Tom Davis examines how some Christian Nationalists call for racial purity despite the lack of a biblical basis for the idea.
In recent years, a new political movement has started within Christian circles. This movement, Christian Nationalism{1}, is theologically diverse. They have disagreements on issues like race, discipleship, and the relationship of church and state.
There is a group within Christian Nationalism that has become concerned about racial purity. They stop short of calling interracial marriages a sin, but they do claim that it is God’s norm for people to marry within their own race. Their view of race seems to be based on skin color more than anything else. My understanding is that they would be fine with a French man marrying a Norwegian woman, but they think that an Asian man should not marry a Hispanic woman. Granted, all these particular Christian Nationalists are white, so the conversation tends to focus on white people marrying outside the white race.
Christian Nationalists will use DNA markers to show that different races exist, but their reason for claiming that the races should not intermarry is an argument from scripture. They think it is unbiblical for a white woman to marry a man of another race. In this article, I will examine their argument and evaluate its strengths and weaknesses. Next, I will assess their understanding of the relevant biblical passages. Finally, I will consider the passages they reference and explore the biblical teaching on race.{2}
The Argument for Racial Segregation
The argument for racial segregation begins with creation (Genesis 1-2). Christian Nationalists admit that “all humanity descends from Adam and shares a common origin, essence, and dignity.”{3} Christian Nationalists admit that all human races descended from Adam. Biblically, all races bear the image of God and can be traced back to Adam and Eve. They are equal in dignity. However, God’s intention for humanity was for them to spread out throughout the earth, and the races would naturally occur in different regions of the world.
Their argument then proceeds to Genesis 10, which is known as the Table of Nations. Due to the sinfulness of humanity, God destroyed everyone except Noah and his family. Then Genesis 10 lists the descendants of Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
“These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their nations, and from these nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood.” (Genesis 10:32).
The author’s understanding of this verse makes the separation of races and nations one of the norms that God wants people to live by.
The Genesis narrative proceeds to the rebellion at the Tower of Babel. The people will not disperse. They try to build a tower that will reach heaven, so God decides to confuse their language and to force the different nations to disperse throughout the land. Christian Nationalists claim:
“Biblically, God’s design post-Babel emphasizes diversity through separated nations and peoples (Genesis 10-11; Acts 17:26), with endogamy [Note: per Wikipedia, “Endogamy is the cultural practice of only marrying within a specific social group, religious denomination, caste, or ethnic group, rejecting any from outside of the group or belief structure as unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships.”] as the normative pattern in Israel’s laws (for example, Deuteronomy 7:3-4 warning against intermarriage with Canaanites to preserve covenant fidelity, though not solely racial).”{4}
Here, the author connects Genesis 11, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel incident with Acts 17:26, which states, “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their
dwelling place.” The Christian Nationalist understands Acts 17:26 to be reaffirming the Table of Nations in Genesis 10. This gives them an Old Testament verse and a New Testament verse that they think justifies their view that God desires the races to remain separate. The author also references Romans 9:3, “For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh,” to support his argument that the normal practice according to the Bible ought to be marrying within one’s own race.
A Critique of the Argument
This group of Christian Nationalists claims that God’s intent was for people to spread across the earth and naturally develop different nations. The issue is that there is no mention of nations prior to the Flood. If the concept and development of nations were something that God intended as part of his creation of mankind, why is it not mentioned before the Flood, or before the fall of Adam and Eve? The structure of the Genesis narrative indicates that nations did not develop until after the Flood, and this was a consequence of sin.
This position also does not address whether there will be nations after the return of Christ. Are the races still to remain segregated after Christ returns? Will there be nations on the New Earth that are ruled from Jerusalem? It seems that the Christian Nationalist answer to these questions would be yes, people will still be segregated into nations and races. If that is the case, the Christian Nationalist needs to explain why the races need to be segregated and the nations need to exist when Christ is ruling from Jerusalem. The Christian Nationalist also believes that this diversity was intended by God, that interracial marriages and multicultural nations are in violation of God’s command to subdue the earth, and that they violate God’s creation of diversity.
If people were not originally intended to divide into different nations and races, why are races and people divided? The consistent answer to the question for the Christian Nationalist would be to say that this segregation is God’s will. This seems to imply that the races would have to remain segregated after the return of Christ as well. The Christian Nationalist believes that interracial marriage somehow violates God’s creation of diversity. How can that be? When two people of different races have children, those children are not a pure race. This means that interracial marriage does not restrict racial diversity; it increases it.
The Christian Nationalist’s appeal to Deuteronomy 7:3-4, Acts 17:26, and Romans 9:3 simply takes these verses out of context. In Deuteronomy, the restriction from marrying people from the tribes in the land that the Israelites were about to invade is not about racial purity. This passage is about spiritual purity. Moses is telling the people that they are not to marry people who worship other gods. We see Rahab (Joshua 6), Deborah (Judges 4), and Ruth who reject their pagan gods, turn to the One True God, and join the Israelite society. God allowed this because they rejected other gods, which shows the issue was not racial purity.
In Acts 17:27 Paul is speaking in front of the philosophers in Athens. Paul tells the philosophers that God made the nations from one man. In Romans 9:3 Paul is explaining God’s sovereignty over all nations. These verses are irrelevant to the question of segregating the nations. The burden of proof is on the Christian Nationalist to show that these verses support their view of segregating races and nations. They have not met that burden.
The Biblical View of the Nations and Races
If the Christian Nationalist is wrong, then what does the Bible teach about nations? Things do start with God creating Adam and Eve and telling them to reproduce and subdue the earth (Genesis 1:28). God’s intent for humanity was for them to govern the earth as His local representatives.{5} However, things went wrong because Adam and Eve were disobedient and ate from the tree of life (Genesis 3:1-7). Adam and Eve gave in to the temptation of Satan instead of remaining faithful to God, which led to their banishment from the garden. The human family that God created was now broken. The Fall reveals that there is a conflict between spiritual beings, and between the people of God and the spiritual beings that followed Satan.
Humanity continues in their sin, which eventually leads to the Flood (Genesis 6), which is followed by the incident at the tower of Babel. The people were supposed to spread out and subdue the earth. Instead, the people stayed close together and built a tower. This tower was something like a ziggurat, which was meant to call gods down to earth. In building this tower, the people once again rejected their relation to God.{6} In response, God confused their languages and dispersed them throughout the earth. The dispersion of the people and the confusion of languages were the result of the rebellion of the people against God. Deuteronomy 32 is a record of the nations.
After the people were dispersed throughout the earth, the narrative of the Bible continues through the development, then the life of Israel. Jesus comes and trains His apostles. Jesus has been crucified, resurrected, and ascended into heaven. His disciples are waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit. In Acts 2, the event of Pentecost is recorded. At Pentecost each person hears the apostles speak in their own language. The apostles are most likely speaking in Aramaic, but the Greeks who are present hear them in Greek, the Romans hear them in Latin, etc. This is an undoing of the confusion and division of people that occurred at Babel. As a result of their rebellion at Babel the people were dispersed throughout the world. At Pentecost the undoing of Babel, as well as the original sin in the garden, begins.{7}
Conclusion
When we examine the Christian Nationalist case for racial purity and against interracial marriage, we can see that they have not met the burden of proof for their claim. They end up reading their view into the text of the Bible instead of allowing the text of the Bible to shape them. Will one face challenges in an interracial marriage? Yes, but those challenges come from what is ultimately a sinful attitude against one race or the other. The picture the Biblical narrative paints is one of people rebelling against God by refusing to spread out and care for the earth and trying to control God to get what they wanted. This rebellion resulted in a curse, and beginning with Pentecost, God is undoing the curse.
While the Christian Nationalist is mistakenly concerned about racial purity in marriage, Christians should be concerned about spiritual purity. Paul makes two points in his letters. First, Paul states, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?” (2 Corinthians 6:14). What Paul points out here is that a marriage between two people that have different worldviews will often put the Christian in situations where they will have to choose between their spouse and faithfulness to Christ, including fellowship with other believers. I experienced this early on in my walk with Christ. I left the church when I was growing up. When I returned to Christ, I naturally started attending church. I was dating a woman who was not a Christian and was not interested in attending church. I went to church three times a week. Eventually my church attendance, along with other disagreements, led to us breaking up.
Second, if you are a Christian and are already married to someone who is not, you should not get divorced if the marriage relationship is healthy. Paul discusses this in 1 Corinthians 7:12-16. Paul teaches that if the unbeliever wants to remain married, the Christian should agree. If the couple has children, divorcing when the unbeliever does not want one can cause resentment among the children. Paul also teaches that the unbeliever can become “made holy” because of the spouse.
Christian Nationalists are correct in their view that people of all races are created in the image of God. They also admit that the lives of people of all races are valuable to God. Their error is in thinking that God is concerned with racial purity. They end up reading their view of racial purity into the Table of Nations and the Tower of Babel. God did create the races, and Scripture never commands or implies that the races should be separated.
Notes
1. Per Britannica, “Christian nationalism is an ideology that seeks to fuse a nation’s identity, laws, and public life with a particular vision of Christianity, treating the nation as if it should be explicitly Christian in character and governance.”
2. While I think I know who wrote the articles, they are technically anonymous, and I have not verified who the author is. Since I have not verified the identity of the author, I will not name him. I will say that I found the link to the substack with these articles on Joel Webbon’s account on X.
3. nxrstudios.substack.com/p/the-table-of-nations-and-the-biblical
4. nxrstudios.substack.com/p/a-historic-christian-view-of-interracial
5. Block, Daniel I. Covenant: The Framework of God’s Grand Plan of Redemption (Baker Academic, Grand Rapids) 2021, 24.
6. Heiser, Michael S. The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible (Lexham Press, Bellingham WA) 2015, 114-115.
7. Heiser, 298-302.
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