Multicultural Marriages

The United States has had a history of marriage restriction laws. Many states enacted miscegenation laws which were first introduced in the late 17th century in the slave-holding colonies of Virginia (1691) and Maryland (1692) and lasted until 1967 (until it was overturned via Loving v. Virginia). Many of these states restricted several minorities from marrying whites. For example, Alabama, Arkansas, and Oklahoma banned Blacks in particular. States such as Mississippi and Missouri banned Blacks and Asians. States such as North Carolina and South Carolina banned Blacks and Native Americans, and some states such as Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia banned all non-whites. Many societies have required a person to marry within their own general social group, which anthropologists refer to as endogamy. An example of such restrictions would be a requirement to marry someone from the same tribe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage#Race.2C_ethnicity.2C_tribe.2C_caste_and_social_class Thankfully, as a country we’ve moved beyond restricting people of different ethnic groups from marrying one another.  Gratefully, although it took us a sinfully long time, we recognize that God made us different on purpose. That we are created for one another and that diversity is what the Kingdom of God looks like. At Parker Lane UMC we have lightened our pastors‘ load a little so that they can do pre-marital counseling in our neighborhood for free.  We have some guidelines about that.  Our pastors ask if you already have a church home and if you do they encourage you to have your pastor do your pre-marital counseling.  Our pastors ask what zip code you are from and tend to only work with couples who are in our zip code.  The church makes sure that our pastors can do this for free because we think it’s critical to have some training before marriage.  We believe in strong marriages.  And so we are willing to make an investment in our neighbors. As we see more and more cross-cultural marriages and do pre-marital counseling across color lines we’ve learned that there are some cultural differences that really matter.  Our pastors have become used to hearing white people say, “I’m colorblind, color doesn’t matter to me.”  Which, ironically shuts down any conversation about cultural differences that actually might exist.  And so, when we do pre-marital counseling we start with the obvious: God created us different on purpose. At Pentecost God could have helped everyone to understand the one language that the disciples all knew.  Instead God helped the disciples speak in all the native languages present -- affirming the good gift of diversity.  Cross cultural marriages work better if there can be open conversation about differences based on ethnicity.  There are some differences.  Those differences, if not named, explored and appreciated can contribute to mis-communication in a marriage.  That mis-communication can make a hard job (the job of learning to love one other person the way that Jesus loves each of us) into a nearly impossible job.  Cross cultural marriages have the capacity to create understanding and to tear down some of the racists walls that still hold strong in our country.  But only if we acknowledge and appreciate the differences instead of running from them. Annie and Jesus are an engaged couple.  She is white, he is American of Mexican descent.  For the first three sessions I didn’t hear any words at all from Jesus.  Because Annie just couldn’t stop talking. She was talking to fill the space, talking because she was nervous, answering questions that I had asked of Jesus.  Sometimes white people do that.  They fill the silence with noise because silence is uncomfortable.  Jesus isn’t going to get loud to be heard.  Jesus’ culture says to wait until the voice of authority is done talking and then, perhaps, speak.  So many patterns are different depending on our ethic and socio-economic backgrounds.  These are not things to be ignored or taken lightly but things to wonder about and find out more about.A couple that were dedicated to one another to the point of becoming engaged still took some encouragement before they felt brave enough to talk about cultural differences.  Once those conversations started happening we started laughing more during our sessions.  Annie started practicing silence more.  Jesus started speaking more.  If you like to find out more about this church that intentionally invests in marriage and looks for ways to open the conversation about race and socio-economic differences feel free to stop by or check us out at www.parkerlane.org.