What is Juneteenth, and Why Should Christians Care?
“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly”
-Jesus (John 10:10).
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on 1 January, 1863, which declared all slaves in Confederate States “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” It took two more years of fighting before that declaration could be enforced. On June 19th, 1865, General Gordon Granger and his Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas and declared General Orders Number 3: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.” This is what Juneteenth celebrates—the ending of slavery in the United States.
The fight against slavery, and racism more generally, has been a long one in our nation. Right from the very beginning, however, our founding fathers declared that “all men are created equal”. Therefore, slavery was a contradiction. The same is true from the very first chapters of the Bible. All people were created in the image of God! How can one image bearer enslave another? It’s a contradiction.
Later in Genesis Noah cursed Canaan, the son of Ham for Ham’s immoral behavior, saying, “Cursed be Canaan; a slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers” (Genesis 9:25). While it is true that we can’t assume God condoned everything Noah said or did, I think it’s fair to say that slavery was seen as a curse, rather than a good and natural state of things. That means Ham’s son being cursed was not an allowance for others to treat him as a slave (if you are unsure, see what I said earlier about the Creation story).
And from the book of Exodus we learn that God didn’t condone the slavery of His people in Egypt. That’s not a one-off; He didn’t oppose slavery merely because it affected His chosen people. He opposed slavery because Yahweh stands for freedom. And He repeatedly reminded His people that He was the God who brought them out of slavery.
Paul is often accused of failing to condemn slavery, or worse, condoning it. Neither is true, though one must read with a full view of his context to properly understand what he said. His most famous writing about slavery takes us all the way back to Genesis 1 and 2: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Just as God Himself told us we are all His image bearers, now Paul tells us that we are all equals because we have been adopted into God’s family through faith in Christ. How can one treat a family member like that person were somehow less than?
So Christians most of all should recognize the importance of Juneteenth. God hated slavery, and over 150 years ago we ended that moral scourge on our nation. So we look back and remember, but we must also look forward and continue the Kingdom-struggle of seeing all people as equal. Our sinful nature will always war against this idea, wanting us to see ourselves as better. Such thinking is prideful, and is odious to Jesus. The struggle for equality is a Christian struggle.
