Don't dare call me racist...the love of my life is Jewish!

Culture is not morally neutral. Skin colour and etnnicity are. God does not call me to embrace every aspect of every culture. If I did, I would automatically be embracing certain presuppositions that are ungodly. But I must love and embrace people without regard for their ethnic background. This is something my parents taught me from the time I was young and I'm thankful for it. In fact I enjoy the company of people who look the same as me (Caucasian) and people who look different from me. Ethnic prejudice and hatred is stupid to God, and so its stupid to me too. I just don't get it!

I expressed this sentiment on my Facebook wall yesterday, with a simple line something like: "Aaron is discouraged that skin colour still factors into people's decisions." The responses I received ranged in flavour from "I agree", to "that's racist", to "what do you mean?". Very simply I was reacting to the multiplicity of people who were interviewed on national television (CBS) who said that they voted for Obama because he was black. Of course others likely didn't vote for him because he wasn't white (like KKK idiots), and others likely voted for Palin strictly because she was female, etc. But what I don't get is why any person who is a student of history would consider skin colour in their vote. Should one not vote because of the views/beliefs/policies/experience/character of the person? Skin colour or gender for that matter should not be the issue. But that's what many, many were saying influenced their vote(not my interpretation--their words).

The purpose of this blog entry is NOT to debate Obama's credentials, the outcome of the election, or to suggest that the majority of Obama-voters considered skin colour (so don't bother posting comments to that affect--I'll ignore them!). The purpose is to remind my handful of readers that we should not judge a man's fitness to rule, or be our friend for that matter, based on his ethnic background, period. It's one thing to rejoice in the historical significance of Obama's election as a man of African descent. This does on one hand point to an acceptance of all men as equally worthy of governing. On the other hand, if one votes based on colour (and this includes whites who vote only white), the very push for ethnic inclusivity that Jesus pushed for continues to be threatened.