00:00:00.000Welcome to NXR Studios. If you're new to this channel, our schedule is as follows. We broadcast
00:00:04.600both on X and Rumble and YouTube live on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Three broadcasts a week,
00:00:12.980Monday, Wednesday, Friday, all at 12 p.m. Eastern time. Now, we're making an exception. Today is
00:00:18.480Thursday. We're doing an extra broadcast, an extra live stream, because there has been a week-long
00:00:23.180controversy back and forth, back and forth between many Christians on social media over the topic of
00:00:28.400interracial marriage. And so we are going to have today an informal debate on that topic. It's going
00:00:34.900to be myself and my two co-hosts, Wesley and Antonio, on one side of the aisle. And then we
00:00:41.780will be debating against Ruslan and Avery on the other side of the aisle. My side, me, Wesley and
00:00:48.860Antonio, are going to be affirming the prompt or the thesis, which is from my tweet that kicked
00:00:54.340off this whole controversy about a week ago, we are going to be affirming this thesis for the
00:01:00.180debate, and Avery and Ruslan will be the denying side of the table. They will be denying this
00:01:06.940thesis. This is the thesis. Let me go ahead and read it right now. Interracial marriage,
00:01:11.680while biblically permissible, no one's saying that it's a sin, not inherently. Interracial marriage,
00:01:17.380while biblically permissible, generally slash ordinarily goes against God's normative design0.73
00:01:25.060for humanity, nations, and cultures. I'll read it again. This is the formal thesis for today's
00:01:31.700debate. I am in the affirmative. Wes and Antonio affirming with me. Ruslan and Avery denying.
00:01:39.480Here's the statement. Interracial marriage, while biblically permissible, generally or ordinarily
00:01:46.540goes against God's normative design for humanity, nations, and cultures. Now, I say that this is an1.00
00:01:54.820informal debate. Let me give you the structure. It's formal in the sense that we're all going to
00:01:58.920have opening-timed statements. So we're going to kick off in our first segment with the opening
00:02:04.160statements. I'm going to go first with a 10-minute opening statement, then Ruslan, one of my
00:02:08.520opponents, he will read a 10-minute opening statement. Then one of the guys on my side,
00:02:13.860my team, Antonio, is going to do a five minute opening statement. Then Avery on Ruslan's side
00:02:19.880of the aisle, he's going to give a 10 minute opening statement. And then we'll finish off
00:02:23.880with Wes, who again is affirming on my side, a five minute statement. So Wes and Antonio,
00:02:29.080both on my side, affirming the thesis, they each get five minutes. And then Avery and Ruslan and
00:02:34.460myself, we get 10 minutes so that both sides get a total of 20 minutes, which means it's going to
00:02:39.620be 40 minutes of opening statements. That's going to be the first segment of today's show. Then
00:02:44.920we'll go to a quick commercial break and then come back. And the informal portion of this debate
00:02:49.380will be the cross-examination. We're going to do that in a discussion format rather than timed
00:02:54.360cross-examination. So that'll be anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half. The second segment,
00:03:00.100informal cross-examination, lively discussion. Then we'll go to a final commercial break and
00:03:05.000we will come back for the third and final segment, which will be super chats. If you have a question
00:03:10.280or a comment, send it in as a super chat and start sending them in now, because this is going to be
00:03:15.740in order as we receive them. First come, first serve. If you have a comment or a question and
00:03:20.680it's not a super chat, then it's not going to get read on the air because we're going to have a lot
00:03:25.680of comments and a lot of questions for this topic. And so we want to prioritize the people who are
00:03:30.540being generous and supporting this channel. We appreciate you very much. And so the last thing
00:03:35.720with super chats, it's important. You got to stay on topic. If you are not staying on topic, even if
00:03:40.640it's a super chat, if it's a question or comment, that's not on topic, we'll have to address it
00:03:44.720another time because we only have so much time. We're going to have to end the stream. It's going
00:03:48.400to be a long one, but eventually we have to end the stream because Avery and Ruslan are flying
00:03:52.680back today. It's a quick turnaround. They came out this morning. They're going back this evening.
00:03:57.160And so if you have a Super Chat, you want it to get read, it needs to be on topic, and you need to get it in sooner rather than later because we're going to go in order that we receive the Super Chats.
00:04:07.680Last thing that I want to say is a big thank you for our Patreon supporters.
00:04:11.900These are guys who are financially, generously supporting us, NXR Studios, on a monthly basis, and we constantly are thinking of ways to provide special, tangible, substance, value for you.
00:04:25.560And so we spent over two hours, myself, Wes, and Antonio, recording a two-hour episode exclusively only for our Patreon supporters on this topic of interracial marriage,
00:04:37.660giving the science, the biology, the scripture, the theology, giving some of the cultural aspects, breaking down what is ethnicity, what is race, is race a biblical term, where do you root that in the scripture, what's the difference between race and ethnicity.
00:04:52.260If you want to watch that episode, then join us on Patreon.
00:04:55.960You can go to patreon.com forward slash nxrstudios, patreon.com forward slash nxrstudios.
00:05:03.520All right, here's a quick couple of announcements, then we'll get to our first segment with the
00:27:00.300thus making peace and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross by which
00:27:07.060he put to death their hostility he came and preached peace to you who were far away and
00:27:11.420peace to those who were near so we see this very clear uh description that uh mixed ethnic church
00:27:18.740is being made into one new humanity and again we see no prohibitions we we don't even see any
00:27:24.640slight pushback on this in any New Testament epistles at all. And he's writing to an audience
00:27:31.700that this would clearly matter to. So I think this is huge to break down and just get to the basics
00:27:38.600that God is not returning for a mono-ethnic bride, which I know you guys believe, but he is in real
00:27:45.060time right now redeeming a multi-ethnic people. This matters because design points forward,
00:27:52.360not backward and that leads me to my next point which is i think we would all agree here that god
00:27:57.780is a god of order uh that god does not contradict himself that theology requires uh the theology
00:28:04.160that that theology that requires semantic gymnastic is sus uh god is not a god of
00:28:10.740confusion as we see in first corinthians 14 13 the logos theme god is rational
00:28:15.300communitive, and consistent, which leads me to this entire premise, oddly enough,
00:28:22.480completely breaking the very second rule of logic. A moral claim must be morally permissible
00:28:29.620or morally impermissible, and the second rule of logic is the law of the excluded middle. There is
00:28:36.760no third moral category called generally against God's design but not sinful. The entire premise
00:28:43.380of this. Once you say God's against this design, you've crossed from preference into moral
00:28:48.260territory. The entire premise becomes incoherent. So if it's not sinful, it cannot be morally
00:28:54.940disproved by God. At most, at most, it's preference or situational, not normative.
00:29:02.420This claim, this entire claim debate, interracial marriage, while biblically permissible, generally
00:29:06.960orderly goes against God's design, is incoherent. And so I find all this telling and interesting,
00:29:12.500And in a broader context, like I'm more interested in your own evolution, Joel, because I don't know if I'm disagreeing with you as much as you seem to be disagreeing with you.
00:29:27.520And so I got a couple of clips I'd love to play of you from 2022, where it sure does sound like you are co-signing everything I'm co-signing.
00:29:37.260because you don't bring people home right like it's just i hear you racism my point is
00:29:45.020if race is a big deal racism is the necessary wall of defense to preserve the big deal of race
00:29:53.420you can't continue to emphasize race multiple generations from now without dividing walls
00:29:59.480of hostility to protect the purity of of the race and i feel like even with israel ethnic israel
00:30:06.400so we see we see if race is a big deal quote if race is a big deal i don't see racism not being
00:30:14.340the logical conclusion here's more on interracial marriage no for a fact if i could sit them down
00:30:19.180strap them to a chair give them some truth serum and hear what they really thought i don't think
00:30:23.840that they're they would be a fan of inter interracial marriage uh because it's all about
00:30:29.480you know it's all about your identity coming from your ethnicity and what you don't want to you don't
00:30:35.360want to water that down you don't want to lose that you don't want to mix that you know and so
00:30:38.620so joe this is you railing against hebrew israelites and i got one more clip
00:30:44.240it's my favorite one articulate or not the natural thought process is that that skin
00:30:50.100that blood needs to be preserved and and and so you have to turn inward rather than outwards
00:30:56.820and embracing people from every tribe tongue and nation and you know i've got three girls and if
00:31:01.400one of them, you know, bring some Hispanic guy home one day when she's older and the guy loves
00:31:05.680the Lord, then I want to say, praise God, marry my daughter, you know, or black guy, praise God,0.85
00:31:09.880marry my daughter. But I feel like if race is such a, you can't say that.0.93
00:31:16.440If race is such a big deal, you can't say that. So I don't know. I think at best, Joel,
00:31:23.020you've clearly flip-flopped on his position really bad. At worst, this is a part of a bigger play
00:31:29.720for partnerships with other Christian nationalists, but if race is a big deal, racism is a necessary
00:31:35.780wall of defense to preserve the big deal. Now, you guys have said race is in everything,
00:31:39.440but it's not nothing. So I'm just more curious on how you, just a couple years ago, went from that
00:31:45.300to where you are today. And really, my frustration is in you saying, I'm against interracial marriage.
00:31:51.360You can say I have preferences. I wouldn't even be mad if you said, hey, I want my grandkids to
00:31:54.900look like me. I want my kids to marry folks. But when you go out and say, I am against something
00:32:00.100as a pastor, I think I have some issues with that because I just don't see it in scripture.
00:32:04.940And so in this conversation, we're going to have some fun today. Again, I think God logic is going
00:32:09.700to have some interesting points, but I want to make sure that the goalpost is not moved and that
00:32:14.380we're not going back and forth over different prompts. We have a very clear prompt that you
00:32:18.500guys have to prove. I'm sure we're going to have some conflation of race and ethnicity and culture
00:32:24.260and faith. Joe is probably going to call our perspective wooden, because we're going to keep0.99
00:32:28.660taking you guys right back to Scripture. You're probably going to call us autistic and retarded.0.98
00:32:32.660That's fine. For demanding that we make a case from logic and Scripture. And I'm guessing there0.98
00:32:38.380will be, oh, I would love to hear your fifth commandment argument to honor your mother and
00:32:42.320father. That's going to be interesting if you bring that one up. There'll be appeals to emotion,
00:32:46.280social anxiety, gish galloping, filibustering. But what won't happen is they will not be able1.00
00:32:52.600to prove this with scripture even if i sat here and i granted every race realist claim and every0.60
00:33:00.560statistic every sociological concern every fear every uh they're trying to take out the white
00:33:07.200men and take our jobs because the immigrants are coming even if i did all of that none of it would
00:33:12.900overwrite which scripture clearly permits so that's it that's my time all right we will do1.00
00:33:20.400our best to respond in the discussion portion. So I'm going to hold off. It's your turn. Wait,
00:33:26.220no, it's your turn. Yep, Antonio, it's now. Great. Well, as I jump in, I think it will be
00:33:31.940helpful to deal with race. So we'll start there. And I want to just be clear, when we talk about1.00
00:33:36.440race, we don't mean to import caricatures or any moral hierarchies, nor do we even mean to refer
00:33:41.660to any discrete biological boundaries. In my view, race refers to a large, historically stable
00:33:48.240gene-sharing population that has developed under distinct geographic and ecological conditions,
00:33:54.260and therefore they exhibit, these different peoples, pattern differences in genetic variations
00:33:58.980and phenotypical traits. This is one of the reasons, for example, we can refer to white
00:34:03.360or black or Asian people and not have any linguistic utility, because we all know that1.00
00:34:08.080this is true. In terms of a biblical anthropology, my position is pretty simple, that this human1.00
00:34:13.360variation is not random. It was actually a consequence of the dominion mandate given by
00:34:18.100God to man at creation that they would be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth in Genesis 1,
00:34:24.140verse 28. As a consequence of filling the earth, by God's design, these people, exposed to different
00:34:29.960environments and diets and patterns of living, developed distinct and varied physical and
00:34:34.980biological attributes. And these variations, which when classified broadly can be described as what
00:34:40.700we call colloquially race, and they cluster primarily at the continental scale. For this
00:34:46.520reason, we can use the word European and white interchangeably. These clusters are detectable0.99
00:34:52.120and predictive, and they're obviously not absolutes. I think race is better understood
00:34:56.420statistically as a fuzzy set of data with real structure, much like dialect regions or ecosystems.
00:35:03.140You can blur the borders, but the underlying realities remain. For example, you might ask
00:35:08.220an ecologist. Where does the Amazon rainforest end? The borders are ecological gradients and thus
00:35:13.980quasi-arbitrary, but the lack of natural borders does not erase the existence of the rainforest
00:35:19.340altogether. In this way, you can understand the way in which race is a linguistic, or as you might
00:35:24.740say, a social construct that refers to a real non-pattern, non-random pattern, I should say,
00:35:31.560of human biology. And to deny this is to insist that reality conform to a modern liberal consensus.
00:35:38.220and its flattening of nature and its biological variations by way of race.
00:35:42.860And to quickly explicate, going back to the prompt, what is meant by God's normative design,
00:35:48.060this refers to the purposes and patterns God intentionally built into creation
00:35:52.720that define how things ought to function, not merely how they function in the fallen world.
00:36:00.460Normative refers to a divinely established standard discerned through creation's telos,
00:36:05.680that is its ends, but also its stable and recurring patterns, and scripture's authoritative
00:36:10.840interpretation of both. Deviations from these patterns do not redefine the norm, just as disease
00:36:17.640does not redefine health. And so given the structured human variation, we can properly
00:36:22.840assess on theological grounds the way in which distinct human populations or races correspond
00:36:27.960with one another, and more specifically than that, how these distinct groups correspond with one
00:36:33.060another within the context of marriage. So what is the purpose of marriage and what kind of unity
00:36:38.060does God intend to establish? This is where scripture and specifically case law is helpful.
00:36:43.140In Deuteronomy chapter 22 verse 10, Israel was commanded not to plow with an ox and a donkey
00:36:48.380yoke together. And scripture itself teaches us how to read such laws. They are case laws,
00:36:53.680specific applications of broader moral principles. The unequal yoke is not merely about animals. It's
00:37:00.060about mismatched types bound together in a task that requires unity, both of spirit, that is faith,
00:37:06.220and nature, that is in their physical essence. This principle of unity is explicitly applied
00:37:11.340in scripture to faith, but it does not originate there. Religion, faith, is simply the highest and
00:37:17.060most explicit expression of it. Man is created in the image of God. Woman is created as his helpmeet,
00:37:23.820not an assistant, but a mirror, corresponding reflection formed from him and for him. As
00:37:30.300Genesis and Paul both affirm, she is of the man and for the man, sharing in his calling,
00:37:35.540his culture, and his covenantal identity. A helpmeet is intended to have something religiously
00:37:40.920and culturally in common with her husband, or else she cannot truly help him fulfill his God-given
00:37:45.860task. This necessity for unity and correspondence is why scripture clearly places the burden of the
00:37:51.200law against unequal marriages, not merely inter-religious marriages, though those are
00:37:56.540explicitly condemned, but unequal unions more broadly, unions that fracture the very community
00:38:02.560that marriage is meant to establish. Further, at the societal or civilizational level, marriage is
00:38:08.920not merely a private affection. It's the foundation of peoplehood. It creates continuity of worship,
00:38:14.480of language, of norms, of inheritance. When marriages routinely cross deep religious,
00:38:19.540racial, and cultural boundaries, they tend not to strengthen community. In fact, they ordinarily
00:38:25.240dissolve it. The biblical vision of marriage is ordered and communal. It assumes that what
00:38:32.280is joined together shares not only affection, but a common life rooted in a shared belief,
00:38:36.840shared culture, and yes, a shared identity. And it is on that foundation, biological reality,
00:38:42.220creational order, and the covenantal purpose of marriage that we can conclude that interracial0.67
00:39:16.740all right all right all right man uh thank you for having us man uh enjoying the the perspectives
00:39:22.940that i'm hearing um ruslan i i want to piggyback off of you because you set a foundation here
00:39:29.420scripturally and you were quoting scripture and so that i think that that is extremely important
00:39:34.360in this conversation that we if we're talking about like he said if we're talking about whether
00:39:38.760or not this goes against god's normative design well we find god's design within scripture not
00:39:44.500with we make up, not with our own preference or position, arbitrary, you know, thoughts. It's
00:39:49.320with scripture. So I think that we should start off with one, how does God view the foreigner?
00:39:55.440How does he view someone who is not a native? And this is what we have in Leviticus chapter 19,
00:40:00.920verse 33 and 34. It says, if a stranger lives as a foreigner with you in your land,
00:40:05.740you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who lives as a foreigner with you shall be to you1.00
00:40:12.520as the native born among you, and you shall love him as yourself. Let's go to Leviticus chapter 24
00:40:19.440verse 22. It says, you shall have one kind of law for the foreigner as well as the native born.
00:40:26.540So what we're seeing with the scripture is that one with God's intent, with God's narrative,
00:40:32.200the foreigner, the one who clings to him, the one who loves him is the same as a natural born
00:40:38.880Israelite who he gave the covenants to in the first place. They're the same. They're one in the
00:40:42.500same, even though there are physical and cultural distinctions, but they are one in the same
00:40:47.180in God's eyes, one law. We got Numbers chapter 15, verses 15 to 16. It says,
00:40:54.120for the assembly, there shall be one statute for you and the stranger who lives as a foreigner,0.94
00:41:00.420a statute forever throughout your generations. As you are, so the foreigner shall be before0.99
00:41:09.080Yahweh. One law, one ordinance shall be for you and for the stranger who lives as a foreigner1.00
00:41:16.960with you. That is Numbers chapter 15, verses 15 to 16. So again, we see this isn't just a0.72
00:41:23.360temporary thing. This is forever. It says there's one statute that is shared with the
00:41:30.280stranger and the native born throughout your generations forever, God says. This looks like
00:41:36.620God is establishing how he feels and how he cares about the foreigner, those who have physically
00:41:42.660distinct traits with Israel. Let's see again, we got Ezekiel chapter 47, verse 22 to 23.
00:41:51.920It says, you shall divide it by lot, talking about the land, you shall divide it by lot for
00:41:57.060an inheritance to you and to the aliens who live among you who will father children among you then0.87
00:42:04.400they shall be to you as the native born among the children of Israel they shall have inheritance0.71
00:42:10.380with you among the tribes of Israel in whatever tribe the stranger lives there shall you give him
00:42:17.300his inheritance says the Lord Yahweh so we see that even the stranger is able to get an inheritance0.61
00:42:23.620among Israel, even though they are of, I guess what we would say, a different race. But yet,0.85
00:42:29.660before the eyes of God, they are seen as one in the same, despite the cultural and even genetic
00:42:35.680differences, right? So what do we see here then? In 1 Kings 11, we see what is the type of,
00:42:45.680you know, condemnation against intermarriage that God displays, that God condemns. We see that
00:42:53.460Solomon falls to this because he falls, he marries foreign women. And as a result of this,1.00
00:42:59.200the foreign women lead him astray. They lead him away from God. So what kind of intermarriages1.00
00:43:06.360does God not allow? He does not allow the ones that will lead you to idolatry, the ones who are
00:43:11.720not in the same spiritual position as you that are going after different gods and idols. But if
00:43:20.040If they go after Yahweh, if they believe in Yahweh, then they are that it's permissible.0.99
00:43:25.420It's OK. It's not a sin. And it's actually part of God's design.0.57
00:43:29.420It doesn't go against it. So let's see here.
00:43:33.540So we have a few examples of this. We have in Ezekiel.
00:43:38.080I'm sorry, not in Ezekiel. We have in Ezra. In Ezra, chapter 10, we have Ezra going against the intermarriage of the Israelites.
00:43:49.020And this is what we have to say. Hold on just one second. This is what we have in Ezra. Ezra chapter 9 and we have Ezra chapter 9 verse 1. It says,
00:44:01.120And now, O our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken your commandments. Which commandment was this? Which you commanded by your servants, the prophets, saying the land that you are entering to take possession of it is a land impure with the impurity of the peoples of the lands.
00:44:22.360why is it because of their genetic traits no he says it with their abominations they have filled0.97
00:44:30.020it from end to end with their uncleanliness therefore so here's what it is this is the
00:44:36.740reason why therefore do not give your daughters to their sons neither take their daughters for
00:44:43.380your sons and never seek their peace or prosperity that you may be strong and eat the good of the
00:44:49.320and leave it for an inheritance for your children forever skipping down to the 14th 13 and 14th0.99
00:44:55.400verse it says shall we break your commandments again and intermarry with the peoples who practice0.99
00:45:03.540these abominations so you see what it is it has to do with their spiritual posture not their genetic0.98
00:45:11.060traits it has nothing to do with that the condemnation of intermarriage that god has in0.99
00:45:16.120his scripture go it goes against the foreigners who will lead you away from the worship of the
00:45:21.660true God let's see again we have uh Exodus chapter 34 where we see the original commandment it says1.00
00:45:27.300be sure to keep what I am commanding you this day behold I am going to drive out the Amorite before0.96
00:45:32.600you the Canaanite the Hittite the the the the Paris is like the Paris you know you guys know1.00
00:45:37.240what I'm talking about sorry to say these words but all these nations y'all know what I'm saying
00:45:42.540But what does he say? He says, he says, for God is a jealous God, lest you cut a covenant with the inhabitants of the land and they play the harlot with their gods and sacrifice to their gods.
00:45:56.440And one of them invites you to eat of the sacrifice and you take some of their daughters for your sons and his daughters and his daughters play the harlot with their gods and cause your sons also to play the harlot with their gods.
00:46:10.940You shall make for yourself no molten gods.
00:46:15.040That's Exodus chapter 34, verses 11 to 17.
01:00:11.080Number two, this is, my wife and I were talking about this, you know, because I've had to disciple my wife and, you know, like for her to know, okay, what are some of these developments?
01:00:24.160Like a couple of years ago, when you hear me espousing those things, you play those clips, you know who I'm thinking of in my mind as I'm saying that?
01:00:30.120Who I still respect greatly, but who I'm thinking of Votie Bauckham.
01:18:36.860If I can't see them and I can't detect like an accent in their voice and they're just saying, I'm an American and I can't see them, I wouldn't really have a clue.
01:33:04.220That said, though, real quick, one of the things that you use some of the verses to say you shouldn't treat the foreigner, right, the sojourner, any different.
01:33:11.400But there are other passages of Scripture that say you could charge interest to a foreigner, right?
01:33:16.760So you have a disposition of hospitality towards a foreigner, and yet you could charge him interest on a loan, but you cannot charge your brother interest.
01:33:26.680Another thing in terms of indentured servanthood, that particularly pertained to Israel, to fellow Israelites.
01:39:42.320All of these are moral characteristics that God requires all of us to have, especially as men.
01:39:50.580He requires all of us to, you know, he doesn't demand it like you have to be the best in every category.
01:39:56.560But these are things that every Christian ought to exemplify, especially Christian men with their household, with their peers, whatever.0.84
01:40:04.480And so I would say that being the husband of one wife is included in that category, that that exemplifies a moral character.
01:40:12.360Should every Christian ought to be against slavery?0.52
01:59:46.600than just saying a preference. If you have a preference, just say you have
01:59:48.660a preference. If you want to nuance it to death, just nuance it to death.
01:59:50.520We're not doing a Mont & Bailey. I'm sticking to the
01:59:52.640tweet that kicked off this whole controversy that you're against it that's right that i'm yes you
01:59:57.200have no as a pastor you have no basis of that on scripture you've repeatedly failed to give us one
02:00:02.260new testament example to churches that have been written to mixed ethnic churches you haven't you
02:00:06.920haven't given us one new testament which is why i don't condemn it the bible does not condemn it
02:00:11.440it is biblically permissible it is biblically that's incoherent joel no it's not that is
02:00:16.580incoherent that breaks the second law of logic no first corinthians chapter six all things are
02:00:21.480permissible, but not all things are beneficial. There is, in God's Word, a category. So you guys
02:00:28.120have done this several times now. You've said, oh, this third category doesn't exist. It breaks
02:00:31.580the laws of logic. Well, no. God gives this category. All things are permissible. Not all
02:00:37.380things are beneficial. So right there, under apostolic authority, inspired by the Holy Spirit
02:00:42.380of God, the third person in the Trinity, we have a third category, something that's permissible,
02:00:46.760but it's not beneficial my whole thesis that kicked off this whole thing where everybody got
02:00:52.060mad at me thousands of people christians calling me a racist saying that i hate people who these
02:00:58.460are people who have been saying it for years they haven't even taken the time to watch the show to0.97
02:01:02.100see that one of my co-hosts is interracial these are are deceitful mean-spirited people they're0.75
02:01:08.900being mean it's wrong right whether or not interracial marriage whether or not my position0.79
02:01:13.920is permissible to have that's debatable slanderer slander is not debatable agree slander is objectively
02:01:21.160immoral and all i'm saying is that this category is not a category that i invented in my mind
02:01:26.040it's a category that i read in first corinthians chapter six as a young boy i realized that this
02:01:31.320was a category that has biblical merit god sees us as it's it's uh permissible but not beneficial
02:01:38.420okay so i'm allowed to make that argument okay but that's not the argument the argument isn't
02:01:43.140today if it's beneficial or not the argument is does it go against god's normative design
02:01:49.980and that's what ruslan is saying spread the people out
02:01:53.300just saying that that's what ruslan is emphasizing is that you guys have not been able to scripturally
02:02:04.320give a basis for interracial marriage going against god's original design when we have
02:02:11.320verses that show the opposite so that's that's what has been lacking on the if you're i'll use
02:02:17.140another example similar uh similar to the last one if your daughter wanted to get married at 15
02:02:21.960would you let her if my daughter wanted to get married at 15 would you let her uh no why why
02:02:27.480not uh i would i would deduce that she's not ready for that on what basis on the basis on her0.79
02:02:34.140mentality. Notice, notice the difference. I'm giving you my, what I ascertain and my knowledge
02:02:42.080and my observation, right? I'm not saying even necessarily that if a 15 year old in the scripture
02:02:50.520who got married to another 17 year old or a 21 year old, whatever, that that goes against what
02:02:55.500God's design. I'm not saying that. But aren't you a Christian? Shouldn't you be thinking it not
02:03:00.260arbitrarily or capriciously shouldn't you be thinking in terms of what does God say,
02:03:04.940not only in his scripture, special revelation, but also in nature, natural revelation. You have
02:03:10.280two different ways that God's speaking to you. Yeah, so God talks about the maturity and the
02:03:15.880mindset of people ready for marriage. It talks about... Okay, let's do this. Should the age of
02:03:22.660consent be 14? Not for your daughter specifically. Would you be okay with the age of consent being
02:03:27.820I don't think so, because I think that generally 14-year-olds are not mature physically or mentally or spiritually for a marriage or relationships.0.96
02:03:35.840Do you think that's a valid argument, biblical argument to make?
02:03:41.880So you just made it—you said that's biblical, and you made an argument where you just said what you just said is biblical.
02:03:49.340You said, I don't believe that 14- or 15-year-old girls are mature, and then you said that's biblical.
02:03:55.520No, what? No. See, that's why I say, like, you got to let me finish that. I'm not saying that there's an age biblically, because there's not. There's not an age biblically. But biblically, it talks about maturity, spiritual maturity, physical maturity.
02:04:07.320Where does it talk about maturity, not spiritual, but physical?
02:18:35.260If you're talking about an upper-middle-class Christian family that loves Jesus and a biker, gang, hell's angel, family from a trailer park.0.95
02:18:42.240Yes, and that massive distance, you're right.0.95
02:18:43.480That massive distance still pales in comparison to the distance I just described.
02:19:55.380The biggest identity issues I had, Joel, was not in my interracial marriage.0.95
02:20:00.320The biggest identity issues I had was being Armenian from Azerbaijan, hanging with a bunch of Glendales, and being super confused.0.95
02:20:07.640And I'm white, but I'm Armenian, and ethnically, that was a way bigger identity issue than my black wife and her amazing family and my beautiful mixed kids.1.00
02:22:48.600Oh, we're honoring Haiti, and we love the food, and we fly the flag, and we watch the World Cup, and also we're completely American ethnicity.0.67
02:22:55.020Ruth forsook her fathers, her people, and her false Moabite gods.
02:23:00.760And that's what people keep pointing to Ruth.
02:23:05.900You've been, I think, really respectful.
02:23:08.400But Samuel Say, for instance, he was pointing that out.
02:23:11.680The difference, I would say, is that Ruth was leaving, in leaving Moab, she was leaving a place where there was no Christian subset population in Moab at the time.
02:23:23.300She was leaving a place, a people, that was 100% pagan.0.79
02:23:29.500So she forsook her people, and the Bible, it's not prescriptive, it's descriptive, but in that descriptive passage, it does esteem it.
02:23:36.720It elevates it as a good, look at this virtuous thing that Ruth did.
02:23:39.580And it was virtuous, not because dishonoring and severing relations from your parents is universally virtuous, but in her particular case, she was leaving for all the right reasons.
02:23:50.520Her parents, she, to say, goodbye, Father, and I will never see you again, was honorable because her father worshipped sand demons.0.61
02:29:29.200but what's important I think for people to realize0.73
02:29:31.520is that there's two sins, not merely one
02:29:33.260So one is the sin of arrogance, blatant, unbridled arrogance and pride.
02:29:37.960They wanted to build a tower that stretched to the heavens so that they could be as God, right?
02:29:42.160So there's the arrogance factor, and God sends a judgment because of that.
02:29:45.280But there's a second sin, and it's actually listed in the text.
02:29:49.140The second sin is it says, let us build a tower that stretches to the heavens so that we might be as God,
02:29:54.480so that we will not, and make a great name for ourselves, so that we will not be scattered over the face of the earth.
02:29:58.940And I would tie that into the dominion mandate.
02:30:01.160So I believe in a prelapsarian world, even if sin never entered the world, in Genesis chapter 3, that the natural fulfillment and obedience to the cultural mandate that was given by God to Adam, that it actually would have naturally developed over time different races and also different, multiple, different, some different races and many different ethnicities.
02:30:20.400that the dominion mandate was to be fruitful and multiply and to fill the earth. So it was
02:30:26.320that God would have many image-bearing creatures to worship him, and that they would also fill
02:30:32.880the whole temple, that the garden, I think that this is implicit in scripture, that the garden
02:30:37.220was, Adam was to work and keep. Work is to tend, and I would say to grow the garden, to actually
02:30:43.400cultivate and advance the garden, that that garden that was a geographic locale, that with his
02:30:49.400stewardship, good stewardship over the garden, over the earth, that he would expand its borders,
02:30:54.240that even before sin entered the world, there were still deserted wilderness type places. Adam was
02:30:58.980actually created in such a place. He was made in the wilderness, the text says, and then placed by
02:31:03.400God in the garden. And then Eve was made from Adam from his flank as a suitable helpmate to him in
02:31:09.120the garden. So there were desolate places. I believe that the dominion mandate would be that
02:31:13.560Adam and Eve would be fruitful and multiply. There would be many triune worshipers and these1.00
02:31:19.180trying worshipers would not just be congregated and isolated in one place, but in working and
02:31:23.940keeping, advancing and defending his role in the garden. The garden would actually advance and
02:31:29.300increase and fill the whole earth. So you would have an all earth encompassing garden and the
02:31:33.980whole earth would be filled with these image bearing creatures worshiping the Lord. And that
02:31:37.680over time, going across seas and mountain ranges and rivers and desolate climates, more hot climates,
02:31:43.960more cold climates, all these different things that you would naturally develop through nature,
02:31:48.460you would develop different peoples that would have distinctions at first. It would be just
02:31:53.980different accents and dialects, eventually devolving into different languages and these
02:31:58.420kinds of things, and depending if they live closer to the equator or further, different pigment and
02:32:02.900skin and all these different things. So I think that different races was always God's intended
02:32:07.640thing, even in a prelapsarian world if sin never entered. If sin entered, which it did in Genesis0.77
02:32:12.660chapter 3, if man, having sinned, still committed himself to the Lord and wanted to be obedient
02:32:18.140thereafter, then I believe the same thing. People would spread out and fill the earth and you would
02:32:23.220get different races. In the Tower of Babel, what you have is now you have disobedience in the0.98
02:32:28.120garden, sin enters the world and through sin, death, but also you have further doubling down,
02:32:32.840tripling down, quadrupling down of rebellion against God. And one of those, a heightened
02:32:38.280descriptive passage of that rebellion reaching a culmination is at Babel where there's unbridled
02:32:44.780arrogance, let's rival God, build a tower that stretches to the heavens so that we may be as0.71
02:32:49.100God and make a great name for ourself, but then a second sin so that we won't do exactly what Adam
02:32:54.500was commanded to do in the cultural mandate. We will not spread out and fill the earth, but rather
02:32:59.660we can congregate. We're going to do this so that we can rival God in terms of our name, but also
02:33:05.560so that we can rebel against God in terms of his mandate to fill the earth. We want to congregate.
02:33:11.300And so Babel, I believe that what God does when he goes and divides their languages is a judgment for their sin, two sins, but it's a judgment wrapped in mercy.0.90
02:33:22.140Babel serves as a catalyst of God actually supernaturally quick-starting what would have happened naturally over time had they obeyed.0.90
02:33:45.380And so I believe that different races were always God's idea.0.92
02:33:48.100It would have happened if sin never entered the world.0.98
02:33:50.140It would have happened if people obeyed after sin entered the world.0.84
02:33:53.180And he made it happen, even with people disobeying after sin entered the world through Babel0.95
02:33:57.880kickstarting the supernatural catalyst.
02:33:59.620All that said, Revelation 7-9, the end game is that we would actually celebrate diversity, different peoples around the throne of God in heaven for eternity.
02:34:09.840But that scenario does not play out if diversity is not at some level preserved here on earth.
02:34:17.100You don't get eternal diversity if you steamroll diversity temporally.
02:34:22.440So we believe that nations are good, they're God's normative plan, and that if anyone is
02:34:28.200encouraging or promoting at scale in the macro as a positive, virtuous, universal good, mass
02:34:37.900interracial marriage, that that actually goes against God's normative plan. It is permissible0.97
02:34:44.940in the micro, might even be ideal in a micro situation, and a pastor or a father can counsel
02:34:51.400accordingly with his congregant with his daughter with his son but in the macro if i'm if i'm
02:34:57.920presented with only two choices after being called a racist after being uh publicly slandered saying
02:35:04.600that joel is for capital punishment for interracial marriage and then right now before everyone tell
02:35:10.760us are you for or against those two options then i would say yes i would be generally against for0.97
02:35:17.500you're encouraging, promoting, advancing against your warning, counseling, saying I think that
02:35:25.600in general, biblically permissible in the micro, but in general in the macro, this goes against
02:35:31.360the normative plan of God for peoples, nations, and cultures. That's my argument. That's how I
02:35:38.520would describe it from the Bible in a macro view using descriptive text. There's no prescriptive
02:35:43.920verse that says do not intermarry racially we we recognize that which is why we don't condemn it
02:35:49.560as a sin but i do think that there are enough descriptive texts in the whole narrative
02:35:54.260scripture to say yeah this is the norm this is the norm so you guys ask for my bible that's that's
02:36:00.180my bible it's a macro descriptive argument from scripture and nature now i know you guys obviously
02:36:06.380disagree and don't think it's a good argument but i i said i would give you one and and that's what
02:36:10.920i got let's go to a commercial break i don't get to make a statement i thought we just did that we
02:36:15.400did you we did no you got yeah i mean we don't we won't have a ton of time we don't i really want
02:36:20.700to be able to do super chat it's not so eight what time is it right now it's five it's five
02:36:25.280so you got to leave when six six thirty yeah yeah probably we don't need one go ahead i would say
02:36:31.560you leave you leave at six so do it do it quick let's go to commercial break and we can at least
02:36:35.700give like 50 minutes of super chat i'll do my very best okay uh that dominion mandate was an
02:36:42.420amazing argument from silence joel i have never heard anything that exhaustive from that little
02:36:47.180scripture respectfully i think you kind of conceded a debate and you said there's no
02:36:50.820prescriptive text you're just weaving together stuff from descriptive passages and a little bit
02:36:55.600of natural law reformed theology i don't know i don't know how you come to these i mean i know
02:37:00.100how you come to these conclusions but i think it's just it's i'm really impressed with how you
02:37:03.740were able to weave all this together. I want to go to John 7. I'm impressed by the sarcasm.
02:37:07.820Okay. Because you're laying it on pretty thick. I am. I want to go to John, because I think John
02:37:13.960in Romans, excuse me, John speaking in Revelation 7-9, we have the Greek, we have nation, which
02:37:21.200means ethos, people group. This is not a race. In any modern biological sense, which again,
02:37:27.060that word didn't pop in until about 500 years ago. This is just as modern as a lot of the gender0.72
02:37:31.780theory nonsense. We have tribe clan, which is about a kinship lineage, family lines, Israel's0.53
02:37:38.620use. And then we have people, a covenant word used to describe God's people. John is not collapsing
02:37:44.260humanity into a single flattened category. So it's okay, all you white men, it's going to be fine.
02:37:51.440Nor is he freezing them into a permanent segregated order. He's doing something much
02:37:57.380more dangerous to ethnic purity. He preserves distinction without hierarchy. Why all of this0.95
02:38:02.980undermines this entire natural law equals separation, even though we have no scripture
02:38:06.720and we're breaking the rules of logic. If natural law demands ethnic separation as normative,
02:38:13.180Revelation 7-9 becomes a problem. There's these distinctions that survive into the very end,
02:38:18.100but they survive inside a single redeemed multitude, no hint of boundary enforcement,
02:38:23.520no hint of ethnic preservation as a moral duty, no hierarchy of any tribes, nations, or peoples,
02:38:29.620and nations and peoples evolve over time as boundaries move and nations sprout up and all
02:38:34.780these things change. So John gives us a different redeemed gospel. He gives us a different redeemed
02:38:41.720people, not difference guarded. And that's where, in my opinion, this idea of natural law from
02:38:47.580creation to natural order, distinct people, moral obligation, Revelation flips that. Creation, fall,
02:38:53.100redemption, unified worship with real diversity. If separation were really normative, why does the
02:39:00.500final vision not separate these nations? They are together, they are worshiping, they are visibly
02:39:06.300diverse, and heaven doesn't rush to correct it. And church history doesn't rush to correct it.
02:39:11.860And all the church fathers don't rush to correct it. There's no asterisks next to these names.
02:39:16.820So John uses four different Greek words in Revelation 7-9 not to enforce separation,
02:39:22.380but to show that redemption doesn't erase difference or moralize it.
02:39:26.780The nations aren't purified by distance, they're unified by worship.
02:39:31.000That's not liberal theology, that's not Marxism, that's not critical theory,
02:39:34.900that's biblical eschatology doing violence to ethnic purity and natural law claims.
02:39:41.580And our awesome opponents, who I really did enjoy,
02:39:44.600failed to demonstrate this in the New Testament,
02:39:46.820they failed to demonstrate it with logic and reason,
02:39:48.740And I think the whole idea that there's no prescriptions, in my opinion, there's no prescriptive text on this, concedes the entire premise that was incoherent to begin with.
02:40:08.580He said, this excluded, middle, permissible, impermissible argument is wrong.
02:40:12.860The kind of act as permissible is different than an act in concrete circumstances.
02:40:17.120An act can be morally permissible in its genus, as a generic kind of act, but illicit in its species when in concrete circumstances, the act is an improper means to what is good.
02:40:26.720It is morally permissible for an 18-year-old to marry a 65-year-old, but isn't ordinarily prudent.
02:40:31.740I think it was fair to take 30 seconds at the end there.
02:40:34.340All right, let's go to commercial break.
02:52:45.120And so when we think about this, for example, there's this concept of compatibility we referenced several times, the idea or the principle that when a man and a woman come together, that they ought to be more compatible on all of the dimensions that we've talked about, from language to custom and tradition.
02:53:04.080I think Ruslan raised the point of geography even.
02:53:08.200And so we believe that in line with that principle, right, the idea that you should be more compatible and not less, that is the basis with which you could judge in a particular sense or at the individual level whether something is better or worse or more ideal or less ideal.
03:24:45.800So trying to get down to sin issues and encouraging from the scripture repentance wherever necessary with anything that's actually objectively sinful.
03:24:56.560And then with everything else that might be a language barrier or different preferences or different customs or traditions.
03:25:03.840And, you know, he celebrates Christmas and she doesn't or whatever.
03:25:08.220I think with that, encouraging, you know, patience and they're just they're just going to have an extra set of extra homework than the, you know, the average couple that's more homogenous.
03:25:22.180They're going to they might have to study up on language and they might have to study up on this, study up on that.
03:25:28.480So they're just they're going to have to work harder. So encouraging diligence, encouraging vigilance and, you know, those kinds of things.