In week two of the November Thanksgiving series, we
are going to consider a few questions in rapid-fire succession. What is the
history of Thanksgiving in America? What is its purpose, and its implications
for the separation of church and state? And why is it so underappreciated in
our society? I am looking at them all together because I believe the answers
are interconnected.
History
Days of thanksgiving are an ancient practice,
spanning across numerous religious traditions. Later on this month, we will be
looking at the most relevant of these, the Israelite Feast of Tabernacles.
However, as a Christian practice, days of thanksgiving did not start to gain
prominence until the 16th Century.
Or at least, days of thanksgiving as such. For
many centuries beforehand, the basic idea had been practiced through the
various saints’ days of the Catholic calendar. But after the Protestant
Reformation, the new church tradition needed to establish a new form of
celebration.
There is some dispute over where and when the
first American Thanksgiving took place, but the most obvious choice is the one
every small child used to learn about in school. The Pilgrims of Plymouth
Colony in Massachusetts, Separatists from the Anglican Church, held a festival
in the autumn of 1621 to offer thanks to God for their survival and the first
successful harvest in the New World. This celebration, along with other similar
events in the other young British colonies of the 1600’s, became a tradition
that has lasted for centuries.
The purpose of these days of thanksgiving was
explicitly religious. The governors and assemblies of the various colonies
would occasionally make proclamations calling for either supplication to the
Lord when they were in need, or for thanksgiving when their needs had been met.
Given the religious nature of the founding of so many of the colonies, and the
religious underpinnings of the rest, this makes sense. They wanted to stay
connected to the fact that everything they had came to them from the hands of
God. To forget to do so, they believed, was to risk becoming ungrateful and
complacent, which in turn would result in the loss of their blessings.
This understanding carried over to the birth of
the new nation. During the War for Independence, the Continental Congress made
multiple thanksgiving proclamations after important victories, as did the new
states on their own, and General Washington for the Continental Army under his
command. As in the past, they were meant to recognize that the battle and its
outcome had not been theirs, but God’s (2
Chronicles 20:15), and that they owed Him praise for His protection.
Then, after the war was over and a new government
had been formed under the Constitution, the practice of Thanksgiving Day
proclamations continued. The first of these occurred on October 3, 1789, having
been called for by both houses of Congress and made by President Washington. It
was one of the first official acts of the new government, and called for “service
[to] that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good
that was, that is, or that will be” (the full text can and should be read here).
Though these proclamations generally followed the
Plymouth pattern by taking place around the harvest, there was no set schedule.
They could be made at any time of year, occasionally went with a few years in
between, and were more often made by states than by the national government.
This changed in 1863 when, after the Civil War had finally and irrevocably
turned in favor of the Union, Abraham Lincoln instituted Thanksgiving as an
annual national holiday to take place on the last Thursday of every November. It
remained there until 1941, when Franklin D. Roosevelt moved it to the fourth
Thursday of November in an attempt to help the economy during the Great
Depression.
Church and
State
When we think about this history, the thing that
ought to strike us most is what it means for the so-called “wall of separation
between church and state.” The early history of Thanksgiving shows that our
predecessors, including the Founders of the United States and the Framers of
the Constitution, did not intend for religious functions to be wholly distinct
from the operations of the government. While not meant to be sectarian—devoted
to one form of religion at the exclusion and persecution of others—there was no
denying the thanks owed to and continued reliance on the blessings of the
Almighty.
In some ways, I regret Lincoln’s decision to make
Thanksgiving an annual holiday. When something becomes too regular and routine,
it can tend to lose its urgency. That is, perhaps, part of the reason why the
holiday is so underappreciated (though other reasons are far more compelling).
Ultimately, however, I am grateful for it, since it has protected Thanksgiving.
There has been a growing and worrisome urge in the
last 50 or 60 years to attempt to scrub America of its religious heritage. Just
in October, another statehouse removed its statue of the Ten Commandments in
order to avoid the ire of antitheists, who are also attacking the pledge of
allegiance, the national motto, and crosses on monuments dedicated to soldiers
who made the ultimate sacrifice for this country. If Thanksgiving were not a
national holiday, and instead were proclaimed intermittently, I believe it
would be broadly challenged and would risk being eliminated.
Still, that does not explain why the antitheists
do not fight it. After all, they are fighting other things that exist in our
laws to recognize the providence of God. I think, however, that Thanksgiving is
too on the nose. If they were to try to attack it, that would draw attention to
its true purpose and its long history. And in that case, it would undermine the
entire secularist effort.
Think about it. Thanksgiving is our most religious
holiday. Easter and Christmas do not count, because they are Christian holidays
that the government merely recognizes. It did not create them. But Thanksgiving
is different. On that day, the United States government asks us to pray. It
does not force us to do so, but it gives us the opportunity and requests that we
take it. And as its history makes clear, this is not so we can have some vague
sense of gratitude, but rather so we can acknowledge the goodness of God. I
guess that “high wall of separation” must have a few gaps in it, huh?
If secularists were to try to point this out, it
would be devastating to their cause. They would only be proving to people how
ridiculous their claims are. Thanksgiving makes it clear that the separation of
church and state is not total. They have different spheres of authority that
should not be exercised by one person or group, but those spheres can and certainly
do mix. If our forebears clearly thought that way, then so can we. Any other
reading of the First Amendment they wrote is self-evidently wrong.
Contemporary
Importance
We have this legacy, then, but no apparent
appreciation for it. As I mentioned in my last post, Thanksgiving is easy to
overlook. Personally, I think antitheists would have it no other way. They
cannot kill it, but they are happy to watch it die.
Which it very nearly has. The current state of
Thanksgiving offers a window into the shift in national consciousness. What is
Thanksgiving for now?
Some people would say food. Others family.
Football and parades would get a few votes. Certainly these are good things,
things to be thankful for, but they are not really the things to thank. They
should not be the focus of the day. Nor are they any longer, as they were in
the last generation or two.
No, because now it is not even really a holiday.
More and more people are being required to work on it, or are choosing to spend
it away from their loved ones and without any regard for rest or gratitude.
Thanksgiving is dying because it is being sacrificed on the altar of
consumerism.
Every person who works or shops on Thanksgiving
Day is part of the problem. Don’t like hearing that? Too bad. It’s true. You
can’t wait a day? Then who do you really worship? God? Or the dollar?
Thanksgiving used to be about acknowledging the
Lord as the source of our blessings. Now, we are ignoring Him so we can pursue
those blessings as though they are the source of meaning in life. Maybe, as our
ancestors thought, we risk losing them as a result. Perhaps God will take them
in order to teach us that we are not the source of our own happiness. But maybe
not. Because the true emptiness of such a life is in many ways punishment
enough.
Remember
the Reason for the Season
Do I need to say it is ok to enjoy good things in
life? All right, then I will. But I shouldn’t have to. That has not been my
point. My point is that they are not the first things. The most important
aspects of this life are those that connect us to our Creator and Sustainer.
Thanksgiving is about bringing that to remembrance.
If you have not been doing so, then you need to
get back on the right track. I tell you that because I believe you can, not
because I want to attack you for doing something wrong. I want to turn it
around, not feel morally superior. I'm not anyway. But this is important, and I
feel called to make a bold case.
There was a time in this country when we
recognized the goodness of God. It was so important to our ancestors that they made
it a fact of our national life. It is so firm that it cannot be assailed by the
greatest critics of everything it represents. But they do not have to assail
it, if we do not even care to observe it. Thanksgiving is itself one of the
greatest gifts we have been given. If we cannot be grateful for it, or anything
else, then we don’t deserve to keep it.
So that is my charge to you. Work to keep it. Set
it apart. It is not a shopping day, and shopping shouldn’t be the only reason
to celebrate it. It is for giving thanks. So this year, dedicate yourself to
giving thanks on, and for, Thanksgiving. It is not just a day between Halloween
and Christmas. It is honorable in its own right, and we need to bring that
attitude back. We owe it to our ancestors. We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to
God. Don’t let it lose its meaning.
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