Sightly Off-Topic: Ken Ham Comes Through

Recently, a rural pastor in Pike County, Kentucky, made national news when he forebade congregation members from engaging in interracial marriage if they wanted to take part in the church. Bill Estep of Kentucky.com has this to say:

In early November, [Pastor Melvin] Thompson proposed the church go on record saying that while all people were welcome to attend public worship services there, the church did not condone interracial marriage, according to a copy of the recommendation supplied by the Harvilles.

The proposal also said "parties of such marriages will not be received as members, nor will they be used in worship services" or other church functions, with the exception of funerals.

The recommendation "is not intended to judge the salvation of anyone, but is intended to promote greater unity among the church body and the community we serve," the copy supplied to the Herald-Leader read.

Well, as they should have, the Christian community (not to mention the secular one) rose up in arms against this as being un-Christian in spirit and theology.

Not far away, this is what Ken Ham had to say:

From a biblical perspective, all humans are descendants of one man and one woman—Adam and Eve (1 Corinthians 15:45; Genesis 3:20). Thus, if the Bible’s history is accurate, biologically, only one race of human beings exists.

Modern observational science confirms that this is the case. When the Human Genome Project was completed in 2000, scientists announced that they had put together a draft of the entire sequence of the human genome and “the researchers had unanimously declared, there is only one race—the human race.

He went on:

Certainly a couple from different cultural groups needs godly counsel, as do all couples, to help ensure they understand their roles in marriage and the differences they have that could potentially cause problems. However, if a man and woman trust Christ as their Savior and believe it would please Him for them to marry, nothing in Scripture disallows this, from either a biological or a spiritual perspective.

Christians must think about marriage as God thinks about each one of us. When the prophet Samuel went to anoint the next king of Israel, he thought the oldest of Jesse’s sons was the obvious choice due to his outward appearance. However, we read in 1 Samuel 16:7, “But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart’” (NKJV).

It is encouraging to see modern Christian leaders stepping up and condemning this nonsense. That is occurs at all, even in rural Kentucky is very disheartening.

P.S. It should be pointed out that the church reversed its ruling. Still, that it happened at all is quite something.

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