God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
~ Ac 17:24-26
And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.
…And he said unto them, Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean.
…Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:
But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.
~ Ac 10:15, 28, 34-35
Many in the US have the day off for Martin Luther King Day. It is on this day that we remember one of the great leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. Tomorrow, we will see a great realization of Dr King’s dream: The Inauguration of President Barak Obama. It is truly a historic event.
Sometimes, British Israelism (BI) gets connected with certain radical elements, to include the extremist and racist “Christian Identity Movement”. However, as JH Allen and Herbert W Armstrong taught, privileges that have been handed down through race is just the opposite of what many outside of the COG teach. Race does not make one superior. Rather, it means the blessings are not deserved by the recipients. It is purely to show God’s faithfulness to Abraham and to use his descendants to carry His message to the ends of the earth (even if the vast majority of them don’t even understand it!).
The enemies of the COG are in utter glee. A democrat was elected to the White House. A non-Caucasian was elected to the White House. One site even went so far as to speculate that this will cause the disintegration of the remaining COG organizations (or, at least the big ones). If that isn’t strange, I don’t know what strange is.
I’m going to remind opponents and proponents both of a few things, though. Tracing a family tree is often not easy. Tracing a heritage can often be tough. Each generation you go back increases the number of ancestors by a power of 2. This has often resulted in a lot of confusion about who came from where. Races often mix together. People don’t stay in little sanitary containers that contain a “pure strain”, even if there were such a thing. Israel was often a melting pot of sorts, even with the nations they were supposed to destroy instead. America has often been called a “melting pot” even more so. It is only in recent years that diversity has become the mantra that threatens to rip our culture apart. Before that, it was of necessity that people integrated in with the society as much as possible. If anyone believes that either Ephraim or Manasseh was a “pure heritage” after wandering through Eastern Europe and back towards the west, and then add to that Manasseh settling in America and mixing with even more races, then you’d have to be pretty naïve.
Mr Obama’s mother was white, if anyone cares for a fact or two. I believe that trying to parallel his Presidency with Dt 17:15 (“Thou shalt in any wise … one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother”) or Dt 28:43 is a huge mistake for that reason alone. Lest we forget, how many of Israel’s kings were “pure” Israelites? If you trace back history far enough, I think you’ll find that the concept of a “pure” Israelite race is rather fallacious to begin with. Judah, for example, took a Canaanite wife (Ge 38:2-3). Furthermore, it is quite possible that Tamar, his daughter-in-law, was a Canaanite as well. Meanwhile, Joseph, of whom Ephraim and Manasseh were born, married an Egyptian. And, to top that off, let us remember that a “mixed multitude” came up out of Egypt with Israel (Ex 12:38). The biggest reason I can think of for a mixed multitude is because of families that intermarried! Therefore, the Israelites, let alone their kings, were not of a “pure race”, nor do I believe there really is such a thing, BI or not!
However, there’s another, better, reason that someone in the COG should not be an alarmist over any of this: The “stranger” or “foreigner” in the land was given the opportunity to become an Israelite! He was “naturalized” by voluntarily following the Abrahamic covenant and becoming circumcised. He was then to be treated “as one that is born in the land” (Ex 12:48). Since Mr Obama is a citizen by birth, he is as much a part of Manasseh as anyone else, he enjoys equal rights under the law, and it seems obvious that this is Biblical.
Some may view this as leading to the destruction of the COG. Some may view this as leading to the destruction of the United States. I hope you can see that neither view is constructive or Biblical. Instead, this should be viewed a huge gain for a minority group who have had to endure the worst type of slavery in history, only to be “freed” and then still be treated as less than human. “Love thy neighbor….” Need I say more?
Mr Obama is the leader of our country, and he will need a lot of help and prayers to fix the damage that has been done to this country. We are commanded to pray for him (1Ti 2:1-2). As with any change of administration, we should be viewing it as a new opportunity. May God bless Mr Obama and the United States!