I had a chance to revisit Frederick Douglass‘s classic speech, and write about it for Christianity Today in 1852, Douglass was invited to give a speech on what the Fourth of July meant for him. He was living as a free man in the north, having escaped slavery in Maryland, and we can anticipate the perhaps they were expecting something laudatory of the United States on that day.
Douglass, however, took it as an opportunity to take the churches to task for not having been more influential in the pursuit of abolition. It’s an interesting speech and an important speech, but also one which reflects an era which no longer exists.
Perhaps the fact that it no longer exists is a good occasion for Christians to ask what it means to be a Christian in a world where things are not as they should be, one in which Christians want to talk about a good and renewed world.
America, as many presidents, have put it, exist as a kind of idea which is perpetually being put into motion. After 250 years, it’s worth asking what kind of idea has emerged in the world, and what Christians living here should do about it. In whatever place Christians find themselves, the task is not to implement the vision that country demands they implement, but to ask what it means to live faithfully to the call of Jesus in that time in place.
You can read the whole thing here:
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