Science in Christian Perspective

LOBBYING
Rev. A. R. Paashaus

From: JASA 16 (September 1964): 95.

Nebraska law for years has prohibited interracial marriage . . . I discourage such marriages unless they, in individual cases, are clearly within the will of God, as reverently and prayerfully determined. However, to force others by law, to my point of view, does not seem to me to be consistent with an ideal of maximum personal liberty and minimum governmental restrictions . . .

A legislative committee was hearing testimony on a proposed bill which would legalize interracial marriages in Nebraska. The Rev. Harold E. Garland, pastor of Temple Baptist Church in Lincoln, took his turn after those testifying in favor of the new bill had been heard. His statement appeared in The Lincoln Star as follows: He said "proponents of the bill had failed to answer the question in his mind that 'if God didn't want a difference, why did He make a difference?"'

I tip my hat to Brother Garland for taking time to spend an afternoon at a legislative committee hearing, for putting the gist of his Christian thinking into a brief quotable sentence, for clearly indicating that God was involved in making people as they are, which is certainly remote or non-existent in widespread evolutionary thought . . .

I believe more Bible-adhering pastors and laymen ought to speak to . . . lawmakers and testify at public hearings ... After a bill becomes law is not the time to complain about it. Jesus said, "Ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted?" (Matt. 5:13a).