The 1967 film, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, tells the story of an engaged couple, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Houghton. Joanna (Houghton) takes her fiancé, Dr. Prentice (Poitier), home to meet her parents, Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Joanna and her parents are white. Dr. Prentice is black. It is 1967. Joanna’s parents are shocked that their daughter is engaged to a black man. Later, Dr. Prentice’s parents are shocked that their son is engaged to a white woman. The two fathers agree—the marriage must be stopped. A priest and some family friends support the marriage. The mothers eventually come around. Finally, the fathers remember true love and acquiesce, but warn the couple they face a lifetime of struggle.
And why not? In 1967, interracial marriage remained ILLEGAL in 17 states. Two weeks after filming was completed, the Supreme Court struck down anti-miscegenation (no mixing races) laws in Loving v. Virginia. Spencer Tracy, gravely ill throughout filming, did not live to see those laws changed, having died two days BEFORE the Court’s watershed decision.
Do you ever write people off? The Jews had strict laws forbidding them from even entering the HOMES of Gentiles. But Jesus changed that. God brought Peter a vision:
“He saw heaven opened and an object that resembled a large sheet coming down, being lowered by its four corners to the earth. In it were all four-footed animals and reptiles of the earth, and the birds of the sky. Then a voice said to him, ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat!’
‘No, Lord,’ Peter said, ‘for I have never eaten anything common and unclean!’
Again a second time, a voice said, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call unclean.’ This happened three times” Acts 10:11-16.
Immediately, God sent Peter to the home of a Roman Centurion named Cornelius. Cornelius and his Gentile friends and family were saved and received the Holy Spirit, evidenced by the gift of tongues. Soon all Christians understood the “Vision of the Sheet With Animals.” Not only were believers released from kosher dietary laws (bacon!), but God tore down the dividing wall between Jew and Greek.
There are no people above you, beneath you, or off-limits to you. While every marriage requires an honest look at similarities, differences, families, and customs, there are no rules.
Many would argue racial differences are meaningless, or even that we are all one race—the HUMAN RACE.
God, fill us with love for all Your children.
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Household Words: 