You are welcome to add my rejoinder to the discussion Shotgun:
The real crux of the issue is that there was no such thing as confessional or propositional nationhood in the ancient Levant. It simply didn’t exist, and to claim it did is counter-factual. An Israelite was so by birth or adoption, not by practice. The Mamzer laws required 400 years to pass before one could become a member of the congregation of Israel.
Does biblical liberty in the area of polity permit states to forbid interracial or inter-ethnic coupling? Yes. It does. There is no necessary inference from scripture that this is not permissible. Indeed, all things are permissible, but not all things are convenient (or meet). For the sake of the peace and prosperity of a nation, it is better therefore to codify the natural self-segregation of ethnic groups into law than it is to engage in the social engineering (a term you “conservatives” like to trot out quite readily) that forces together social elements which Rushdoony referred to as “uncongenial.”
What I want to see from the race-mixers here, is the biblical mandate that these uncongenial elements be forced together, and that such forced integration is of such social importance (as opposed to letting ethnic groups self-segregate) that it requires a violation of basic property rights? How does one justify that, biblically, if I may ask.
The deep flaw in all the race-mixer’s arguments lies in the fact that it assumes
a) that Kinism relies on claiming that racial inter-mixture is sinful on the basis of “covenant.” This is not the case. The case for Kinism primarily relies on the biblical freedom of nations to organize their social polity in ways that do not violate biblical mandates or necessary inferences, and that are conducive to peace and prosperity
b) that there was ever any such thing as confessional nationhood in the ancient world. There simply wasn’t. Political organization was either on an imperial or an ethno-national basis. Throughout the scripture, in fact, the word that is commonly rendered “nations” in the Greek is the term “ethnoi,” referring to those of a common descent, which, outside of the trans-ethnic empires, was the sole basis of political and social organization -with exceptions made for certain cases involving transplants and travelers. This is indisputable fact. We never hear any call in scripture for the political or violent overturning of this order of things. It isn’t present, and must be tendentiously read into scripture.
c) The presence of racial-ethnic minorities in close proximity is assumed in the argument that inter-mixture must be permitted in order to have equal protection or (one law), when in fact it is only in imperial states that this typically occurs. Thus one is assuming that the Imperial state is normative. There is nothing in scripture that implies that imperial States are normative. One law, or equality before the law does not necessitate or imply integration, but rather, the presence of racial minorities (contra naturam) must be assumed for the case of equal protection or “one law” to even apply. It takes for granted a state of affairs that is improbable in nature to argue its case.
d) Israel was an ethnic state, not an imperial state or confessional state, until it came under foreign domination. The severity of the Mamzer regulations, whereby access to the convenant blessings required multiple generations to pass, indicates this. The term Mamzer does not apply merely to progeny of adultery. but also to any proscribed relations that result in progeny. Marriages with non-Israelites were considered illicit, and this is why we have the Ezra-Nehemiah censures, not due to the observance of foreign cults, which would have of course also merited censure. The scriptures do not refer to these as foreigners, but as those who practice abominations. There is a distinction. They are not cognates, and this is why both the Greek terms in the LXX and the Hebrew terms in the Masoretic are different terms. Israelites who practiced abominations did not cease to be Israelites in the national sense by doing so. They were called to repentance, not exiled as foreign elements. This is clear. There was both a spiritual and genetic/natal aspect to covenant, not only spiritual. That the Israelites believed that there was a genetic aspect to covenant is revealed when they are accused by John the Baptist of relying on the merits of their descent for salvation. If Israel-belonging is by belief alone then it makes little sense for Christ to come to seek and save exclusively Israelites, who are such already by virtue of their belief. If their belief marks them as Israel, they are “found” already and saved already. There can be so such thing as a “lost of the House of Israel” if Israel is composed of belief or even those who WILL believe. Christ has no need to “seek” those who are fore-ordained to salvation, does He? If Israel-belonging has a genetic aspect in addition to its spiritual aspect, then this comports wonderfully with genetic analogy of “grafting” that Paul uses to describe the binding of the “gentile” nations into Christ, who is Israel. Our adoption as sons is also our adoption into Israel. We are forensically considered part of Israel, not that Israel was never conceived of as (at least in part) descent. Otherwise there is not “much” that is of value in being of physical Israel, according to Paul. The spiritual is above the physical covenant, but they are not, and cannot logically be, mutually exclusive.
e) There is ample evidence that Israel was indeed an ethnic state. I refer you to the work of sociologist Max Weber on the topic.
f) Racial type and subtype inter-mixture in nature is extremely rare. And therein we have an argument from Natural Law, which ought to meet with the approbation of our Thomists.
The argument in D above is unnecessary to the case we make, but provides some good background into the intellectual basis for those Kinists who argue that racial inter-mixture is a sin. The path usually taken here is that racial inter-mixture is a form of unequal yoking, which is prohibited. Rushdoony argues in his Institutes of Biblical law that inter-mixture of any type (race, ethnicity, class) militates against the very unity that marriage was instituted to uphold and preserve. Certainly parents are not forbidden to object to such pairings if the differences between the candidates are such as to introduce not only difficulties into the marriage, but also
It is commonly asserted that such objections on the part of parents are trivial. But are they really? If one has a narrow and unidimensional view of race as “skin color” then perhaps such objections would be indeed be trivial. Yet race is not so trivial as claimed: it contains profound sociological and biological difference that must be taken into account. Everything from measures of “aggressivity” to disease susceptibility vary by race. Were these not enough, and were racial differences entirely fictional and illusory, the deep and abiding “belief” in such differences would be enough to give a parent pause in considering for their children a spouse of another race, considering the extremely profound social challenges they will meet with from family, friends. Their children will also meet with these challenges from those who believe in the “illusion” of race, which is so “illusory” that forensic pathologists and medical examiners use this illusion daily to identify from tiny amounts of bioloogical material the physical characteristics of both criminals and victims. And yet, despite all this, racial inter-mixture is recommended to Christians by their pastors as though it were of no greater import than the color of ones tie or shoes -which of course, if you have spent any time in reality, is absurd on its face.
