the Centrist

As we enter into the Holiday Season I automatically put myself into a defense mode. As a Christian I am ready to explain to my students and readers alike that there is nothing wrong with wishing a person ‘Merry Christmas’. It is merely wishing that a person has a ‘merry’ or joyful day on the 25th of December … the day the federal government has decided to dub as ‘Christmas’. As I was pondering my defense of Christmas, I began to wonder, why there isn’t as great an outcry against Thanksgiving? I mean that is also a Christian and federal holiday. Why then has it escaped scrutiny from anti-Christian bias? As a matter of fact we see more rhetoric from the pro-turkey (animal rights) groups than from the anti-Christian groups.
So off to google I went. I figured it was time for me to rediscover my roots as I delved into the history of the day. For starters the first Thanksgiving was celebrated in a three day feast by the Pilgrims at the colony of Plymouth, Ma. They shared the feast with about 90 Wampanogag Indians in 1621. This was about 100 years after the Protestant Reformation, which is significant because these Christian Pilgrims were fleeing the tyranny of a state church, the Church of England. The theme of religious (Christian denomination) freedom was important to almost every one of the 13 colonies. It would eventually be carried over into America’s Constitution. In fact until recently, ‘separation of church and state’ was recognized as was meant by the founders … that the formation of a state church would not be tolerated.
Most remember that these brave Pilgrims suffered through a horrible winter which claimed nearly half their colony. In the spring the Indians helped by showing them how to build proper shelter and grow sustenance. After the first harvest, Governor William Bradford proclaimed a day of thanksgiving and prayer, specifically to the Judeo-Christian God. When is the last time you saw that in a text book? According to my research the foods were diverse, but the traditional foods did come from the original feast … corn, geese, turkeys, ducks, venison and corn bread are to be expected, though, eel, clams, leeks, plums, cod, bass, and barley rarely find their way into our traditional meal.
After a season of drought in 1623 Bradford declared a time of fasting and prayer. Those prayers were answered when rains came in the midst of their worship. He proclaimed Nov. 29th as a time to gather and: “listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings.” As my high school history teacher would ask: “Are you getting the point?”
There were several different dates in several colonies which celebrated a type of thanksgiving. In 1789 George Washington proclaimed a National Thanksgiving Day on the last Thursday in November, in honor of the new United States Constitution. Subsequently Thomas Jefferson, under his authority as the third president, discontinued it, calling it “a kingly practice”. One should note that he did not invoke the ‘separation of church and state’. Jefferson was a major contributor to the Constitution. As such he knew that the meaning of the First Amendment was not to disallow religious symbols in public, or to ban an public display of Christian worship, but rather to prevent any Christian Denomination to be declared the ‘State Church’.
Interestingly in 1863, Sarah Josepha Hale, otherwise known as the author of the nursery rhyme: “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” convinced President Abraham Lincoln to proclaim Thanksgiving a national holiday. She chose the last Thursday in November because of Washington’s proclamation. In 1941 FDR officially declared the fourth Thursday in November to be celebrated as Thanksgiving.
Since Lincoln’s proclamation, it has been a custom that all presidents make Thanksgiving proclamations every year. Since Thanksgiving is uniquely American and directed to the Judeo-Christian God in gratitude for the safety and freedoms enjoyed in this great nation, American atheists are afraid to attack this holiday because it proves beyond any shadow of a doubt the true meaning of the First Amendment … it was never a separation of church from state, rather a separation of any particular church (Christian Denomination) from the favoritism of the State (State Church i.e. the Church of England). Thus, it will be some time before this holy day (the root word of holiday) gets the grief that the world wide Christian proclamation of Christ’s birth receives. After all this is a homespun Americana holiday which corrects redacted history. And in that vein May I wish you a blessed and Happy Thanksgiving and may I add … God bless America and our brave American troops (past and present) who have protected our home land by their sacrifices on foreign soil.