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Video | Marrying Outside Adventism

On Sunday, I attended a beautiful wedding uniting two great Adventists with different ethnic backgrounds. Someone there mentioned that Adventism functions like a culture that helps us transcend some of the differences augmented by various symbols of meaning. While there are exceptions, most notability our history from regional conferences to Rwanda, there is some truth to that. Look at the way that it has spread around the world and the many more cases of inter-ethnic cooperation that it has fostered. Any questions? Wander around the GC headquarters.

But is Adventism so transcendent that its cultural meanings might work like an even more foundational identity thereby creating more barriers between us and non-Adventists with the same ethnic experience?

There’s probably a shelf of sociology findings that would inform these questions, but I’m curious what SPECTRUM folks think. It wasn’t too long ago that being unequally yoked (2 Corinthians 6:14) was pretty serious stuff. Is it akin to the scandal of a Capulet loving a Montague? And is the loss in social capital and just basic human conflict or is there something transcendently Biblical about it?

Of course this depends on how much one invests their identity with meaning, whether religious or cultural.

The Jewish culture recorded in Scripture clearly opposes, at the literal level, the mixing of almost any kind, be it religious, gender, racial, or animal. Has the context changed?

Thanks to the Trans-European Division, here’s video of four young Adventists sharing (6 min) their thoughts about inter-Christian and interfaith marriage.

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