Anachronistically Racist Christian

JUST THE OTHER DAY in some small town in Georgia a member of the city council came bleating out that because he is a Christian, he does not approve of interracial marriage, since he believes his faith forbids it. As you might hope and expect, there has been considerable "push back" as we like to say, and last heard the racist was considering resigning from the council. Good for America. Whereas interracial marriage has always been and among ultra right wing circles still is greatly frowned upon in these United States, especially with the Christian community, we have made progress, and it is no longer considered politically correct to disapprove of it publicly; one must keep one's prejudices to one's self these days. Much scriptural proof has been cited for the prohibition of interracial marriage. None of it, however, is valid, for the simple reason that "racism" as a concept did not exist in Biblical times, and is in fact a surprisingly recent invention of us dear darling humans. Mid fifteenth century, approximately. Nary a single word in the Bible has anything to say about race. The children of Israel were admonished by God to not marry outside Hebrew society. The ancient Israelites were not regarded by God nor by themselves as a "race". Humanity had not yet invented the concept of race, thus, neither had God. Therefore, any christian in human history who has ever condemned interracial marriage on biblical grounds is, whether wittingly or not, being quite mistaken and dishonest. The Bible tells us not to interbreed different kinds of animals, as if we could do so in any event, not to plant two kinds of crops in one field, which we know now to be terrible agricultural advice, and not to make clothing from more than one kind of fabric, which, if nothing else, might save time, effort, and money. Still, nothing about race, or interracial marriage. Falsely citing Biblical passages to use in condemning interracial marriage is a strategy of our current crop of conservative Christians, whose behavior can scarcely be explained, so pervasive are their crazy, corrupt, and incorrect beliefs, by anything other than brain damage. When a person consistently, passionately embraces beliefs which have absolutely evidence supporting them, and consistently refuses to believe universally accepted, obvious, demonstrable, settled science, one has a problem, intellectually, perhaps mentally. Racism as an articulated concept first appears in history in teh mid fifteenth century, in a biography of Prince Henry the navigator, and it is used as justification for slavery. we today would be far better off to merely "uninvent" the idea of separate, discrete human races, and evolve to an understanding that every last one of us has a separate, uniquely identifiable skin color, all part of a single human race. Think of the trouble it would save. Race is an invalid, inaccurate concept which best belongs in history's dustbin of discarded ideals. Maybe someday we as a human culture will arrive at that understanding. Unfortunately, it probably won't happen anytime soon.