Race is not a Covenant

When Joel Webbon and Dale Partridge said that God doesn’t want people of different races to get married, people reacted right away and strongly. That answer makes sense. The statement strikes a chord with many Christians’ worries about continuity, cultural legacy, and the long-term viability of faithfulness in a world that is changing all the time.

We talk a lot about being salt and light, but the cultural vision that some conservative Christians, especially those in the more extreme theonomist and postmillennial circles that often platform Webbon, offer is often narrow and one-dimensional. Once you accept the evolutionary heresies of Gradualism and Fundamentalism and, as Matt Lee Anderson has explained at length, lose the older Christian sense of time shaped by the ritual year and a settled agrarian life, it is not surprising that the rich pageantry of ethnic cultures begins to look strange or unnecessary—especially when those cultures differ significantly from Western European norms.

It’s okay to be skeptical of all cultures. Cultures can make people lazy, violent, sexually disordered, or unstable at home. After 1500, Western culture trained the body and the will more and more through strict systems like the military, industry, and money. Every culture has its problems. But racial condemnation and cultural criticism are not the same thing, and making the two the same is where big theological mistakes happen.

To truly address the issues that these arguments are based on, we need to ask a deeper question than what is usually asked. In the end, this isn’t about politics or pressure from the left. It has to do with how we think God has acted in the past. How does meaning last over time? How do people pass on God’s promises from one generation to the next? And when we don’t know what will happen in the future, where do we naturally put our faith?

Saying “no” to wokeness doesn’t help with those questions. Ignoring bad arguments doesn’t help. It is essential to examine whether race has been implicitly assigned duties that Scripture consistently ascribes to God.

Every theological framework, irrespective of its recognition, offers a narrative of historical continuity. Classical Christianity has consistently asserted that God governs history, that it is structured through covenant, and that it culminates in Christ. Racial essentialism tells a different story. It believes that biological continuity is what keeps things stable and gives them meaning over time. People don’t say this directly very often, but you can see it in how worried people are about intermarriage. When bloodlines are unclear, it feels like something important is at risk.

That’s a very human answer. We grab onto things that seem solid when things seem shaky. Blood, ancestry, and visible continuity appear more tangible than providence. But that desire, while understandable, is not neutral. It shows where trust is likely to go when people stop believing that God is in charge.

It’s important to make a difference right now. The Bible says that culture is a good thing. Language, customs, collective memory, and inherited ways of life hold great importance. Christians should not be apathetic towards them. Wanting to pass on a way of life doesn’t mean you believe in racial essentialism.

The issue emerges when race is regarded as the carrier or protector of cultural assets. Teaching, imitation, discipline, and shared practice keep culture alive. Race does not do any of these things. Theology has already gone off course when biology is asked to keep what only formation can. A concern for culture subtly transforms into a metaphysical assertion regarding blood.

The Bible starts somewhere else. The Bible doesn’t start with nations or races; it starts with a man who is in a covenant. People are not only connected by their DNA, but also by federal headship, which means that one person represents many. Paul’s assertion in Acts that God created every nation from a single individual is fundamental. It establishes human diversity in a singular covenantal origin. Because of this, the Bible can talk about nations and people without ever treating them as different types of people.

But modern racial categories add something that Scripture never does: multiple functional heads under Adam. This is not just a mistake in sociology. It weakens the theological reasoning behind both fall and redemption. If humanity is not truly united in Adam, it cannot be united in Christ.

Here, the stakes are clear. Racial ontology not only misrepresents difference but also undermines the covenantal framework of the gospel. It suggests that there are parallel paths of meaning, identity, and inheritance under Christ. Over time, ancestry acquires theological significance that Scripture attributes solely to divine election. The Bible, on the other hand, only talks about two kinds of people: those who are like Adam and those who are like Christ. Adding more divisions to the covenant may seem like a safe or protective move, but it changes the grammar of redemption without saying so. At that point, the problem is no longer about being careful; it’s about doctrine.

This covenantal logic fits marriage perfectly. Marriage is not for the sake of keeping bloodlines alive. It exists to create a new home. It changes the order of loyalty and makes previous family ties less important. “Leaving father and mother” is not sentimental language; it is structural theology. Marriage creates something truly novel.

The Bible says that marriage is a promise between one man and one woman to be faithful, fruitful, and last. These are not racial truths; they are moral and creative truths. When marriage is responsible for maintaining ethnic continuity, it is assigned a metaphysical obligation for which it was not intended. The Bible does not consider phenotypical traits to be covenant-bearing realities. Melanin was never meant to have any religious significance.

These mistakes are not small. Christian theology has long grappled with the persistence of meaning and inheritance across time. When those questions are not looked at, they can easily lead to heresy.

The Bible makes this clear by how it talks about the limits of marriage. The Bible doesn’t say that certain marriages are bad because of race, but because of the covenant. Deuteronomy makes it clear that Israel should not marry Canaanites because of idolatry, not because of mixing bloodlines. This is why God punishes people who don’t like Moses’ Cushite marriage instead of Moses himself. It also explains why Rahab and Ruth are not embarrassing exceptions but important parts of Israel’s story. God welcomes outsiders who join by faith over and over again, but he punishes insiders who put too much stock in their ancestry. The Bible doesn’t just allow interethnic marriage; it also breaks down the logic that says it shouldn’t happen.

But marriage is not just about getting permission. It helps God make a group of people who trust Him. Marriage teaches believers to depend on God’s provision instead of inheritance by making new families across lines of origin. It teaches parents to put their faith in God instead of blood when it comes to their children, their legacy, and their future. In this regard, interracial marriage is not only permissible; it exemplifies how God illustrates that His promises are not contingent upon biological continuity.

The New Testament corroborates this without negating distinction. Paul does not deny identity when he says there is neither Jew nor Greek; rather, he is taking away its covenantal authority. Ethnicity persists, yet it no longer dictates belonging. Baptism, not lineage, signifies incorporation into Christ. To assert that interracial marriage contravenes God’s design is to reinstate boundaries that Christ has already rendered relative. That does not maintain biblical order; it limits redemption.

The Church’s vision of the end times supports this direction, but it needs to be said carefully. Revelation does not dictate marital norms, nor does it eliminate differentiation. But it does show where history is going: all the nations are coming together to worship one Lamb. Ancestry does not separate their voices. The end of history is not a separation that is passed down. The Bible doesn’t make the future happen right now, but it does make people trust it more.

When you look at it this way, the main problem becomes clear. When people lose faith in God’s rule, they often turn to race to do the work of providence. When divine promises seem vague, biological continuity becomes something you can hold on to. This urge is not often bad. The Church is always tempted to do this when it feels like history is changing in a way that makes things less stable. But providence doesn’t need any help. It needs trust, patience, and faith, not biological protections.

Throughout history and across cultures, Christians have repeatedly come across racial categories and had a hard time getting rid of them while trying to stay true to their faith. When people who believe aren’t sure, they naturally look for things that make sense to them. It is not slander to name that pattern; it is diagnosis. Repentance begins when faith in providence is clarified.

This is also why it’s not enough to just be against wokeness. Wokeness is a set of moral rules that are strong in the culture as a whole but not as strong in the Church. It frequently dissociates racial identity from nature entirely. Christian racialism, although considerably less prevalent and impactful, misinterprets Scripture by elevating what the Bible regards as incidental to an absolute status. They aren’t the same mistake, but they both fail for the same reason: they both stop believing in a plan that Christ made.

Interracial marriage is not a concession to modern sensibilities. It is theologically sound, biblically supported, potentially significant in God’s providence, and consistent with the path of redemption. Saying that it is “generally against God’s design” means giving biology a job that God has never given it. Bloodlines have never been able to keep covenants going because of God. He has always kept His promises through His will. When history seems uncertain, the Church doesn’t need stricter ancestral boundaries. Instead, it needs more faith in the God who controls history, which leads to more humility, hospitality, and patience.