What Michele Bachmann and Charles Darwin (Don’t) Have in Common

Many evils have been foisted on humankind by those who adhere to the worldview I like to call "Darwinism."   One of the most heinous is of course the attempt to use so-called science to eliminate God from society.   Dawkin's famous quote in which he gives Darwinism credit for allowing him to be an "intellectually satisfied atheist" is one of many such statements made by Darwinists.  It appears that trying to keep God out of the culture is proving to be painful...to culture. 

Certainly another Darwinist evil is the existence of racism.  Because Darwinism teaches that non-white races are less evolved than the white race, it was considered "just science" when aborigines were hunted down, killed and skinned and prepared to be displayed in museums as if they were wild game.  Darwinism didn't invent racism of course and it didn't invent atheism, either.   But both atheism and racism are supported by the Darwinist worldview, so as long as people keep believing the stories, they are also far more likely to be racists and also more likely to be agnostic about God, if not entirely unbelieving.

The Bible, on the other hand, does not teach racism at all and in fact Creationists will assert that the concept of "race" is not valid.   Mankind is mankind with differences in skin color, hair color, eye color and various body types and sizes simply part of God's plan.   We all have unique fingerprints and personalities and talents but we are all people with no superior race among us, period!

Like Sly Stone of the Family Stone said on the Ed Sullivan Show back when I was in high school:

"Don't hate the black,

Don't hate the white, 

If you get bitten,

Hate the bite!"

The Bible and interracial marriage

by Carl Wieland

Fabric textures by: ©iStockPhoto.com/StockCube ©iStockPhoto.com/il67 ©iStockPhoto.com/de-kay 

Even though the Bible makes it clear that all people are descended from Adam and Eve (so they must be very closely related),¹ there are still misconceptions among some Christians surrounding ‘race’. Surprisingly, perhaps, this can include concerns about the idea of marriage between two believers from different so-called races.

But these concerns have no basis in either science or the Bible. Science has finally caught up with God’s Word in affirming how very closely related we all are at the genetic level. Evolutionary thinking has, historically, exacerbated racism dramatically. Darwin believed that some groups were less evolved toward humanity than others—with his own group, unsurprisingly, the most evolved. Darwin’s ally in Germany, Haeckel, even attacked the Bible for its antiracism.²

Evolutionary thinking has, historically, exacerbated racism dramatically.

It’s not as if we can solve all society’s problems with race by simply decreeing, on the basis of our close relatedness, that there is no such thing as race. If that were so, then there would be no such thing as racism, or discrimination by race. Nor would there even be the question of ‘interracial marriage’. In short, the word ‘race’ still conveys everyday meaning; we recognize that some are more closely related to us (and hence look more similar to us) than others.

But what ‘group differences’ exist are trivial, as modern discoveries in human biology and genetics now confirm. Things such as skin, hair or eye colour involve no structures or functions unique to any group, just various amounts of the same stuff. All people have the same ‘sunscreen’ skin pigment melanin; those with more melanin, generally labelled ‘black’, are really more dark-brown. Those with less, called ‘white’, are really light brown—often pinkish, because of insufficient melanin to screen the redness of their small blood vessels. And there are many shades in between.

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People with blue eyes have no unique colouring chemical; it’s that same stuff, melanin. It’s simply the way the light scatters from a lesser amount of melanin (just as the sky is blue because of the scattering of light from air molecules, enhanced by fine dust particles). Similarly, those genetically programmed to produce a lot of melanin in their hair will have brown or ‘black’ hair. And those with a little bit have blond hair.

Incidentally, it’s easy to explain how groups of people with differing characteristics distributed variously across the world could have arisen very rapidly. The Bible describes an event at Babel that provides the right conditions—the breakup of a population into a few dozen smaller ones that became isolated from each other.

The world’s population, having recently emerged from a ‘near-extinction event’,³ all spoke the same language. A small number of new languages (which form the ‘roots’ of today’s language family ‘trees’) was suddenly and supernaturally imposed upon this group.⁴

The resultant confusion and likely hostilities meant that each group rapidly fulfilled God’s stated purpose for this event, namely to spread people over all the earth. In effect, the event imposed a virtually instant social and then geographic (hence reproductive) isolation from each other. Each group carried a different subset of the total ‘gene pool’. Chapter 18 of The Creation Answers Book explains in detail how this would have led to the sorts of genetic groupings (including visible traits) we see in human populations today. Thus, racial differences, though not the purpose of this Babel event, were a side-effect.

Desperate attempts have been made to use this and other portions of the Bible to justify the status quo in societies with slavery and/or segregation. However, following that fairly drastic initial divine ‘nudge’, humanity has long ago amply observed God’s command to fill the earth. There is no suggestion in Scripture that God forbids either migration from one place to another, or marriage between one ethnic group and another.⁵

The Bible does counsel believers not to marry unbelievers (2 Corinthians 6:14). And in Old Testament times, the Israelites were not to marry outsiders. But they were allowed to if the outsiders converted to faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—such as occurred for Rahab and Ruth, ancestors of Jesus (Matthew 1). This shows that the issue was religious, not racial or even cultural.

Culture matters

Common sense indicates that groups that have a longer history of isolation from each other, both geographically and linguistically, will have developed greater differences in their respective cultures. Interracial marriage will therefore often mean that one is marrying someone from a different culture. So, there are ‘wisdom issues’ to consider. Cultural differences can arise even when two people are of the same ‘race’, e.g. a typical English person marrying a typical Russian. Even those speaking the same language, such as Americans and Australians,⁶ are often surprised at how great the cultural differences can be.

Cultural differences can greatly enrich both persons’ lives, but they can also bring a unique set of problems. Couples wise enough to seek counselling⁷ on various matters prior to betrothal should consider such things, too. It helps to be able to anticipate the sorts of problems that may arise, and bring the issues out into the open. The intention is to try to minimize problems should the marriage proceed.

Dogs and the dogma of ‘racial purity’

One of the issues in the way people see interracial marriage has, I think, to do with misconceptions about the idea of a so-called ‘pure race’. I recall listening once to a talk by CMI colleague, Peter Sparrow. With his trademark wide grin and booming voice, Peter made a statement which even startled me (it certainly seemed to shock many in the audience). He said (emphasis his): “Adam and Eve were the ultimate mongrels!”

When you think about it, he was absolutely right. The problem is that we have been conditioned to think of genetically depleted populations as ‘pure’ in the sense of somehow ‘better’. In fact, it is the ‘mongrel’ combinations in both animals and humans that have the greater genetic richness, more like the originals that God created directly.

When we start with the real history of mankind given in God’s Word, we see why there are no biblical or biological barriers to interracial marriage.

A good illustration of this involves domestic dog breeds. Starting from a ‘mongrel’ dog population, breeders have been able to select out many different ‘pure’ breeds—varieties as different as, say, Great Danes are from Chihuahuas. But by isolating certain characteristics, breeders have had to ignore others. Thus, by breeding for ‘Chihuahua-ness’ (including ‘tininess’), some of the genes for ‘Great-Dane-ness’ (such as ‘hugeness’) were lost in the process—and vice versa. So, if all dogs in the world ceased to exist apart from Chihuahuas, one could never breed something like a Great Dane again. To ‘rebreed’ a Great Dane, one would need the genetic richness and variety in that original mongrel population.⁸

So the ‘pure’ breeds are in fact thinned out and genetically depleted populations. They are more specialized, but also less able to vary and adapt further by selection. Similarly in human populations; Adam and Eve could not have been, as they are often depicted, pale-skinned with blue eyes and blond hair, or they could not have given rise to all of the different varieties of humans. They would likely have been ‘middle of the road’ in most characteristics, thus providing for the great range of variety observed in their offspring.

In such things as skin shade, hair and eye colouring, they were likely a medium brown. The descendants of people who have such a rich genetic endowment can then express a great range of variation as these genes recombine. Their skin shading can range from ‘white’ to ‘black’ and every shade in between.

This is beautifully illustrated in the ‘two-tone twins’ example (above) favoured by CMI speakers. The two beautiful twin⁹ baby girls shown were able to express that amazing level of variety in one generation because their mother and father (pictured) are themselves the product of ‘mixed’ marriages. In short, when two people from different races intermarry, they gain a greater richness and variety in their genes, closer to the original.

How sad that so many, inspired by evolution, or by others who have been, have put so much fanatical passion into preserving their particular ‘pure race’. Many have killed, and even willingly died, for this ‘cause’. Once one sees it for what it is—one’s genetically depleted race—it doesn’t sound like a cause worth wasting any breath on, let alone dying for.

The bottom line

When we start with the real history of mankind given in God’s Word, we see why there are no biblical or biological barriers to interracial marriage. In fact, there are positive aspects to it. Since the spouses in such a marriage are generally going to be less closely related than two of the same ethnic group, they are likely introducing greater genetic variety into their offspring.¹⁰

Related articles

• One Blood: Index

Further reading

• Racism Questions and Answers

References and notes

1. See for example Luke 3:23–38, Acts 17:26, 1 Corinthians 15:45. Return to text.
2. E. van Niekerk, Ernst Haeckel: a hostile witness to the truth of the Bible, creation.com/haeckel2, 3 March 2011. Return to text.
3. The Flood of Noah—8 people only survived. Return to text.
4. Genesis Chapters 10 and 11. The distribution of these new languages seems to have been along extended family lines. See also Wieland, C., Towering change: Were all of today’s thousands of languages separately created? And if not, have languages evolved? Creation 22(1):22–26, 1999; creation.com/babel. Return to text.
5. This is expounded and argued in detail in my book One Human Family: The Bible, science, race and culture. Return to text.
6. Well, sort of the same language.Return to text.
7. E.g. from an experienced pastor with the appropriate level of godly common sense. Return to text.
8. ‘Pure’ lines in the world of show-breeding are, incidentally, also much more likely to suffer from the effects of accumulated mutational defects because of inbreeding. See Cosner, L., A parade of mutants pedigree dogs and artificial selection, Creation 32(3):28–32, 2010; creation.com/pedigree. Return to text.
9. Heterozygous or non-identical twins, clearly. Return to text.

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I pre-ordered my copy of One Human Family as soon as it was announced.   I didn't need any convincing that people are just people but I was quite sure the book will be a rich source of information concerning recent findings specifically concerning the genetic code of mankind.  Christians absolutely should understand that racism is wrong.   Christians spearheaded both the elimination of the slave trade and the abolition of slavery.   Any Christian who believes the Bible teaches racism is grievously wrong.   Darwinism, of course, absolutely proclaims that racism is the natural outgrowth of living in a world with "less-evolved" people who are, to the most dedicated by-the-book Darwinists actually subhuman!  

Jesus was not white, he was a Jew so he undoubtedly had a Semitic appearance with probably olive tinted skin, dark curly hair and a somewhat bigger than average nose.  Wouldn't God have chosen to come to Earth as a Caucasian if they were superior people?  White people are descended from the line of Japheth, but so are Orientals.   Racial stereotypes can get comical at times.  I've known African American guys who are terrible basketball players, Asians who are not skinny,  Native Americans without drinking problems,  people of Scottish descent who are not misers and Polish people who are exceedingly smart.  People are people, we did not evolve from any other kind of creature and we are not going to turn into anything else while under our Sun.   

Like the Laws of Thermodynamics demand, organisms are accumulating mutations and will begin having more problems and diseases that threaten their existence.   Will modern science wake up and realize that organisms are designed and that mutations are not creative, they are deleterious? 

For now, just keep in mind that Darwinism isn't just the enemy of people of color, but the poor and the needy and those battling diseases - the less fortunate, those with less money.   To give Cornelius Hunter the soapbox:

What Michele Bachmann and Charles Darwin (Don’t) Have in Common

In a recent political debate presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann raised the topic of vaccines. She accused Rick Perry, governor of Texas, of abusing his authority when he imposed vaccine mandates. What does this have to do with Charles Darwin? Darwin was also concerned about vaccines. But the so-called Father of Modern Biology had a different sort of concern. Darwin erroneously worried that vaccines preserved the lives of those who otherwise would have succumbed. “Thus,” warned the Sage of Kent, “the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind.” And that, he ominously concluded:

"...must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil. Hence we must bear without complaining the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely the weaker and inferior members of society not marrying so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased, though this is more to be hoped for than expected, by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage."

It is little wonder that fifteen years later Nietzsche proclaimed that “The invalids are the great danger to humanity, not the evil men.” The rest, as they say, is history. Let’s hope it stays that way.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

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Well, it should be no surprise that Darwin's cousin Francis Galton was the progenitor of the Eugenics movement and the concept swept across the sea to the USA, where a shameful story of forced sterilizations will never go away.  Do some research for yourself once you drag yourself away from the propaganda machines and think about what Darwinism has done for humanity.   Separated more people from God?  Yup.  Given tacit approval to immoral activities?  Yup.   Used as an excuse to murder tens of millions?  Yup again.  Taken lots of time and money away from real research?  Alas, yup.  The ship of science doesn't move well or in the right direction with the massive Darwinist anchor being dragged behind.