good could come to the child of a white woman and a black man from Africa? It's not like the kid even has a chance in America...

[ThisOlGirl]

I mean really, what good could come to the child of a white woman and a black man from Africa? It's not like the kid even has a chance in America...

:clap: :clap: :clap:

[nolongerIFBx]

Please note that this is NOT an IFB church. The article states that this occured at Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church. Freewill Baptist and Independent Fundamental Baptist are not the same. I don't dispute that this could happen at an IFB church but in this case it wasn't an IFB church so the title of this thread states something that is not true.

In my experience, it was a "same but different" issue. AA familes were loved and welcome members of the church but were expected to marry within their own race. Even in the strictest church I attended an interracial couple was allowed to attend and join. Interracial dating was discouraged but once a couple was married, that was the end of the argument and I did hear that one of the AA boys married one of the white girls (but was after I left so that is hearsay). This is certainly one of the issues that I have an issue with in IFBdom. I always thought that 1 Corinthians 12:13 stated that the important thing was a shared faith not what color your skin was or what race you are. I think this is a matter of someone with a preconceived prejudice looking until he found a scripture to back up his own ideal.

[contrary]

regarding the fiance in question being African, from Africa, i doubt that's the deciding factor. anything that isn't lily-white is likely up for suspicion in rural KY.

as for black/white churches in NC, yes...that's true. However, i highly doubt a white would be directed to the door in a black church. In more urban areas, congregations are much more diverse, as well.

[BlackHawk]

:(

I noticed that the not-white fiance in the story is African, and wondered if that played a part in it becoming such a big deal within the church.

I don't think that has anything to do with it at all. Pikeville, the seat of Pike county, has issues. 98% white and it's been that way forever. I'm slightly darker skinned (being part native american) and the few times I've been to Pikeville people do get nasty at times. I don't think it'd be any different were he an American or an African or of Middle Eastern decent. The man who started this, and the 8 who have voted with him, would have voted this way regardless.

[debrand]

This really, really makes me mad because it brings up horrible things that I heard as a child. I thought that we had past this type of prejudice against interracial marriage.

As a kid, I used to hear that interracial couples were being unfair to their children who would get teased by both races. I've overheard adolescent boys talk about white girls that dated outside their race as if the women were somehow tainted and were now trash. Once, whle visiting a friend's Sunday School class, I was subjected to a lesson as to why interracial marriages were forbidden in the bible(I was only 13 and way too shy to speak up) When I was a kid, people would say only ugly white girls married black men. My mother dated a man who wouldn't let his daughter bring her interracial children to his house. I lost a lot of respect for my mom because she dated him.

It doesn't matter what race your spouse is. All that matters is that you love them and that they are good to you.