The 250th Birthday of the United States is July 4th, 2026. What are you celebrating?

My wife’s wisdom should guide you.

As I wrote in my acknowledgements for the General Counsel Series (The Promised Land, at 14):

A comment by my wife Suzanne after seeing the show at the American Pavilion in Epcot Center in Walt Disney World gave me the essential vision of Visions of America; she felt that we should be proud about something besides all of the wars we’ve won.

And so, for the celebration of the 250th birthday of the United States, do not celebrate with gold statues or triumphal arches dedicated to the Power of Money, the Power of Religion, or the Power of the United States.

Celebrate by remembering the countless ways that the United States struggles (despite going astray (Isaiah 53:6)) to establish the ideal America first discovered by the hearts of Abraham, Moses and Jesus:

—blessing ALL people (Abraham; Genesis 12:2-3);

—challenging ALL pharaohs to set ALL people free (Moses; Exodus 8:1); and

—healing ALL hurting people (Jesus; Luke 10:25-37).

Honor those who blessed people, challenged pharaohs to set people free, and healed hurting people. Celebrate Harriett Beecher Stowe!

Here is an example of such blessing, challenging and healing taken from Visions of America, at pages 61-62 and 67-68:

Harriett Beecher Stowe

In Ancient Israel, God called Isaiah to warn the nation that they were “ever hearing,  but never understanding” and “ever seeing, but never perceiving.”

If the Ancient Israelites were ever to be healed from their iniquities, Isaiah told them, they must learn to see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts (Isaiah 6:9-10). . . . .

When it came to slavery, it was as if Americans had eyes but did not see, and ears but did not feel.  Frederick Douglass and Harriett Beecher Stowe changed all that. By enabling people to feel the horrors of slavery, they enabled people to see that slavery must be abolished. . . .

[In 1852] Harriett Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The impact of her book was so great that, when Abraham Lincoln met Harriett Beecher Stowe a decade later in 1862, he said, “So this is the little lady who made this big war?”

Harriett Beecher Stowe’s fictional account of Uncle Tom’s life as a Christian slave enabled whites (at least in the North) to see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts. She enabled Americans to see the tears of mothers and their children who were separated forever because they were sold to different masters.

She enabled Americans to hear the moans of Uncle Tom when he became a martyr (Uncle Tom was whipped to death when he refused to betray the whereabouts of two female slaves who had run away rather than continue to be sex toys.)

She enabled Americans to understand that they were hypocrites to talk about loving liberty while they were enslaving others. She enabled Americans to understand that they must stop permitting other good Christians such as Uncle Tom to be persecuted as slaves.

Few people read Uncle Tom’s Cabin anymore. It is written in a syrupy style that dropped out of fashion long ago. Modern readers are uneasy about its many racist stereotypes. Furthermore, modern readers squirm as Uncle Tom meekly submits to outrage after outrage while singing hymns and quoting Bible verses. Nowadays, no one wants to be known as an “Uncle Tom”.

Nevertheless, when Uncle Tom’s Cabin was first published, it was fantastically successful. In the South, people denounced the book as slanderous. But across the North, people became more and more outraged by slavery, and more and more determined to end this blight upon America.

God’s Truth was marching on. Americans could see the evils of slavery with their eyes, hear the evils of slavery with their ears, and understand the evils of slavery with their hearts. . . .

Most Americans in the 1850s could not imagine the disaster that awaited them within a few years. But Harriett Beecher Stowe sounded a warning.

At the end of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, she reminded the church that, according to the Bible, Christ “shall break in pieces the oppressor.” And she warned Americans that these are “dread words for a nation bearing in its bosom so mighty an injustice.”

Nevertheless, Harriett Beecher Stowe did not yet abandon all hope for a peaceful end to slavery. As she put it,  “[a] day of grace is yet held out for us.”

However, she saw, heard and understood the evil in America and in the Church. She wrote, “Both North and South have been guilty before God; and the Christian Church has a heavy account to answer.”

Harriett Beecher Stowe rejected the compromises (such as the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850) that politicians crafted at the expense of black people. She accurately foresaw that the Union could not be saved “by combining together, to protect injustice and cruelty, and making a common capital of sin.” The Union could only be saved “by repentance, justice, and mercy.”

Therefore, Harriett Beecher Stowe ended Uncle Tom’s Cabin with a prophesy of doom: if America did not take the “path of repentance, justice, and mercy”, there was no doubt that the “injustice and cruelty” in America would bring “the wrath of Almighty God!”

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Were any of your ancestors owners of slaves? How does this affect your views on slavery and racism?

Were any of your ancestors slaves? How does this affect your views on slavery and racism?

In the 21st Century, what are the ways of repentance, justice and mercy that America must follow to prevent the wrath of Almighty God? How?

READ MORE

For related ideas, please read “Racism Is America Gone Astray”; “The 500-Year Marathon To Overcome Racism”; and “The 250th Birthday of the United States: Frederick Douglass