APARTHEID IN THE BIBLE?

Unfortunately, the Bible has been misused in the past by Christians, and continues to be misused, to justify beliefs and policies that are to our own benefit. One of the most tragic examples in more recent times is the practice of apartheid in South Africa.

The Dutch Reformed Church set out its biblical basis for this practice in a 1976 report:

(1). Acts 17:26-27: God allotted the boundaries of the nations' existence.

    Since that was so, then the Dutch should not have colonized Africa in the first place.

(2). Ezra-Nehemiah: Mixed marriage was banned in the OT.

    But that was only between believers and non-believers, and had absolutely nothing to do with interracial marriages.That fact is made clear in II Corinthians 6:14.

(3). Genesis 1:28: The word “multiply” proves that mankind should be diverse.

    In fact, that verse only speaks to the number of descendants, not at all to different types.

(4). Acts 2:10 says that every people group heard in their own language.

    However, most Bible scholars more accurately state that the events at Pentecost represent the               breaking down of nationalistic and racial boundaries, not their perpetration.

Only in 1986 did the Dutch Reformed Church issue another statement in which they said that “the conviction has gradually grown that a forced separation and division of peoples cannot be considered a biblical imperative.”( Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics, Joel Green, ed., pp. 76-77)