une 19, 1865, marks a providential moment when God’s justice broke through man’s rebellion. When Union troops finally arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas, two months after the Civil War’s official end, they carried the fulfillment of divine judgment against the sin of chattel slavery. More than 250,000 enslaved souls learned at that moment that their chains had finally been broken by the same God who delivered Israel from Pharaoh’s tyranny.
For years, those in Texas celebrated June 19 as “Juneteenth” or “Jubilee Day,” even as other states celebrated the own “Emancipation Day” on other dates. For example, black Americans in Virginia traditionally celebrate on April 3, the day Richmond, the Confederate capital, fell to the Union Army, while the District of Columbia celebrates on April 16, in commemoration of the D.C. Compensated Emancipation Act of 1862, which freed the 3,100 enslaved individuals living in the nation’s capital. Other states celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, which freed all slaves in the Confederate states.
However, in 2021, one year after the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter riots, a group of black activists succeeded in nationalizing all of these unique state and regional events into one by taking the Texas celebration of Juneteenth and turning it into a federal holiday, known officially as Juneteenth National Independence Day.
But here’s what the cultural Marxists don’t want you to understand: This moment wasn’t the birth of “Black America” — it was the completion of biblical America, the nation whose founding documents proclaimed that all men are created in God’s image and endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights.
To those standing firm against revisionist history and racial division — take heart. The same Gospel that liberated those Texas slaves is still advancing, still conquering, still setting captives free.
The Truth About Freedom That Threatens the Left
When those formerly enslaved Texans received word of their freedom, they didn’t demand reparations or government programs. They immediately began “reunifying families, establishing schools, running for political office, and pursuing economic opportunity.”
I’ve witnessed this same spirit in faithful black families today — families who reject the victim narrative and teach their children that their identity flows from adoption into God’s family, not ethnic heritage. These families understand what cultural revolutionaries refuse to acknowledge: True freedom isn’t the absence of responsibility — it’s the presence of godly dominion.
Those freedmen built schools because they embraced the Westminster Shorter Catechism’s declaration that man’s chief end is to glorify God. They reunited families because they knew God’s design for human flourishing begins with covenant relationships. They pursued political participation because they recognized, as Calvin taught, that righteous men have a duty to seek justice in the public square.
This is biblical freedom — true freedom that is rooted in biblical theology and utterly opposed to the secular humanist counterfeit peddled by today’s grievance merchants.
Government Theater vs. Gospel Truth
The elevation of Juneteenth to a national holiday represents everything wrong with our political moment. It’s virtue signaling masquerading as historical honor — a cheap substitute for the biblical reformation our communities desperately need.
The same establishment that rushed to create this holiday has spent decades systematically destroying the communities they claim to celebrate. They’ve incentivized fatherlessness through welfare dependency, trapped children in schools that teach Critical Race Theory instead of reading, and replaced the Gospel of Christ with the false gospel of victimhood.
This isn’t mere political theater — it’s spiritual warfare. When Caesar tries to define our celebrations instead of Scripture, we’re witnessing Augustine’s age-old battle between the City of God and the City of Man. The state wants to be our savior, but faithful Christians know that Christ alone holds that title.
Where are their policies supporting school choice, defending parental rights, and protecting religious liberty? These questions answer themselves. This isn’t about honoring history — it’s about maintaining political power through perpetual division.
One Nation Under God, Not Two Americas
America doesn’t need two Independence Days because biblical anthropology doesn’t recognize permanent racial castes. As Paul declares in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
The Declaration of Independence and July 4, 1776, proclaimed that all men are created in God’s image, while June 19, 1865, applied that truth through divine judgment. These aren’t competing narratives — they’re the same redemptive story unfolding according to God’s sovereign plan.
When we create separate “liberation days” for different ethnic groups, we’re perpetuating the very divisions Christ came to destroy. We’re teaching children to see themselves as racial beings rather than image-bearers of the living God. This directly threatens the religious liberty and national unity that made abolition possible.
The Battle for Our Children’s Minds
The fight over Juneteenth is ultimately about narrative control. The left wants our children to see America as irredeemably racist and in need of revolutionary transformation. They want Juneteenth to serve their narrative of oppression and grievance.
But faithful parents know the truth: America is a nation that has repeatedly returned to its founding principles when it strayed. The same Constitution that declared independence made abolition possible. The same Christian principles that motivated the Founders motivated the abolitionists. This is one story, not two competing stories.
When we teach our children this integrated biblical narrative, we’re protecting their souls from the poison of racial resentment and national self-hatred. We’re giving them a foundation for confident Christian citizenship rather than perpetual victimhood.
Gospel Freedom vs. Political Theater
The Gospel tells us that all men are enslaved to sin and desperately need redemption through Jesus Christ alone. True freedom comes through regeneration by the Holy Spirit, not government proclamations.
This is why cultural Marxists hate the Gospel: It destroys their power structure. They need permanent victims to justify their revolutionary agenda. They need racial division to maintain political control.
But the Gospel creates permanent victors who find their identity in Christ rather than circumstances. When faithful families celebrate Juneteenth as a local, church-centered, Gospel-focused community event, we honor African Americans’ specific journey and the universal need for biblical freedom.
The Masculine Duty and Biblical Path Forward
Men — particularly fathers and pastors — cannot allow cultural revolutionaries to hijack our history for their anti-American, anti-family agenda. The Texas freedmen understood that freedom requires constant vigilance and active defense by godly men willing to lead their households in truth.
Those freedmen didn’t see themselves as permanent victims but as victorious sons and daughters of the King. We must reclaim this spirit through practical biblical reconstruction:
For Fathers: Use June 19th as a family teaching moment. Tell your children the real story about how God used imperfect men to advance His justice, how freedom requires responsibility, and how your family’s identity comes from Christ, not grievance. Read them Exodus 14 and draw parallels between God’s deliverance of Israel and the enslaved.
For Churches: Host community events that teach accurate history while building Gospel-centered fellowship. Celebrate God’s faithfulness in breaking chains, both physical chains in 1865 and spiritual chains today. Use this as evangelism to reach neighbors with the only message that truly sets people free.
For Communities: Create economic opportunities that reflect biblical principles. This could include mentorship programs connecting young men with godly fathers, businesses operating according to Christian ethics, and educational alternatives teaching children to think biblically about their calling.
We face new forms of bondage that Texas freedmen never imagined: intellectual slavery to secular ideologies, spiritual slavery to false gospels, and economic slavery to an administrative state that punishes productivity. But the same God who broke chains in Texas is still in the chain-breaking business.
The Victory That’s Already Won
The same God who delivered Israel from Egypt, who liberated the slaves of Texas, and who is building His church against which Hell’s gates cannot prevail has already secured our ultimate victory. Christ has conquered sin, death, and the devil.
The cultural revolutionaries can create holidays and rewrite textbooks, but they cannot change reality’s fundamental structure: We live in God’s world, governed by His law, moving toward His predetermined end. Their rebellion is doomed because it wars against creation itself.
Let June 19th remind us not of America’s divisions but of God’s faithfulness, not of our grievances but of His grace, not of our past bondage but of our future glory as citizens of the kingdom that cannot be shaken.
The freedmen of Texas celebrated because they knew their liberation served a purpose higher than themselves. So must we. We are free not for ourselves but for God’s service, free not for our glory but for His kingdom.
That’s a freedom worth celebrating every day until He returns in glory. That’s a battle worth fighting until every knee has bowed and every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord.
PHOTO: Local African-American families celebrate “Emancipation Day” in Richmond, Virginia, on April 3, 1905. CREDIT: Library of Congress.
This article was originally published on Standing for Freedom Center.
