Is it time to cancel the Fourth of July?
In light of everything that’s happened in the United States of America over the past couple of months–stemming from an increasing awareness of the big picture of systemic racism and oppression in American history over the last 400 years–is it appropriate to celebrate the Fourth of July as Independence Day?
A few people are asking that question. To some it might sound absurd and offensive. But we must agree that a complete understanding of the deeply-rooted racial injustice in America necessitates a dramatic perspective shift in how we see the events of July 4, 1776. A picture of July 4 as an event that carried immediate, life-changing meaning for every American is myopic. If we are to be honest, we must recognize that the immediate beneficiaries of July 4 were almost exclusively white male property owners.
What are we celebrating?
The Fourth of July commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress. But in the last 244 years, the Fourth of July has transcended the events of July 4, 1776. At Fourth of July celebrations, most people aren’t picturing a bunch of old white bigwigs gathering together to sign a piece of paper that applied mostly to them and the members of their favored class. Instead, we celebrate American ideals–the ideals that drove the creation and adoption of that document, and what those ideals mean today.
The foundational ideals of the United States are manifold and complex. But the core expression of them may be found in what scholar Stephen Lucas calls “the best-known sentence in the English language,” that famous phrase of the Declaration of Independence. It reads, “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.”
There’s no question as to where that idea came from. It’s directly inspired by the concept expressed in Genesis 1:26, which records God saying, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, and let them rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” According to Scripture, all men and women are bearers of God’s image and given the same commission to rule over the earth. This idea of innate human equality and God-given rights should be of paramount importance to Christians. The founders of America took this magnificent concept and made it the foundation of their philosophy of governance.
If you pressed some of the founders on this idea, some of them would be forced to admit that they didn’t really believe it. As evidenced by their ownership of slaves and abuses of Native Americans, many of them only believed it only as far as it applied to white Christian men. Even still, hypocritical or not, that expression planted the seed of the ideal that came to be the foundation of the country’s philosophy.
A different vision of rights
The founders had a unique perspective on the role of government that I think is poorly understood even today. Some people today speak of our rights as though they are granted to us by the government. The government has promised us this and that, and is obliged to keep its promises. But that’s not how the founders saw things. They believed that human beings inherently possess human rights, not because those in power over them say so, but simply because they are human beings.
It’s not merely that God commands governments to give us human rights. It’s not even merely that we are worthy of such rights. Rather, God creates us as human beings innately possessing human rights. You possess the right to life and liberty just as you possess your right hand. As such, the government’s role is not to choose which rights it will and will not grant. Rather, the government has a divinely-ordained duty to ensure that everyone is able to enjoy the rights they already have.
This radical idea has so much potential to fundamentally change not only the relationship between governments and citizens, but the relationship between one citizen and another. Unfortunately, on July 4, 1776, these ideals were treated more like hyperbolic lip service that in reality only applied to the favored classes (white Christian men). Still, it was the first step in the advancement of this radical, world-changing idea of universal human rights that finds its roots back in some of the first words ever recorded from God.
Whose Independence Day?
Keeping all this in mind, we still have to remember that not every American can identify with July 4 as their independence day. Seventy-six years after July 4, 1776, Frederick Douglass asked a crowd of mostly white listeners in Rochester, New York, “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?” His answer: “[A] day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.” The events of July 4, 1776, meant virtually nothing for black Americans, Native Americans, or others not in the favored class. The ideals of the Declaration of Independence were not sweepingly applied to all people across America at once. Many groups of people have had to pursue and attain those ideals for themselves long after July 4.
As such, those groups have their own foundational moments where they, too, attained a measure of the rights and values the United States was founded upon. Far more meaningful to black Americans might be days like Juneteenth (June 19, 1865, when the Emancipation Proclamation was read in Texas, the last state slavery still persisted) or July 2, 1964 (when the Civil Rights Act was signed into law). Women could point to August 18, 1920, the day the 19th Amendment passed giving women the right to vote. Days like these are just as worthy of celebration as the Fourth of July, because in each case, some group of people, previously denied the ideals of liberty, freedom, and equality, compelled those in power to acknowledge and enforce their rights.
It is hard, therefore, to say that we are united in having attained freedom, independence, and equality on July 4, 1776. For some, it took decades or centuries. Some are still in the process of attaining those ideals even now. And yet it’s those very ideals that each of those groups has found worthy of pursuit.
The United States of America has never lived up to and will never live up to its ideals. When a group is unjustly denied those ideals, we recognize that as evil, because American ideals are good. Even today, they are not enjoyed equally by everyone in the country, but I would hope that it’s the desire of all of us that they will be one day.
Celebrating American ideals
So, on July 4, we should not celebrate as though these American ideals have been equally applied to or enjoyed by everyone. When we speak as if everyone experiences these ideals to the same degree, or that the day should mean the same thing to everyone, we create division, not unity. We shouldn’t celebrate on the basis that everyone experiences these ideals to the same degree, because they don’t. Rather, we should celebrate the ideals themselves. They are worthy ideals to aspire to and pursue. Surely we can agree that innate human equality and liberty are good. Surely we can agree that everyone’s innate human dignity and value should be acknowledged, and each human treated according to it. Anyone who believes the Bible must certainly affirm that, and we would hope that people would use their worldly liberty to freely choose to follow Christ, who sets us free from our sins.
Every American should agree that the ideals expressed and celebrated on July 4 are good, even if not properly applied to everyone as they should be. If we can’t agree on that, then all we have left to hope in is an inevitable power struggle where the group that seizes the most power will see to the welfare of their own. Even now, we see the devastating inequality and injustice that results from that sort of power struggle, even in America. But those American ideals tell us there is something better to aspire to, even in a world as sinful and fallen as ours. It’s those ideals that over a million US troops have died for over the last 244 years.
And one more thing: If we are celebrating our ideals this 4th of July, it is an apt opportunity to point out the ways we fall short of those great ideals. It is perfectly appropriate on the 4th of July to say, “These ideals are great. Here’s where we fall short of them. Let’s pursue them all the more diligently.” As such, there should not be any opinion columns or tweets complaining about those who would criticize the state of the country on this day. If we truly appreciate and celebrate these ideals, then we will not stop fighting until they are enjoyed by everyone to the fullest. To fail to do so is un-American (and, more importantly, un-Christian).
On this 4th of July, there is a lot that divides us. Not everyone experiences the ideals of America in the same way. But we should celebrate and be united by our common love and pursuit of them.
