The Sean McDowell Show - The Interracial Marriage Debate is Back | My Response

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

The interracial marriage debate is back. What is going on?! What does this tell us about our cultural moment? What does the Bible actually say about it? Sean and Neil Shenvi break down a recent debate between Ruslan and GodLogic (pro) and Webbon, Griffith, and Todd (against). Let us know what you think about the debate and if THIS kind of video is helpful on this channel. READ: Post Woke, by Neil Shenvi & Pat Sawyer (https://amzn.to/49Y2gSt) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [smdcertdisc] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://x.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sean_mcdowell?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

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What does this tell us about our cultural moment? How concerned should we be? And how do we best respond to the arguments against interracial marriage? My guest today is Dr. Neil Shenvey, author of Post-Woke. Neil, thanks for coming back on to talk about this surprising issue that's kind of reemerged right now. Thanks for joining me. My pleasure. be here, but sorry that I'm doing it under these circumstances.

Because you thought this debate died 50 years ago, 60 years ago. My wife was asking me an interracial marriage. You kidding me? And I was like, yeah, unfortunately. We're talking about it again. Well, I got my haircut this morning, and I told the person cutting my hair, he goes, I thought we settled that 70 years ago. And this is in part what the Internet does.

We're seeing something that's often called the woke right Christian nationalism. I know these are only labels, but why else do you think this issue is reemerging now? I think we're seeing a reactionary backlash against wokeness. That's undeniable. I think that a lot of young white men especially have been radicalized by basically seeing the media and the culture really cast them as the villain. Talking about people that grew up during the years of the Great Awakening, as you say in our book, post-woke, the rest of us who were a little older, I'm Gen X, we can remember the before times. We can remember a time before the world went crazy when everyone knew what a man was, what a woman was,

everyone knew that racism was bad, everyone just knew that not every, the world wasn't divided into oppressors and oppressed. That was not the prominent category in most people's minds. So when we want to undo the Great Awakening, we want to rewind the tape, we want to go back to normalcy. But if you were born in, say, you know, 2008, right? So, you know, you have never known a different world. This is the world you've always been in, a world in which because you're a young white male, you were seen as an oppressor. You were told to sit down and shut up. You were told to listen to other people because your opinion didn't matter. You were cast with guilt and a stain of inherited sin for things you never did. And so you can see why people like that.

some of them at least, we're going looking for answers in these radical right movements. So we're seeing it. And of course, as a document in my book and my last book with Pat, critical dilemma, there's always been, unfortunately, a strain of racism within evangelicalism. So historically, for the last 30 or 40 years, around 20 percent of church-going evangelicals have been opposed to interracial marriage. That number has not changed dramatically in the last 20 years. So unfortunately, it's always been a problem, but we're seeing it becoming a

increasingly public now with the rise of the radical right, the dissident right, it's called the Christian nationalist movement. And that's why we're facing it again. Last time I interviewed you, I asked you if you thought there were still some systemic racism left over. And I don't want to get too sidetracked on that. Even that term can be something we need to unpack in detail. But you gave two examples, if I remember crack. And I think these are in your book. One is that when certain applications are given to companies with names that appear of minorities or blacks, less likely to get a callback. And that's like a residue and an example of racism. The other one was the number of Christians and people who are against interracial

marriage. So before we dive in, do you consider being against this morally or biblically a racist viewpoint. So there are ways to be sort of hesitant that interracial marriage that I wouldn't attribute to say racism per se, a sinful enmity, I think partiality. For example, this is a legitimate concern. You could just say knowing that racism is out there, right?

Will my children face hardships by marrying interracially? So let's say I'm white and my son's fiance is black. I might worry that given her ethnicity, that she and her kids and my son will face discrimination. Now, I think, hopefully, people will say,

yeah, but if she's a wonderful person who loves the Lord, that outweighs. Every marriage faced hardship, right? Every marriage has struggles. And I think that you look for someone who is going to help your child serve God the best. And if it's harder for them because of the sighting in which we live,

I think you just say, well, so be it. We'll have to work harder. the work harder. So I don't, I wouldn't say someone thinking that way is sinning. I also have friends whose parents are older and they just had this cultural stigma about interracial marriage. They, and they have to get over that. We hope that they, you know, they think carefully. They learn knowing their son-in-law, daughter-in-law, they come to embrace them and that unwinds this cultural knot that's been tied in their head. So I think there's a spectrum, right? I think it's, I think they should support interracial marriage. Um, other other thing, too, is that to have

preferences, this comes up in the bait. If I say, this is a silly example, let's say I'm a diehard Eagles fan and my future daughter-in-law is a huge Cowboys fan or arch-rivals. And I say, oh, man, I really had always hoped to raise my grandkids to love the Eagles like me. And you, but obviously, that's silly. You'd hope that I could get over that. But I'd say, well, my preference would be for a fellow Eagles fan. But, you know, it's, and so I think we came up in the debate, if you say, I'd always wish, I'd hope that my grandkids look like me. That's a little weird to me, frankly. I'm a half Indian. I don't, there's a much chance of me having a half Indian grandkids.

But, again, that's not malice. That's not enmity. But it's not also, I don't think it's necessarily a sin. It's a preference. And if you can hold that with open hands, again, not a big deal. But again, as a spectrum, there are people that simply don't like people. people of color that don't like whites. That's called racism. And that is a sin and they have to repent and they should seek God's will on these issues. So again, the spectrum, I wouldn't be

too hasty to pass judgment on exactly what their motives are. I'd talk to them first. But regardless, I think the question in the debate, which is important one, is theologically, what does God think of interracial marriage? Forget what your preferences are. My preference are cultural stigmas, the state of society. What does scripture say? What does God teach? us about whether or not interracial marriage is morally permissible is part of his design for marriage is compatible with his design for marriage. That's the question. Great. Well, we're going to get to that question. I appreciate that nuance between somebody saying, if I marry somebody with a difference from me and a different race might be a difference, what challenges might that bring

versus not being in favor of interracial marriage because you think one race is super. You think one race is superior to another, those can be looking at interracial marriage through a very different lens. So that's a helpful way to look at that. But you're right. The debate here is about what does God think about this? Because as Christians, we should align our views and our practice with what God says primarily. Now, we're going to come to that. But what sparked this debate? Like, what's the backdrop of what sparked it and then maybe set up this to a specific debate that recently took place that we're going to react to. So I think we're seeing the rise of these radical right movements within evangelicalism,

some corners of evangelicalism, primarily through the backdoor of Christian nationalism. Now, I'll be very clear here. I'm not at all saying that all Christian nationalists harbor racism, anti-Semitism, any of these views associated with the radical right. I'm not saying that. I am saying that several very prominent loud Christian nationalists who were really for better or for worse, I think, at the heart of the movement and have been for the last several years, they are beginning to increasingly be vocal about their views on race and Sympatism and things like that and other issues that are increasingly at odds with, I think, what the Bible teaches. I mean, it just gives you.

you one example is from a few months ago. It's rapidly, it's rapidly increasing. So a few months ago, a guy named Andrew Torba created a website called Christian Nationalist.com. Andrew Torba is the CEO of Gab, which is known for sort of far white social media as a site. And he published his 30,000 word manifesto on Christian nationalism. And he wrote the number one bestselling book of Christian nationalism on Amazon by far. So this is not some fringe figure. He's very prominent. On his website, website, he had a list of resources, and he named this podcast called Stone Quire as the number one Christian nationalist website worldwide. Well, that podcast is run by a pair of, I think it's totally fair to call them neo-Nazis. And here's a quote from one of the podcast co-hosts, the name Corey Mahler. These are quotes from his Twitter feed. By any objective scientific standard, blacks are not fully human. Adolf Hitler was a Christian prince. It was evil to permit women to vote. You can either have civilization or blacks, but not both.

What must be done is obvious. Jews and blacks are both a problem. It should be illegal for men to work outside the home. Tolerance for Jews is apostasy before God. Adolf Hitler's in Paradise. So this, that guy's podcast, and that's just a sampling. This is very, go to his feet. It sounds like once a month.

It's a constant stream of utterly vile sentiments. That guy's web podcast was recommended by the number one best-selling author of the number one book on Christian nationalism as the number one best podcast on Christian nationalism on his website. So that's that's that happened even just months ago. Months ago, it kind of masks off finally this open embrace of these ideas by certain segments of this movement. When that website was released, it was praised by a pastor named Brian Sauve, who's, again, very big in the Christian nationalist circles, and by Pastor Joel Webbin, who was. in this debate, saying that interracial marriage, depending on the idea that interracial marriage was against God's design. And this is all within two months even.

So we're just seeing this rapid rush towards these, I would argue, very bad and unbiblical ideas. And again, and Joel Webbin, to make his background clear, he co-authored the statement on Christian nationalism and the gospel a few years ago with other prominent Christian nationalists, including William Wolfe, who's in the Southern Baptist Convention, he's on the document. I'm not at all saying that William Wolf shares a weapon's views. I'm just pointing out, you can't claim these are fringe people no one's heard about, and we're dragging them up for no reason. These guys really are major. And so Christian nationals, especially, I would hope, the extent you're a committed Christian,

first, you would say, this is beyond the pale, reject these views wholesale, full stop. And then I've been asking Christian nationals for years now to sort of keep their movement because, again, I'm concerned about not politics. I'm concerned about people's souls. And to the extent that these views are getting a foothold among young, angry, suspected Christian men. And they are. I've talked to people who you probably know. Yeah, in our church, among my friend group, I've seen this happening. Yeah, we should be concerned.

I've seen enough to concern me as well, just conversations. with young Christians that seem to resonate with this message that are coming from people like Nick Fuentes, which I realize is different, and that's a loaded name as well, but kind of intersects with some of the same kind of ideas that we see in these circles. And so I think we need to talk about it. So let's just to be clear, Webben has released a 10-part series of interviews with Nick Fuentes. So these are not, again, totally separate series. He just announced he's partnered with a few other people that are known for like anti-Semitism and crazy racial statements. So we're seeing a convergence between evangelical Christian nationalism and parts, very dark parts

of the radical right online. And they're increasingly converging. And that should worry us. It does concern us. And I haven't seen those 10 videos. So I don't know how much he critiques him, supports him. We don't have to go down that road right. now, but that's a very, that's a fair point to draw attention to, I think. So let's get to the heart

of the debate. There was this tweet that Webbin sent out, which basically said he's against interracial marriage. There's a few other figures who have said this. And then there's recently a debate. There was Wevin. There was Ruslan. There was three or four other people as a part of this that we will get into. And there's a lot of conversation about it. So what we're going to do is take a look at some of these clips and respond to it to try to help people who maybe don't have three and a half hours to watch the whole debate, which was interesting, by the way, and just make sense of it. So here's the claim that Webben made. I want to state it. And then I'm going to ask you what are some of the arguments that are often given behind this. And so Webben was carefully

said this to start the debate, and he repeated it twice. He said interracial marriage, while biblically permissible, generally slash ordinarily, goes against God's normative design for humanity, nations, and culture. That's exactly how he worded it is. So he has this category where it's biblically permissible. It's allowed. But generally slash ordinarily goes against God's normative design, the pattern he set up for humanity, nations, and culture. So it's not morally ideal. It's permissible. It's kind of a position. that he's taking. So what are the central arguments that are given to back this up against interracial marriage? Explain some of this to us. So the, so Webbin and it was his co-host, Wesley Todd,

and then Antonio Griffith, were the three people that were against interracial marriage. And it was Ruslan and God Logic as his handle. I don't know what his name is. Yeah. They were there on taking the anti side saying no interracial marriage is not against God's design, just to be clear, who's who. Webben, I'll just call them Webin side. Their argument, interestingly, was by the end of the debate, they said explicitly, it was not rooted in scripture, not. Like, so for the first, they had three opening statements.

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and Trinity can help you get there. Trinity debt management, be debt-free for keeps. And if you listen to the opening statements, they occasionally brought up a verse or two that didn't really relate to the topic. I would say, well, we're all made in God's image. I'm like, well, yeah, we are. That's not okay. We all agree on that. The only, in 30 minutes opening statements, the only verse they cited to defend this proposition that interracial marriage is generally

not, generally opposed to God's design, whatever the exact tracing was, the only verse they quoted that was actually remotely relevant to that proposition was the verse from first Corinthians saying, do not be unequally yoked. And that, obviously, that verse, just as it, actually is written in context was about particularly being yoked with unbelievers. It's explicit in the passage. And it's predominantly talking about marrying nonbelievers, as Paul says, in that letter. But it's certainly unbelievers, no question. It's not about Christians of a different race or ethnicity. It's not at all. And contextually, it's not even about partnering in other ways.

It's about marrying unbelievers. So oddly, that's all they mentioned. for biblical support. They talked a lot about sociology and some about science and population dynamics and history, but basically zero biblical support. To their great credit, Ruslan and God Lodge, I'll just call them G.L. Ruslan and G.L. In their opening statement, made a absolutely brilliant biblical argument. They did not just quote one or two verses. They walk you through the Old Testament. the New Testament, they give you explicit prescriptive verses about this is what marriage is and should be like. They give you descriptions of interracial marriages from the Old Testament. And they were shown that they were put in a positive light. So you have people like Ruth,

Rahab, Moses's wife by Moses. These are heroes of the faith, right, in the Hall of Faith in Hebrew. So they're not like we're picking some random person and some random book of the Bible. They gave prophetic literature, prophetic statements about marriage, and the law, they went to the Levitical law and talked about how God treats and embraces foreigners within the nation of Israel, how they're allocated inheritance. They have one law for the foreign. So we're talking about this comprehensive, not comprehensive, but wide breadth of verses from epistles, from prophetic literature, from the law, from example, from prescription.

This is purely biblical. And at the end of the opening statement, then there was an hour of cross-examination. And again, they're brilliant in coming back over and over to the point saying, what is your scriptural, biblical basis for saying that interracial marriage is not part of God's design? And they asked and asked and asked. And finally, after one minute and 58 seconds, Webbens side basically conceded, This is an argument based on natural law. So they said we don't have to make,

actually we've been said, we don't have to make a biblical argument because God's given us two books, the book of scripture and the book of nature. So natural law is what we're using to make this argument against interracial marriage. And Roslund, I'll just have an incredible comeback. He says, okay, so you're not appealing to scripture.

You're playing in natural law. Well, let me quote from the basically the father, the pillar of natural law himself, Thomas Aquinas, he says, quote, neither race nor a nation offer any impediment to marriage. And then he goes, and I can quote, Martin Luther, you quote, source after source in a later section, he lists historical examples of Christian missionaries who married interracially with no objections at all from the church at the time, no asterisk by their name. So it really was a debate with people citing scripture heavily and people basically saying we don't need this argument to depend on scripture we're making it apart from scripture and they kind of conceded that somewhat they

kind of said well it's not explicitly in scripture it's implicitly in scripture one of the they didn't even say that they basically said um sort of this what what scripture talks about nations and then natural law tells us what is good for nations. That's basically their argument. So their implicit argument was not even about marriage of any kind. It was about what scripture talks to touch about nations and peoples. And then they append on to that what we learn from nature about what's good for nations. That makes sense.

They're not even trying to implicitly argue that it's in there in the Bible somewhere. Now, one of the things they reference is polygamy. and they said, for example, that it's not explicitly condemned in the Old Testament, but was permissible, and then shift to make that argument apply in some ways towards interracial marriage, that it's permissible. And so part of the question was, does the Old Testament explicitly condemn polygamy? And I would say a couple things. The Bible lays out what marriage is. It is a sexed institution.

It's meant to be male and female, and it's meant to be permanent. And then we add the passage you talk about from Corinthians, which of course rooted in Deuteronomy, that it's meant to be ultimately now between believers. So a sext permanent institution between believers to propagate, fill the earth, and of course be amir to God's love for the church. That's what marriage is. So when it comes to polygamy, there's not an explicit condemnation of it, but it's so clearly laid out what marriage is supposed to be. And Jesus affirms this in Matthew 19. I would argue that the Old Testament narratively teaches why polygamy is against God's design. Look at the life of Jacob.

Look at the life of David. Look at the life of Solomon. So it's not explicit, but scripturally you get a case. case for this. So I don't think that example that they're making from polygamy works as it's applied to interracial marriage. Your thoughts? So I'd say it made even stronger case. So one thing they did was they did say, you know, polygamy is a category where it's not explicitly condemned in scripture and therefore we can appeal to natural law. And they actually even, Jill even said, if they were like a Muslim man who had four wives and joined Joel's church and became a Christian,

it's a matter of sort of wisdom and prudence about do you make him divorce three of the wives. What do you do in that situation? It's an exception, right? It's not, I can't point him to command saying you can't be an elder. That is an explicit command. Elder must be a one woman man. But it's maybe there's not an explicit condemnation. So maybe I have to just figure out with my elders what to do with him.

And that was their argument for saying the same thing happens with interracial marriage. Is that we don't have that commands. And so we kind of have to, it's not according to his design. We agree on that from natural law. So we kind of talk about it. Like, first of all, it's a terrible comparison because you're really saying that polygamy and interracial marriage are both kind of, they're both equally bad things you know from natural law. And you kind of have to talk to your elders about whether it's okay to have two wives versus having a, you know, a Hispanic wife. I don't know you want to go there.

But I would actually argue. And then what Ruslan did argue and GL argued. They said, number one, the burden of proof is on you. If you say God's design is against this, okay, that's a positive claim. You have to, they offer proof of that, right? And that's number one. So it's not analogous to someone who says, I don't know what God's design is for married. Or here's what it is and it's not, there's no mention at all of interracial stuff at all.

It's just not there. So you have to make that positive case. That's what they pointed out. It's sort of apples and origin. And then that's number one. And they're saying, you know, we're not in this debate to say, we're not, We made no claim that God's design for marriage is interracial. The claim is just that it's not anti-God's design.

So if I said, God's design is that you only marry Eagles fans, right? That's your claim. And my claim is that's not even part of God's design. It's not there in the design at all. It's not here or there. It's irrelevant to the God's design. And I'll give you support for that. But the burden of fruits on you to say, no, here's the case I'm making.

Or I can just say there's no case to be made. there's no data at all. So that's one argument that Ruslan made is that these are different burdens of proof given our positions, what we're saying. They're going to say, Ruslan's not saying interracial marriage is God's design. It's what God wants. He's saying, no, God doesn't care about the race of the person you're marrying. But the second thing they point out is, no, actually, I agree with them. I'd argue that interracial, sorry, that polygamy is explicitly condemned in the New Testament in at least two places.

So number one, mentioned Matthew 19. In Matthew 19, Jesus says that a man who divorces his wife, if he divorces his wife and marries another commits what, adultery against her? And if you look at Jesus speak on marriage and teaching on marriage throughout the New Testament, his reasoning is that if you divorce someone unjustly, unbiblically, the reason that if you remarry, you couldn't adultery, why is that? Because you're still married in God's eyes. So, and it goes, there are all these situations that Jesus gives where, you know, if you divorce a woman, you cause her if she remarried to commit adultery, you cause her committed adultery because, but she's still married to it's why it's adultery and not fornication. And if you divorce a woman and then marry another woman, the marriage is adulterous, at least at first, because you have unjustly put away your wife who's still in God's eyes married to you. So that's Jesus's reasoning.

And if that's the case, that's his reasoning, it's a very common, if you look at the Westminster Confession and other documents, that's the way they read it as saying that marriage is a God-ordained binding covenant that is not dissolved at your whim and therefore if you have sex outside of that marriage which is not dissolved that's called adultery. Sex outside of marriage is adultery if you're married. So that's so and then if that's Jesus's reasoning, he doesn't mean if you divorce your wife and remarry another woman that's adultery because the marriage marriage is still there. He's not saying well just keep your wife and add a new wife. The whole point was the marriage is one man and one woman, and that's why any second marriage is adulteress.

That's his reasoning. And that's, again, you can look at old confessions. That's how they read that passage. But secondly, they brought up, Rosalind and God Logic brought up the statements. I think it's in Titus, actually, where it's a list of qualifications for elders. Things like not quarrelsome, not a lever of money, able to manage his household well, able to teach, and a one woman man. Right. Those are all, those are requirements for eldership. Joel agrees, yes, the requirements.

You cannot be polygamous and be an elder in church. However, they pointed out, actually, I think God Logic did this. He pointed out that all of those qualifications for the character of elders are actually also just good character for all Christian men. We should all aspire to be not quarrelsome. We should all aspire to manage your households well. We should all aspire to be able to teach. Not, I mean, not skill-wise, but we should want to be able to teach. In fact, in Hebrews 11, the author of Hebrews chides his hearers saying, by now you should be teachers.

You're not ready to teach. That's bad. He's assuming that mature Christians can, at minimum, teach their kids, can share the gospel with non-Christians. So his point was every single one of those statements, those qualifications for an elder, is something that to some degree all Christians should aspire to. There's marks of good Christian character. But if that's the case,

being a one-woman man is not a special thing for elders, something all Christian men should aspire to. Ironically, so Webin had to dig it and say, no, not all Christians should aspire to be one-woman men or able to teach.

Because he had to do that, because otherwise he has to admit, yes, in fact, The testament does oppose polygamy. And that is the whole argument in cripples. But you see him backed into a corner effectively because he's making these increasingly grasping at straw arguments because he wants really badly to believe that this is a wiggle area where he can say it's not part of God's design. And interracial marriage is not.

And he's doing some really mental gymnastics to get there. It was a great move by Avery to move from the Old Testament, which I think narratively shows that God's design is not. polygamy to Matthew 19 and the passage you're referring to explicitly condemns it. I think that's well stated. Let's get to some of the clips that are here. At the root of this debate is how we define the word race. I thought it was fascinating that both sides kind of agreed that it came into around the 16th century or so into our vernacular.

So even biblical times didn't have our modern construct of race to operate from. that's important. Let's take a look at this clip, and then we'll get your reaction. What is interracial marriage? Race in its simplest definition simply means common descent. People of a given race share a common ancestor at a relatively recent point, as distinguished from other lineages that do not share that same ancestry. We all share Adam as the ultimate head of humanity, the first human, and Eve, the mother of all living.

Thus, there is a sense in which one can say, Adam is the head of the human race. But just because there is one, no, certainly, ultimate common lineage, does not mean that there are not additional, meaningful, more recent, shared ancestries.

Thousands of years more recently from Adam, every individual in the world, every human being is a descendant of one of Noah's sons, Shem, Ham, or Japh, or they are a mix of two or three of them. Europeans, for example, they are the offspring of Japheth, who migrated north to,

the coastland. Asians and Middle Eastern peoples descended from Shem. Africans descended from Ham who went south. It is important to understand that within each broad lineage, those big three buckets, there can be further specificity. Within Europeans, for example, there are the Germanics, the French, the Scottish, the Spanish, the southeastern, and the Slavic-influenced Europeans. These are people with different languages, cultures, diets, habits, and occupying different geography that have been shaped to be biologically unique. They are not just distinct. If you're struggling with credit card debt, you're not alone. The stressed interest rates, the endless payments, it can feel like there's no way out, but there is. At Trinity debt management,

they have helped thousands of people, just like you, become debt-free. They work with your creditors to lower your interest rates and consolidate your bills into one affordable monthly payment. Most of their members have saved thousands and even improved their credit score. You'll get a clear plan, personal support, and the peace of mind that comes of knowing you're finally taking control. Don't wait another day feeling trapped by debt. Call Trinity debt management and be debt-free for keeps at 1-800-7-9-3-85-48. That's 1-800-7-9-3-85-48 because you can live a life without debt and Trinity can help you get there. Trinity debt management. Be debt-free for keeps. practice or culture, they are distinct inherently.

Traits such as height, bone structure, intelligence, skin tone, body fat, and muscle composition, immune systems, and more have all been shaped by the geography, the culture, the diet, climate, and religion. And so, race is our shorthand way of speaking of groups of people that are biologically related. They've been shaped by the same factors over time. Okay, so that was Wesley Todd talking about. Let me all set this up for us when that's done. Oh, did you pause? Possibly.

Oh, you froze. Yep. Yeah, you froze. You're freezing a little bit. Sorry. Okay. I got you back. Okay.

What's happened in that clip? And what do you make of it? So Wesley Todd is defining race. And it's really illuminating. So Antonio, one of his teammates, had given a definition of race. is actually more sensible and sane. Basically, the idea that there are certain buckets you can see in the human genome, you know, we're 99.9% genetically, right?

But there's 0.1% of our genes are vary. And you can look at the human genome in different continents and say, okay, in Africa, most people have sort of these genes more than, you know, in North America or in Europe. So there is, you can sort of see what would, Antonio says, is there's sort of, structured data. You can kind of classify genomes with 0.1 percent. It's a very small variation, but some things appear more in, say, Africa or more in North America, things like that. So that's true. And he says that the buckets, Antonio says this, are basically continental. So they're like, you know, six buckets. So you can put a vaguely put people into. But he stops there.

And one thing, but he also says, this is not Wesley Todd, but this other guy, says that the borders of these buckets are actually kind of arbitrary. And I'm glad he said it's entirely true. And a lot of realists don't acknowledge this. It's like the analogy I make is this. Imagine colors. We can all agree that blue and red are different colors. They're objectively different, right?

And if you're a guy, you can see like, you know, there are 10 buckets of colors. There's blue, red, green, yellow, black, brown, you know, a few others, right? But if you're, you know, like my wife who's, you know, likes to decorate things, She can see lots of shades of blue. There's cerulean, and there's cyan and turquoise and Azure. So the question is, well, how many buckets are there? And the answer is that placing of buckets. And also, what shade of blue counts as turquoise versus cerulean versus cyan?

That is what's called a social construction. And actually, Antonio Griffith, who's on that debate side, agreed that the buckets we create are social constructs. He admitted that, the number of the buckets, and where the lines fall, he compared it to saying, where does the Amazon rainforest begin? There's no line on the ground. There's no natural border.

We kind of just say, well, the forest is there. We see that, but we don't know where it begins exactly. It's a great analogy to race. There's maybe six big buckets. You can kind of put them in and then either, but maybe they're fewer, maybe they're more. But Wesley Todd makes a big error here in thinking that he can make the buckets even smaller, down to, in his quote there, Spanish and French and German and Sloth.

So now he's claiming that French people are their own race and Spaniards and not culturally. That was the crucial point. It's biological. He claimed and he says, quote, bone structure, intelligence, immune systems are biologically different between French and Spaniards and Germans. That is complete nonsense. My wife's the doctor. I said this guy said that he's like, what is he talking about? That's insane.

You can't dig up a French person skeleton and be like, back, I was French. This is. And I saw Griffith during the debate kind of like looking up. I'm saying what is he thinking right now? Because he seemed to be informed on these issues. But Todd's claims are outrageously false. This is madness. So right off the bat, I have to say,

if you're taking these guys as race realists, so they know what they're talking about, they're standing up against the liberal post-war consensus, no, they are just flatly, scientifically wrong. They don't know what they're talking about. So I think what I would do is I define race. It's a social construct. Why?

Not because there aren't genes, not because you can't see broad trends like people that have African descent, have darker skin than people of European descent. Sure, we all agree on that. And that is part of our genetics, right? You can talk about bone density. There are these features that, and they're all spectra. You know, people tend to be darker skin.

People tend to be lighter skin. People tend to be taller. Sure, on this continental scale and ancestally, but where we draw the lines, how we categorize these races, is as Griffith, his teammate said, a social construct. The last thing I'll say is that if you look at the actual data, and I have read the papers, It's one thing to say, you know, in Central Africa, you know, Australian Aboriginal, these are very isolated groups. The markers are clear, right? But you have entire regions like the Middle East, Southern Europe, South Asia, Central Asia, currently all of South America, there's been so much intermixing historically in those regions that they don't fall into any buckets at all.

or they're like a mixture of three different buckets. So it's really important people to hear that scientifically, it's not just liberals and progressives who think that race is social construct. You have one of the debaters here who's on the race realist side admitting that. And it's supported by the actual data. So let's get that very clear at the beginning. That's really helpful clarification because the heart of this debate is what is race? Yes. We're going to talk about interracial marriage.

We have to define clearly what it is. And I think you've drawn out a good helpful definition for us and understanding on this. Let's shift to the second clip and get your reaction to it. Okay. 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. And so I got a couple clips I'd love to play of you from a, 2022, where it sure does sound like you are co-signing everything I'm cosigning. It's not even open people home.

Right. You know what I mean? Yeah, I hear you. My point is, if race is a big deal, racism is the necessary wall of defense to preserve the big deal of race. You can't continue to emphasize race multiple generations from now without dividing walls of hostility to protect. the purity of of the race and i feel like even with israel ethnic israel so we see we see if race is a big deal quote if race is a big deal i don't see racism not being the logical conclusion here's more on interracial marriage no for a fact if i could sit them down strap them to a

chair give them some truce here and hear what they really thought i don't think that they're they would be a fan of interracial marriage uh because it's all about you know it's all about your identity coming from your ethnicity and what you don't want to you don't want to water that down you don't want to lose that you don't want to mix that you know and so so joel this is you railing against hebrew israelites and i got one more clip but whether you're my favorite one articulate or not the natural thought process is that that skin that blood needs to be preserved and and and and so you have to turn inward rather than outward and embracing people from every tribe tongue and nation and you know I've got three girls and if one of them, you know, bring some Hispanic guy home one day when she's older and the guy loves the Lord, then I want to say, praise God, marry my daughter, you know, or black guy, praise God, marry my daughter.

But I feel like if race is such a big, you can't say that. If race is such a big deal, you can't say that. So I don't know. I think at best, Joel, you've clearly flip-flopped on his position really bad. At worse, this is a part of a bigger play. for partnerships with other Christian nationalists. But if race is a big deal, racism is a necessary wall of defense to preserve the big deal.

Now you guys have said racism and everything, but it's not nothing. So I'm just more curious on how you, just a couple years ago went from that to where you are today. And really my frustration is in you saying, I'm against interracial marriage. You can say I have preferences. I wouldn't even be mad if you said,

hey, I want my grandkids to look like me. I want my kids to marry. But when you go out and say, I am against them. thing. As a pastor, I think I have some issues with that because I just don't see it in scripture. All right. I'll set, I'll set this one up. This is a remarkable clip by you forget what you just read before you even finish the age. No worries. It's an ad. Yeah,

it's just, yeah, it was an ad. Recently, Ali Bethsuckie. Oh, what happened? One second. Let me go go back. Sorry. It's funny. There's ads when we're just watching. I know, I know. Let me go find the clip again. Was the clip in an email? Oh, yeah. It's in a... No, he texted it to both of us, I think. Okay, both of us.

Sorry, I'm trying to find why I pulled the clip up. There it is. Yeah, I got it. All right. I'm right back. This is important for the debate. I just don't see it in scripture. There we are. Okay, all right.

I'm there. I'm there. Okay. Sorry. Remarkable clip from Ruslan. Clarify for us what's going on in your take on it. So Ruslan dug up clips from 2022 or 2023, it's not even clear what year it was, where Joel is basically ragging on these race realists who are obsessed with race. He's actually criticizing the left that's race obsessed

and he's like, you know, leftist progressives or so into CRT and you're obsessed with race. It's not a big deal and it's going to lead to racism. If you're obsessed with race and keeping your race pure, this blood purity, you've got to be racist towards whites. But that's where he was. And three years ago, two years ago. And he even makes a comment, like if you're a Hispanic person who loves the Lord or a black person who loves the Lord, come marry my daughter. It's enthusiastic. Absolutely this nonsense to think otherwise. And now, you know, two years, three years later, he's totally changed his tune. And Ruslan rightly points out, like, what is going on here? You either had a dramatic conversion experience to race realism, which he, by the way, he calls his position race realism,

or just trying to get clicks from the white nationalist, which is, which, you know, he's like, that's possible. I think it's fair, given Webans' association with Fuentes and is appealing to,

he's very specifically appealing to this, this isn't right. Well, what, which is it? And actually, Webbon admitted in the cross-examination, he's like,

yes, this is a recent development. That was his words. He's changed his mind about the importance of race. And in the clip, if you notice, he's also talking about the purity of the nation, the purity of skin and blood, he's mocking it as a silly thing to care so much about.

And suddenly, in the debate, he will literally repeatedly invoke the phrase white genocide. They're going to, not killing whites, but simply turning white people brownish through inner marriage. That's what he's worried about, desperately worried about. It's called it a white genocide. They're out to genocide white people. And of course, Rosalind said this is ridiculous. Emotional language, just, you know, let's just be adults here. But it is a dramatic change of tune.

And that's fair. And he did say he shifted and we all shift on views so that can happen. We need to critique the views that he has now and take those seriously. Although I'd like an explanation for the shift and what persuaded him. But in part, this leads us into the next clip, which is from what I can tell, one of the most commonly talked about clips because he specifically brings in the example of Vodi Bakum and his daughter. daughter, if in principle and theory was going to marry Voddy Bakum's son, this was such an interesting exchange. Let's take a look.

Sure. And this is important for the debate. The distinction between two different categories, ethnicity and race. And I believe they overlap. But we're going to use them as two different terms. Ethnicity, I would say, is it contains the racial components, but it's much broader. Because ethnicity is not just biological. It's not just ancestry and lineage, but it also encompasses.

is language, liturgy. So I do L's, like loves, language, liturgy, being worship, religion, those kinds of things, you know, customs, culture, traditions, all these things come in, wall, yeah, all these things come into play with ethnicity. And in the case of Vodibokum's son, it would be, and this is just the reality, I'm not excited about it, it makes me sad, but it is the reality. Voddy Bakum's son, in these United States of America, in the Year of Our Lord 2026 would be one of the rare black men, young black men, who actually shares for the most part virtually to a T, the same ethnicity as my white daughters, right? Meaning same religion, same worldview, same tradition. Both celebrate Thanksgiving, both like Christmas, same, all that

traditions, customs, heritage being like he's not. If you're struggling, with credit card debt, you're not alone. The stressed interest rates, the endless payments, it can feel like there's no way out. But there is. At Trinity Debt Management, they have helped thousands of people, just like you, become debt-free. They work with your creditors to lower your interest rates and consolidate your bills into one affordable monthly payment. Most of their members have saved thousands and even improved their credit score.

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Trinity Debt Management. Be debt-free for keeps. Black Nigerian who came here 15 minutes ago, but like has been in America heritage black American that has been here tracing his ancestry back for a couple centuries so in that regard and the reformed Baptist I'm reformed Baptist the doctrinal things would be aligned all those kind of things so that would be one of the rare individuals the reality is and I don't think you guys are going to push back on this the reality is I would say that about 90 to 95 percent of the black church in America is heretical has okay well terrible doctrinal views so what you're conceding that you would let your daughter marry you're voted about come from 10 years in the future. Is that what you're saying? What I'm saying is that that would be permissible. I would not encourage it. You would not encourage it? Would you discourage it?

It depends. It depends. That is a provocative of plenty of things we could talk about, but you actually wanted to respond to this clip, so give us your thoughts on why this is important. So I think there's so many things, and Ruslin did a great job responding

to this, but you're seeing not just that for for web and races a factor it is the predominant factor i mean here's the thing so when you marry someone there are a lot of things or factors that you have to consider in counseling you talk about it like family of origin your culture uh you know for sometimes there even language differences you know you can probably speak the same language but you know i so who knows there are kinds of things like that uh vocational goals uh lifestyle goals all who knows what they're there's There are things that you consider in finding a future spouse. And of course, Joel wants to be involved in that as a parent.

I do too. That's fine. Okay. But there are all these factors. But imagine someone who sat down and said, I have the perfect man for my daughter. He is, shares a culture, shares values, shares theology down to a T is the son of a wonderful pastor that I admire tremendously. everything about it is perfect.

But here's the thing. I am an Eagles fan, and this guy is a Cowboys fan. I would just, I can't encourage that. Are you going to discourage it? Well, I just sit them down and say it. They're like, wait, wait, what are you talking about? You've described literally the perfect match for your daughter, the dream compatibility, and you're fixing it on the football team.

me and what so the point is here how important has webman made race in his thinking about marriage and the answers it's almost overriding right it's it's literally the point where any imagine any other issue you work through in marriage versus pointed this out class differences you grew up really dirt port at trailer park he grew up you know she grew up in really rich maybe his family is not christian they're you know they're Alks, cons, and they're drunk, alcoholics, and she comes from upsetting. So there are all of us when we come to a marriage, have issues to work through. And so that, but the idea that you have to have special counseling because his skin is a certain color.

And remember, they define race. And he says in the clip, it's not about culture, theology, really? It's all of those things are being shared. History, traditions, holidays. He's assuming that those are all identical. It is purely biological to him. He says that in this clip. It's just about his skin color.

And that is a deal, I mean, a potential deal breaker for weapon. He says it's permissible, but he has to really can think about it. And I'm thinking, this is in, especially given the quotes he gave two years ago, he's condemning himself. Right. So, yeah, I, and keep in mind here, Ruslin, and what was God Logic's actual first name? Avery was that? Russell and Avery have made this solid case biblically that this consideration of race

is not remotely a factoring God's design at all in the Bible, not in church history, and Webun is making this like a deal-breaking consideration for marrying off his daughter to Voddy Bacum's daughter. That is, yeah, that is just wild to me. I agree with you on that. This is really important because one of the things that, Avery pointed out is there are examples of interracial marriage. Now, again, in biblical times, they weren't looking at it through that lens, but we know if we think of race in terms of certain biological distinctives, the church was made of people with different biological distinctives.

So in 1st Corinthians chapter 7 says a woman can marry who she wants if it is in the Lord. and this is to a mixed racial church. So he emphasizes that intermarriage is encouraged in the sense of when there is spiritual commonality and it's discouraged when there's not spiritual commonality. That's the dividing line. And I think you're right that the overemphasis on race, when everything else lines up in terms of. value and faith still making race at a dividing line and say, well, if there were 20 other white

guys who would, I would prefer that. That's where it becomes unbiblical. And that's where I think it becomes problematic. In my mind, they lose a lot of the debate. All right, let's take a look at another clip here tied to what you said earlier related to natural law again, right at the heart of this debate. I can't say that. But we're Christians. You can. Because God has written two books, not nearly one. He has special revelation, that which is inscriptureated, but we also have natural revelation. God has given us reason. He has not made us witless beast. He has made us intelligent. We're able to exercise rationale. And we know that there are, it's not mere preference. It's not arbitrary. It's not capricious. We know that there is actually a natural logical reason why we would

not encourage our 18 year old daughter to marry a 60 year old man, even if he's Christian. So it would actually discourage. We would discourage it based on reason, based on natural law. We shouldn't be arbitrary in that way as Christian. Yeah. So, so, so the the dude that coined all of this, Thomas Aquinas, this is what he said. Difference of race or nation does not impede marriage for such difference does not belong to the law of nature. So the guy that you're quoting natural law, natural this, you know, maybe there's some distinction in theominy and your version of natural law. But the guy that coined it, Thomas Aquinas made no reservations on this. And I can go quote after quote we have martin luther marriage is a worldly thing christians are free to marry

wherever there is faith and love and i can give you a ton of quotes from church that was a mic drop moment i think for brusland oh that was that was fascinating explain exactly what's going on why this was so significant so at that point and i think that's maybe the very first point when webbin clearly just admits i have no scriptural argument I'm not appealing to some verse, some interpretation. He's just like it's just, quote, unquote, natural. The second book of Revelation, he's saying that we can, you know, that's how we can know that interracial marriage is not God's design.

At this point, they've almost conceded that there are no biblical arguments, either explicit or implicit. You're kind of reasoning from what you see. I mean, here's a good thought experiment, right? They are literally arguing for the existence of race. What, from the Bible? Is they're like, because the Bible isn't talking about genetics. They're appealing to genetics.

And they're like, well, we can, and the movie they're saying, well, we can see that, like, some people's skin is darker and some people. But it's, it's just an appeal to the facts of the matter. But we could equally say if you live in a different history or different universe, what if everyone looks identical, basically? There's no race at all. If you, if you, but you get scripture, would you then conclude that, you know, marriage was about different skin color? So they're purely appealing to what they would argue is natural. law, but which Ruslan shows is not acknowledged the natural law by one of the pillars of natural law and many other theologians like Martin Luther throughout history.

So I think that's just a really important observation is that they're basically not even gerrymandering. They're making out from the whole cloth this argument about race being a governing, determining, determining part of God's design for marriage. So, you know, I believe there's value in natural law, of courts. You can make a case for the value of the unborn, and you can make a case through natural law that sex is meant to be experienced in marriage. There's a lot of different cases that we can make, but that's different from saying, therefore, the case that they're making is in line with natural law. And you and I arguing, they haven't not only not made their biblical case, but their case from natural law also doesn't follow.

That's the problem. Right, right, yeah. Now, one tweet that Webbin sent out afterwards, and so apparently he thinks this is a stronger point in his favor tied to this. I'd love to get your take on this one, Neil. He said, Scripture provides no explicit condemnation of a 60-year-old man marrying an 18-year-old woman. But is everyone averse to it? Why? Because both nature and reason tell us that this arrangement generally goes.

against God's normative design. So what he's trying to do here before you respond is take another example that we would take issue with that's not explicitly condemned in scripture, in this case a six-year-old, marrying an 18-year-old, that presumably most people would say not a good idea and say, okay, so if you have an example over here where this, we push back on this through natural law, then the same thing should be permissible when it comes to taking issue with. interracial marriage. Your thought on this comparison. I'm glad you're reminding me of this, because I wanted to point out Joel Webbin's kind of strange phrase, normative designer,

that he keeps using that phrase generally goes against God's normative design. I want to point out that it's very odd for him. Norma, norm is going to be of two kinds. You can have norms just mean it's typical. Like the norm in the U.S. is a two-income family. That's just typical. It doesn't mean good or bad. Just like you look around and see average person has two incomes, mom and dad are both working. Okay, that can be one kind of norm. But when you're talking about, but norms can also be moral, like the norm of exclusivity in marriage, like fidelity in marriage is a norm. That's a moral norm. But when you say that God's normative design of God, that's a moral norm, right? You're not talking about what God typically sees in the universe. You know, he ordains norms and says these are how you

ought to live. It's an ought to an obligation. Okay. So he tends, in the debate, equivocates all the time between what is typical and what is a moral norm. He uses the word norm for both. Like, he keeps talking about, he's worried about, you know, white genocide and all whites being turned into like half white brown people, because that's, if we embrace that interracial marriage as a norm, he means there if racial interracial marriage becomes typical, like everyone's doing it. He accuses Ruslan of making interracial marriage a norm, but he never does that, not meaning a moral norm, like you ought to marry a person of a different race. He's never said that. So it's all confused in Webens' mind. But here's the thing. When he says an 18-year-old marrying a 60-year-old

goes against God's normative design for marriage, I would say, no, it does not. Beke why. If you violate God's design for something, it is a sin. I can't think of a single example where I'd say, this is God's design, it's his normative design, and you knowingly reject it, that's a sin. It's not sometimes a sin. It's not prudentially a sin. For example, if I'm like, you know, you should be faithful with the marriage, that is God's design for marriage. It's his norm for marriage, and you break that norm.

It's called adultery. If you say human beings, we know from natural law are knit together in the mother's room, God designs them a certain way to have that he has, they have a right to life. it's clear from nature that they are human beings, full persons in the womb, and therefore you're going against God's design to treat them like an inanimate object. You're going against his design. That's called murder, right? He's trying to smuggle in this category of it's against God's normative design, his moral normative design, and it can still not be a sin. But, Joel, there's not a category like that.

What he's confusing is prudential judgments. Of course, there can be things that are within the design of theirs. For example, like a marriage between a man and a woman with a big age difference, they're not violating God's design for marriage. They are entering into probably a prudentially imprudent marriage, right? That you can say. Now, we can say that. We can say, now, why do you think that? I can give you all kinds of reasons, right?

Is she mature enough? Do they have anything in common? Are they going to lead? It's going to lead to a fruitful, loving, fulfilling marriage, right? Do they model Christ in the church? All these different other considerations that we take into account for every marriage. But they're not breaking God's. design for marriage in the case, if an 16-year-old man wanted to marry a dog, that's violating

God's design for marriage. That's it, period. This is a question of prudential judgment. And so, again, I think Joel is intentionally confusing these categories, maybe unintentionally, because in his mind, he thinks it's a matter of prudence. Another example would be, is it immoral to drive at 70 miles an hour on the highway? It depends. It's prudential, right?

How about 80? How about 120 on this, the normal interstate, not the auto bond? How about 3,000 miles an hour? At some point, you're getting this, you're like, that's definitely not safe. But you wouldn't see it violates God's design for transportation. You'd just say there are other principles in scripture, like don't harm your neighbor, love others as you want to be loved. You wouldn't want someone driving 3,000 miles an hour in the interstate, so you shouldn't either.

But in those cases, it is a matter of wisdom and prudence based on biblical principles, but there's no talk of design there. There's no law that says, thou shalt drive this because of speed limit universally. So again, I think the big problem that throughout the debate was, Webbin constantly did this, where he would flip-flot back and forth between Normas being typical and normas being a command and obligation

and design as somehow, you know, prudential. Like I can choose to embrace God's design or not, and it's up to the circumstance. No, again, I can't think of a single case you're like, this is God's design for something. thing. Life, marriage, family, nations if you want to, and just sometimes say it's okay, because it's weapon has to argue there can be a design that God's given you for some institution, for some attribute, and you can reject that design, and on occasion, that's fine. It's

permissible. It's not ideal because it's not God's design, but I don't see that happening in scripture or in actual situations. That distinction about norms is really key. Some of the teaching on marriage and God's will that's really informed me is by Greg Kokel on decision making. And he says, take the issue of marriage. How do we side who to marry? And think of like three concentric circles. One is God's moral will, which of course is God's design. It's somebody of the opposite sex. It's somebody, if divorced, biblically free to remarry. And it's someone who's a believer. That's God's normative pattern for marriage. But then the other two circles that overlap this. One is wisdom. Is it wise if you're 18 to marry somebody who is 60?

That's what you're talking about prudential concerns. And then the other circle that overlaps is preferences. And all of those need to intersect. And it's important we don't confuse that an 18-year-old doesn't normally marry a 60-year-old versus God's normative pattern. for what marriage is and what makes it consistent with his design, those are different things. And I think he makes the same mistake when it comes to race. All right, let's watch each of the closing speeches briefly get your take on this and then we'll wrap it up. So let's take a look at Webbin's closing speech or part of it.

So we believe that nations are good. They're God's normative plan. And that if anyone is encouraging or promoting. at scale in the macro as a positive, virtuous, universal good, mass interracial marriage, that that actually goes against God's normative plan. If you're struggling with credit card debt, you're not alone. The stressed, interest rates, the endless payments, it can feel like there's no way out. But there is.

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Trinity debt management. Be debt-free for keeps. Missable in the micro might even be ideal in a micro situation. And a pastor or a father can counsel accordingly with his congregant, with his daughter, with his son. But in the macro, if I'm presented with only two choices after being called a racist, after being publicly slandered saying that Joel is for capital punishment for interracial marriage, and then, oh, right now, before everyone, tell us, are you for or against? Those two options, then I would say, yes, I would be generally against.

For you're encouraging, promoting, advancing, against your warning, counseling, saying, I think that in general, bivocally permissible in the micro, but in general in the macro, this goes against the normative plan of God for peoples, nations, and cultures. That's my argument. That's how I would describe it from the Bible in a macro view using descriptive text. There's no prescriptive verse that says do not intermarry racially. We recognize that, which is why we don't condemn it as a cent. But I do think that there are enough descriptive text in the whole narrative scripture to say, Yeah, this is the norm. This is the norm.

So you guys ask for my Bible. That's my Bible. It's a macro descriptive argument from scripture and nature. That's a really helpful summary. It is because he admits there's no verse. Hold on. Hold on. Let me start over on that one with Edding.

That's a really helpful summary of his points and where he stands right at the end. Give me your take on it now that he's wrapping up his argument. It's great to hear him concede that there is no. no explicit commands at all in scripture. There's an implicit, notice he doesn't even list the verses that are supposedly implicitly supporting his argument. There's not even listed at no point are they listed. Not even descriptions of sort of nations.

It's, I think, I mentioned reference to Tower of Babel at one point. But it just is this sort of hand-waving argument. Like, it's in that narrative, this section, not in this passage, not in, but I want to raise it a really killer argument that, and it was still focused on the Bible, which is phenomenal and the basic logical contradictions. I want to take aim at that actual argument. So he's arguing, an argument is that

God providentially created nations made up supposedly according to these biological races, which is totally false, like they're French race. There's a French race, the Spanish race, they have their own countries, and it's important for them to have these distinct biological features, which they don't have.

And therefore, if you intermarry French and German too much, you're dilute the solidarity of the French race, and that's going to be bad for the nation. That's the argument, again, which is already wrong biologically. But here's the interesting point. They keep saying over and over that it was God's plan as an intention to create these distinct races that form nations.

And he's actually using Stephen Wolfe's definition of ethnicity slash nation from his book, case for Christian nationalism. But this is an idea that's out there in Christian national circles. Here's the thing. They keep appealing to God's intention and God's plan and God's sovereign purpose and in Providence because we see it. We see he made these nations that are distinct. We see the genetics. You have the data.

Here's the problem. There's something called ethnogenesis, which he actually mentioned in the debate that they know that some people groups, some nations of people that is, people groups like the French or the Spanish, were created in history. Right. They would appeal to saying there's Noah's three sons creating the three big buckets, but then they diversified even further. So they admit that at one point, there were no French people. There were none. At some later point in history, there were some French people. Where'd they come from?

Well, they want to make it seem like there was some founder who's the first guy named Frank the Frenchman, who then all of his kids that were French, right? But we know historically that's not what happened. There has been inevitable, or there has been countless. numbers of intermarriage, intermixing, conquest, migrations. I mean, just think rationally. Think about England. We like England, you know, Big Ben and tea and cricket. In our book post-woke, we go through the actual history of England.

From the druids, the invention to the interaction of Christianity around 500 AD as a resurgence, when it becomes from a Christianish nation, the Norman conquest in the 11th century, then the French became a big part of the English language, how it's Germanic in origin, how we have the influence of tea from the East Indies through trade and imperialism. All the things we take as the English culture and the English race, this is a blend, a hodgepodge, like every single nation on earth has always been. And what's more, if you're going to point to God's providential action in history to create the French nation, say, Well, he also created providentially these other nations through intermarriage, through mixing,

through assimilation through all these processes. So, and they're going to appeal that as they're taking that descriptive action of God, a provincial action, and attributing it to his design. Cool then. I can then equally say, God intended immigration, mass immigration, to come to the U.S. to make a new ethnos that's brown. And Joel would know you can't do that. Wait, why, Joel?

That's God's plan. You don't know it yet. But in the 200 years, when we're all brown, then you will say, oh, the glorious American brown nation was caused by God's providence. Now, I'm not even making any claims for about mass immigration. My point is his argument is fundamentally logically flawed because all every nation on earth has been created through of conquest, defeat, colonization, intermarital. blending, mixing, languages have changed, people groups have changed. And this is, by the way, guys, this is why when you do the 23 and me DNA test, most people in the world are like 10% Welsh and 5% English and 10% French and 15% just, especially in America. So to me, that is just a not an argument because this whole way of thinking about what the nation is.

It is not a biological category. It just isn't. And last thing I'll say is every nation on earth throughout history has had minority groups. Ancient Israel, as Avery mentioned, had whole categories of sojourners, foreigners, people that lived among the Israelites who are often treated respectfully, the same laws the Israelites had, that they were native racial, in Jill's terminology, outsiders that were welcomed in Israel. When the Israelites left Egypt, they left as a mixed multitude.

Look it up. That refers to many different ethnic groups that left with the Jews, the Israelites. Israel has always been a multiracial nation. It's predominantly the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but they always included an element that lived among them freely of people of foreign to set a different race. And so this idea of it just doesn't make any sense historically to claim that every single nation on earth is racially pure in their terminology. That is not true by historically. It's not true biologically. Totally false. So there goes their argument. And that's not true in

countries like Brazil. That's not true in modern day Israel. They pointed that out in a whole bunch of different. Oh, yeah. As well. So I think your argument is very well stated and important. important. Let's watch Ruslan's closing and then get your take on that one. Good stuff. The Indian Mandate was an amazing argument from silence, Joel. I have never heard anything that exhaustive from that little scripture respectfully. I think you kind of conceded a debate, and you said there's no prescriptive text. You're just weaving together stuff from descriptive passages and a little bit of natural law, reform theology. I don't know how you come to these conclusions. I mean, I know how you come to these conclusions, but I think it's just, I'm really impressed

with how you were able to weave all this together. I want to go to John 7. by the sarcasm. Okay. Because you're laying it on pretty thick. I am. I want to go to John because I think John in Roman, excuse me, John speaking in Revelation 7.9, we have the Greek. We have nation, which means ethos, people group. This is not a race. There's in any modern biological sense, which again, that word didn't pop in. And so about 500 years ago, this is just as modern as a lot of the gender theory nonsense.

We have tribe clan, which is about a kinship lineage, family lines, Israel's use. And then we have people, a covenant word used to describe God's people. John is not collapsing humanity into a single flattened category. So it's okay, all you white men. It's going to be fine. Nor is he freezing them into a permanent, segregated order. He's doing something much more dangerous to ethnic purity.

He preserves distinction without hierarchy. Why all of this undermines this entire natural law, separation, even though we have no scripture, and we're breaking the rules of logic. All right. Yeah. You take on his closing. It's a great closing. I think the appeal of Revelation 7-9 is important because throughout the debate, Webin and

others were saying that how can we have many nations and ethnicities and peoples gathered around the throne if we destroy them, make us one big homogeneous brown goo? And first of all, the answer, my answer would be because we've had nations for thousands of years already. There's plenty of tribes, nations, and tongues to gather. gather around and worship Jesus already. If, for whatever reason, we all turn into one homogenous, brown people, it'll be okay. Jesus will receive the worship he deserves. But I think he's pointing out that there's so much here I can say. Just if you just say that interracial marriage

is just fine. It's not good or bad. It's not the only thing you can do. It's not the thing you can't do. It's just, it's your preference, right? Statistically, interracial marriage in the U.S. which widely accepted is still only like 19% of current marriages, let alone in the past, but just current marriage, only 19% are interracial marriage. And most are like white and Hispanic, actually. That's the biggest category, which often like they're Hispanics and whites are often very much European descent anyway. What are we even doing?

So I don't think that's concern. If people are serious, like, well, I worry that it will all just become uniform and homogeneous and Jesus will be robbed of diversity in heaven. And it's like, well, again, we have a past 2,000 years of whatever years of diversity that people welcoming into Jesus' kingdom. So we'll be okay. But more than that, just if inertia is not going to make us all homogeneous. People from China will always likely want to marry other Chinese. Why?

Because they're around Chinese people. They're just looking around. Maybe in a place like America will have more mixing than we wouldn't say in China or in India. I get that. Okay. And if you, by the way, if you say, well, I want to preserve America. America's, you know, heritage. I want to preserve the Europeanness of America. Like, okay, maybe you have other reasons to not like mass immigration. I sure there's concerns. There's

legitimate concerns. I'm not downplaying them. I'm just pointing out that you can say I would prefer to retain this sense of European Anglo-Americanness that was been part of history for ages, just like a Japanese person wants to retain Japanese culture and just the just all the parts of including the way they physically look that you can that's a fine preference it's not a sin okay but guys keep in mind nations are transient they don't last forever you know who's seen the Hittite empire hit that empire mighty Hittites stentaries of conquest and the Assyrians Babylonians powerhouses threats these they are gone they are gone they are they're crickets they're Jackals. God talks about them. If you're struggling with credit card debt, you're not alone.

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which I love America. But we have a kingdom. It's eternal. All the things we love about America, we preserve the new heaven, the new earth. We're going to be Americans, guys. It's not going to be a letdown. Like, oh, no, we've lost it all. We're all speaking Hebrew now.

We're going to have our distinctives, as Ruslan points out, and rejoice in them, but they're not going to be the center of heaven. It's going to be Jesus the center. And so yeah, I just want to make clear. I was being tongue-in-cheek when I talked about us all being brown. It's not about that. It's just we have to have biblical categories for what matters and what doesn't matter in marriage, in religion, in worship, and we have to center of those things and the things that God does not care about.

Like blood purity, we have to not care about either because we want to have the mind of Christ about these things. Again, if you preferences, different, but insistence that this is God's design, not in the table. Neil, this is good stuff. There's some other questions I was going to ask you, but I feel like you kind of brought it to a culmination there and drove home after Ruth's Lawns closing. What really matters how we think about this? Your book Post-Woke is great. I just read my Norseman here. I said, this is on my must-read list for every Christian.

And in some ways, you're responding to Wokeness on the left, but there is a kind of reactionary wokeness, and there's debate about whether we call it that or not on the right that makes some of the same mistakes. And I think your book is excellent in that regard. I hope people will pick it up. Any last thing you wanted to say,

anything we missed about this debate, about this topic. I would like just to say, make a plug from my book, it's called Post Woke for a reason. I think many of us feel like we're kind of beyond the peak woke period. It's lost in steam, yes. But guys, I'm begging you, especially parents. You need to understand things like race and ethnicity and gender and sexuality from a biblical

perspective. You can't just say, but I'm conservative. I have to worry about all the left-wing wokeness. That's not thinking biblically. Our book is about thinking biblically about these categories. And you might be immune to left-wing craziness, but your kids might not be immune to right-wing craziness. And it's, I don't say it's equally dangerous, but it is dangerous.

It's not biblical. Are we going to be people of scripture or people of our political tribes? So I've just pleading with you. I've seen so many kids and students get lost to the woke left. And I'm seeing it happening with the dissident right. Get their heads on straight. And that happens through good biblical categories like we're trying to present in the book. So that's my only plea.

Neil, thanks for coming on. You were the perfect person to ask because you've thought about these issues in some depth. You're willing to watch that. I'm half Indian, right? So I've got both sides here. It's in one person. Had to play that card at the end, of course. No, that's really fun.

To my viewers and listeners, let me know. This is a deeper dive response to a debate than I typically do. We're trying to do different things in the channel and really want to hear from you what's helpful. What's not helpful in terms of the list? length in terms of the topic from me and where I'm at at Talbot, what would be the most interesting and equipping and helpful to you, whether you are a Christian or not? Please let me know. Make sure you hit subscribe. We do have some other conversations coming up on topics like Michael Heiser, near-death experiences, and a range of other ones having a discussion

soon on annihilationism and hell in-depth you won't want to miss. If you thought of us done Apologetics, we would love to have you at Talp School Theology. We have a full class taught by my colleague Scott Smith, where he goes into critical theory in depth from a philosophical perspective. The last thing I'll say is we also have a certificate program. It's not a master's. Whereas if you thought, you know what, I want to study these topics in some depth, but I'm not ready for master's. We will walk you through some leading lectures of scholars in the world and help you really understand some of these topics. All right. Neil, this is fun. We'll do it again soon, brother. Thank you so much, Sean. Hey, friends, if you enjoyed this show, please hit that follow

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The content we feed our minds will eventually show up in our lives. If we feed our minds the lies and confusion of this world, our lives will begin to reflect worldliness. But if we feed our minds the truth of the gospel, our lives will start to reflect the heart and character of Jesus. I'm John Stongy, and each week I host the Dwell on These Things podcast, where we take a deep look at the Word of God and learn what it means to apply it to our lives. We don't skip difficult passages, and we don't gloss over the truth. If you're looking for a show that will put your mind in a better place and help you understand God's word with more clarity, You can listen to the Dwell on These Things podcast at lifea Audio.com or on your favorite podcasting app.