As Thanksgiving approaches and one considers the “political” history of the establishment of this day in our national calendar, I’m reminded of an event about 10 years ago in the early days of my tenure in the state Senate that set off a firestorm of controversy.  Senator Ben Atchley, one of the most gracious men I’ve ever known, offered the legislature a simple resolution to encourage the people of our state to honor and consider the Ten Commandments and to post them in places where they could be observed.

“We, as a nation, have been blessed.  But let us not think that these blessings come from our own autonomous hands lest our pride be the precursor to our downfall.”

It was not a law, simply a resolution, not unlike the several other hundred commending and honoring resolutions that get passed very year. But this one was alleged to be dangerous!  It threatened to tear down the supposedly high and impregnable “wall of separation” between church and state. I’m sure many thought Thomas Jefferson was rolling in his grave at the thought.

So, what does that have to do with Thanksgiving?  Well, it was Mr. Jefferson who as Governor in 1779 penned these words:

I appoint . . . a day of public Thanksgiving to Almighty God. . . to ask Him that He would . . . pour out His Holy Spirit on all ministers of the Gospel; that He would . . . spread the light of Christian knowledge through the remotest corners of the earth; . . . and that He would establish these United States upon the basis of religion and virtue.

Quite a statement from the icon of the modern day God-and-government-don’t-mix crowd.  Based on Mr. Jefferson’s own action, I bet he would have signed on to Senator Atchley’s resolution as a co-prime sponsor and voted in the affirmative.

While these were state resolutions, one of the Presidential proclamations of a Day of Thanksgiving most fitting for our own time of international turmoil and uncertainty and the threat to freedom everywhere posed by radical Islamic fundamentalist was penned in 1916 by Woodrow Wilson:

It has long been the honored custom of our people to turn in the fruitful autumn of the year in praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God for His many blessings and mercies to us as a nation. That custom we can follow now even in the midst of the tragedy of a world shaken by war and immeasurable disaster, in the midst of sorrow and great peril, because even amidst the darkness that has gathered about us we can see the great blessings God has bestowed upon us, blessings that are better than mere peace of mind and prosperity of enterprise.

We have been given the opportunity to serve mankind as we once served ourselves in the great day of our Declaration of Independence, by taking up arms against a tyranny that threatened to master and debase men everywhere and joining with other free peoples in demanding for all the nations of the world what we then demanded and obtained for ourselves. In this day of the revelation of our duty not only to defend our own rights as nation but to defend also the rights of free men throughout the world, there has been vouchsafed us in full and inspiring measure the resolution and spirit of united action. We have been brought to one mind and purpose. A new vigor of common counsel and common action has been revealed in us. We should especially thank God that in such circumstances, in the midst of the greatest enterprise the spirits of men have ever entered upon, we have, if we but observe a reasonable and practicable economy, abundance with which to supply the needs of those associated with us as well as our own. A new light shines about us. The great duties of a new day awaken a new and greater national spirit in us. We shall never again be divided or wonder what stuff we are made of.

And while we render thanks for these things let us pray Almighty God that in all humbleness of spirit we may look always to Him for guidance; that we may be kept constant in the spirit and purpose of service; that by His grace our minds may be directed and our hands strengthened; and that in His good time liberty and security and peace and the comradeship of a common justice may be vouchsafed all the nations of the earth.

Wherefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate Thursday, the twenty-ninth day of November next as a day of thanksgiving and prayer, and invite the people throughout the land to cease upon that day from their ordinary occupations and in their several homes and places of worship to render thanks to God, the great ruler of nations.

Indeed, even in this time of uncertainty, we, as a nation, have been blessed.  But let us not think that these blessings come from our own autonomous hands lest our pride be the precursor to our downfall.  In this I am reminded of another warning given another nation which it would do us well to remember:

Bewared that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today, lest –

• ·         when you have eaten and are full, and
• ·         have built beautiful houses and dwell in them; and
• ·         when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all  that you have is multiplied;
• ·         when your heart is lifted up and you forget the Lord your God –

 

then you say in your heart,

    “My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.”

And you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth…Then it shall be, if you by any means forget the Lord your God, and follow other gods, and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish.

As the nations which the Lord destroys before you, so you (too) shall perish, because you would not be obedient to the voice of the Lord your God. (Deuteronomy 8)

As the last paragraph makes clear, all nations should heed this solemn call to humility, gratitude and obedience to Him who preserves and prospers us.

We hope you will join us at FACT in humbly thanking God for all His blessings and look to Him for guidance in the year ahead. 

If you’d like to read all the Presidential Thanksgiving proclamations, click here.