Delano Squires: Freedom from slavery

MARY REICHARD: Today is Wednesday, June 19th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Up next, World Opinions commentator Delano Squires on the significance for Christians of Juneteenth.

DELANO SQUIRES: Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery in Texas on June 19, 1865. That was the day Union General Gordon Granger issued General Order No. 3, freeing all remaining slaves in the state–more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

The holiday has been celebrated in Texas for decades, but it has been a casualty in the culture wars in recent years. President Trump recognized Juneteenth during his administration and pledged to make it a federal holiday during the 2020 election. But the day has been weighed down by partisanship since President Biden signed the holiday into law in 2021.

It shouldn’t be that way. Juneteenth is a day celebrating the most important American value: freedom. Further, if there is anyone who should understand the joy that comes from being freed from bondage, it’s a Christian. We know that as bad as chattel slavery is, slavery to sin is far worse–because it has eternal consequences.

And like all values, freedom is not neutral. It implies being released from one thing to pursue another. 1 Peter 2:16 makes the Christian’s new pursuits clear. It says, “Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.”

Frederick Douglass, one of the nation’s most prominent abolitionists, also had a positive vision for freedom:

“As colored men, we only ask to be allowed to do with ourselves, subject only to the same great laws for the welfare of human society which apply to other men, Jews, Gentiles, Barbarian, Sythian. Let us stand upon our own legs, work with our own hands, and eat bread in the sweat of our own brows.”

The formerly enslaved did just that, using their newfound liberty to rebuild their families, create businesses, lead social organizations, fight honorably in war, and push for equal citizenship.

The fight against chattel slavery was built on the Biblical principle that every person is created in the image of God. Unfortunately, some Christians at the time used scripture to defend the practice. And over the past half century, feminists, abortionists, and LGBT activists have argued that their campaigns are the continuation of the civil rights movement.

But they all reject Biblical teaching about the nature of human beings in favor of a twisted form of individualism. Christians should reject these connections as quickly as we would reject any attempts to use the Bible to justify human bondage today. We oppose the slavery of men and slavery to sin for the same reason: our primary identity–regardless of skin color–is slaves of Christ.

I’m Delano Squires.

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