Thanks Poly for taking the time to tell me. Very enlightening, and I won’t be as cut and dry in the future, thanks to you.
Lizard, to me the story of the Tower of Babel is about seperating man because man wrongly wishes to show that he greater then God - that is why he seprates them. (help me out here if you disagree anyone). Too many like to focus on that story, and ignore Acts 17:26:
From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
Could not the Tower of Babel story be applied to cultural differences within Europe itself? The French and Italians are both “white”, but they speak different languages, have a different culture, diffrent customs, etc. But I’m sure Bob the 3rd would have no problem with them intermarrying.
This isn’t directed towards you Lizard, but the beleif. I belive it is racist, although BJU claims not to be at all racist. Defintion of racist from dictionary.com:
*1.The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2.Discrimination or prejudice based on race. *
Personally, I think BJU falls under #2.
Not just Ruth, Rahab doesn’t seem to have been Jewish, either.
And yet, there she is - ancestress of David & therefore Jesus. One of the few women named in the geneologies. (Admittedly, that’s often considered one of the more boring parts of the Bible. Perhaps they just glossed over it.)
mademoiselle, you have a point, and that is why I don’t agree with Mr. Jones & Company. 
I’m not about to take this debate on and thereby put myself in the unenviable position of defending a position that may or may not be racist, but certainly sounds like it is. All I will say is that Jones used logic to arrive at a faulty conclusion, something that is not unheard of.
As for your example of Europeans being different from each other, very true. Very old people remember a time when it would have been socially unacceptable in certain circles to marry an Irish person, or an Italian, or a Jew, even though they were technically “white.” These prejudices were a part of European culture, and still exist in some places. (The Polish hate the Russians, the Irish don’t like the English much, etc.)
Jesus himslef mixed race. He would be considered black by us standards.
Actually, Poly, the reason why the Pope would not grant an annulment was because Catherine’s first marriage to Arthur was almost certainly never consummated-Arthur was very sickly and I think they were only married for a month. That’s why she was able to wed Henry in the first place.
“Come let us go down and confuse their language.”
No, thanks. We’re doing a fine job on our own.
My church youth group visited BJU when I was in junior high school. The first day we were there they had a really long lecture about the rules we had to follow while we were there. Of course I slept through most of it so I don’t remember many of them. Anyway, the impression of the place while I was there that of Nazi germany. Everyone was looking over their shoulders as if they were exspecting SS troops to jump out of the shadows. Male’s rarely talk to females outside of the classroom. It was amazing.
Here are some interesting rules the students have to follow (at least at the time I went there). No leaving the campus for the first 2 years without a parent. Limited outside contact, signups for telephone calls, etc. Controlled diet (no bringing in or getting shipped in any outside food. Interesting rules. I’ve heard of many other “Religious” organisations that have those same rules (“Hubbology” for one). They also had a whole slew of dating rules, etc.
Anyway the pressure was too great for me and most of the other guys in my youth group so we snuck out in the middle of the night and went skinny dipping with some hottie West Virginia girls It was quite a thrill to be running all over the BJU campus in boxers getting chased by a slew of campus cops…
As ususal, Polycarp did a beautiful job dispelling ignorance. I’d like to add a little- that a few people I know view the the Catholic church as a branch from their religions. I saw a pamphlet from the Eastern Orthodox church that shows a “family tree” of Christian denominatins with theirs as the trunk and Catholicism as the first branch. Also, a Coptic Christian friend of mine views her’s as the “original” Christianity. I have to admit I’m a little fuzzy on early Christian history, but different strokes and all that.
PC
Right, Guin., that’s the ostensible reason for the refusal (as I should have remembered and posted. But, given the power politics of the time, there seems to be some reason to accept the contention that the Emperor’s troops in Rome and the strong urging of the Emperor had something to do with the decision. (That’s assuming that you don’t believe that every Pope has been a saintly, otherworldly individual who would have nothing to do with worldly politics, nosiree!)
From mademoiselle’s link:
[sub]Emphasis mine.[/sub]
This just boggles the mind. Do these people really believe this is even a possibility? Will racial mixing breed a race of supermen that will be able to kick God’s ass? What kind of god to these people have, anyway?
Yeah, it’s pretty nutty Dijon. It’s hard for me to put logic to that.
I’ve gotta wonder, who do these people want me to marry? Can’t marry some one white; Can’t marry someone black; It’s unlikely I’ll ever meet someone with an ethnic background even close to mine. And if I do, whose to say I won’t hate them?
I suppose I’ll never marry or procreate because the extreme fundies told me so. :rolleyes:
I’ll marry whomever I may love, and want to spend the rest of life with, thank you.
I don’t know about the black thing, but hey, Christians say he was “fully God and fully man.” How much more interracial can you get?
Marital advice from Henry VIII’s wife Catherine Howard: “I die a Queen, but I would rather die the wife of Culpeper.”
Cheers,
Richard “Muffin” Culpeper 
No, no…you must procreate! That way, when God gets out of hand, your kids can smack him around until he straightens up.
Were any of these annulments for marriages that were clearly valid? I am very curious to see references.
Could you elaborate on the precedents you are referring to? As I understand, you are looking at this as evidence of recognized national churches. My suspicion is that these are only instances kings taking advantage of their temporal might to evade Church law.
This is not the only mention in the Bible about interracial marriage.
Numbers 12:1 “Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite.”
Weren’t the people from Cush black, and Moses, a Jew? When Miriam bitched about the marriage, God was ticked and smote her with leperosy.
Cushites were from Ethiopia, methinks.
That passage you quote gives me a case of the chuckles. It would be like me saying:
“And Fred and Mary began to talk against Bob because of his burrito dinner, for he had a burrito for dinner”
I dunno. Biblical grammar is damned funny at times, but thats what I get for this sense of humor…
mademoiselle, you seem to have committed the understandable error of applying two precious things to fundies that ordinarily do not exist within either them or their church (note case):
- Logic
- Reason
Please see to it that this error is not repeated;)