We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. - The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America, May 29, 1790.
That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free…. - Emancipation Proclamation, September 22, 1862.
I must confess that I have a certain ambivalence about celebrating national holidays. My understanding of Christianity tempers my celebration of such days, especially Independence Day. The dangers of conflating the mission of the Gospel with the agenda of an earthly nation—any nation—have been revealed throughout the history of the church. It undermines the gospel and replaces the church as God’s people with the state as divinely chosen. To believe so is to commit ecclesiastical heresy.
History has testified time and time again to this danger, and yet we Christians continue to fall into it as if each new generation thinks it “will get it right this time.” I am very concerned with the virulent strain of Christian Nationalism currently prevalent in white Protestant Evangelicalism; but let’s be honest and acknowledge that the Mainline Protestant Left has its own version of Nationalism, which is more subtle and, therefore, more deceptive. A kinder, gentler Nationalism is still Nationalism.
Having said all of this, I want to acknowledge that I appreciate the Founding Fathers who desired to extend freedom and liberty to all (at least as they understood “all” at the time). I believe freedom is a good thing. Yes, it can be abused, but all good things can be distorted. In general, I like freedom and wish to see everyone enjoy its blessings. I believe that God wants his creation to be free. Evolutionary creation reveals that God builds freedom into the universe itself. God even allows creation to make itself. Freedom is a central theme in both the Old and New Testaments with the central story of the former being the Exodus and the latter being the death and resurrection of Jesus—both stories of liberation.
One of the things about the telling of history is that no story in and of itself is complete. History is the story of human beings attempting to get it right and sometimes failing; and when they do get it right, it is not perfect. There must be more to the story that unfolds in the future. Humanity is a work in progress.
When the signers of the Declaration of Independence said “all men are created equal,” they were rejecting the belief that nobility made a person more equal than other white men. Women were not included. Neither did the Declaration include approximately 300,000 slaves, and Indigenous People weren’t even on their radar. Their great affirmation of equality excluded many. They like the rest of us were a work in progress.
The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, written some fourteen years after the Declaration begins, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union.” We must not fail to notice this language— “in Order to form a more perfect Union.” Here the Founders acknowledged the Union was not perfect, but the task was to journey toward something more perfect. If freedom and equality are central to the American experiment, then the story of America must embody more fully that freedom and equality so that they are extended to all people. It was Martin Luther King, Jr. who one hundred years after the Civil War, challenged white Americans to live up to those ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. In essence King was saying to his fellow white Americans, “This is what you preach. It is time to start practicing it.”
That work to establish a more perfect Union took a big step forward when in 1862, Abraham Lincoln declared all slaves in the states “in rebellion against the United States,” to be free. The Emancipation Proclamation itself was less than perfect. It did not included slaves in the border states that had not seceded. Lincoln did not think freeing them would pass Constitutional muster, but it was a start for people attempting to get it right.
On June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced that all enslaved people were free, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. For many African Americans, that day—known as Juneteenth—is a day of great celebration when the news of their liberation reached their ancestors. On June 17, 2021, Juneteenth became a National holiday.
I have white friends who have expressed consternation that Juneteenth is a celebration of independence; after all they reason that July Fourth is the day all Americans should celebrate freedom. True enough. Most of my African American friends observe July Fourth; but it must be remembered that when the colonies declared themselves free in 1776, that excluded African Americans. In fact, slaves were not considered to be Americans. They were property. The former slave, Frederick Douglas reminded a white audience of that approximately eighty years after the Declaration.
Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?*
The work toward that more perfect Union had a long way to go.
One of the things I have learned over the years is how important it is to listen to the stories of others and not to impose our understanding of their story upon them. We white Americans must confess that we have done that in the past and continue to do so. We struggle to face up to our racist past, so we whitesplain to our African American sisters and brothers what their story should be. We want to interpret their story for them in order to reduce our discomfort.
What we must do instead is to find out why Juneteenth matters to our fellow citizens who are black. If we are all Americans, that story—their story— should matter to all of us. Let me also suggest that if the Fourth of July is a day for all Americans, then Juneteenth should be as well.
I suggest that if we want to embody that more perfect Union the Founders envisioned, all Americans should observe both Independence Day and Juneteenth. That in and of itself is not sufficient, but it is a good start. I rejoice with my black sisters and brothers that they enjoy the freedom their ancestors did not, and I pledge to work alongside of them to work against the racial discrimination that still exists, that our more perfect Union will become more perfect.
This year, I will observe both the Fourth of July and Juneteenth, though as a Christian I will do so reminding myself that as a follower of Jesus, my identity is centrally formed as a citizen of a Kingdom that is not from this world (John 18:36); and that ultimately the blessings of true liberty can only be found in Jesus Christ.
“It is freedom for which Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1). We must not conflate that freedom with the freedom promised to us by mortals.
NOTE
*Frederick Douglass, “Fourth of July,” July 5, 1852.
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