Revising history

John Hatcher is pastor of Outreach International Center, 1091 South Jeff Davis Drive, Fayetteville, Georgia 30215. 770-719-0303

One of the cable news guys was interviewing some screwball last week concerning the meaning of Thanksgiving. The screwball said Thanksgiving, after all said and done, was not a Christian-based holiday. He noted the first Thanksgiving feast was attended by many who were not Christians, a la the Indians. He noted the Indians worshipped all sorts of gods. He said Thanksgiving was a holiday at which time we give thanks for one another among other secular things.

Can you sense the wheels of revisionist historians at work? Revisionists reach back into the history of our precious America, pick out a piece of history, and completely rewrite it according to their slant on life. Revisionists work diligently to re-paint the canvas of America’s past to make it look like the humanistic culture of today. They have just about succeeded in making us believe the founding fathers of the United States were totally atheistic and completely unmoved by the Maker.

Now, what is Thanksgiving Day? In Merriam-Webster’s Tenth Edition Collegiate Dictionary, it says, “Thanksgiving Day is a day appointed for giving thanks for divine goodness.” Elsewhere in the same dictionary, it says divine means, “Of, relating to, or proceeding directly from God or a god.” It sounds like Webster has it right on the dollar with “In God we trust” on it.

But, let us go back a little more and read The Mayflower Compact that was signed by those men and women who endured that first hard winter at Plymouth and who later celebrated North America’s first Thanksgiving Day. The very first sentence of The Mayflower Compact was, “In the name of God Amen.” The second paragraph reads, “Haveing (sic) undertaken, for the glorie of God, and advancements of the Christian faith and honour of our king & country, a voyage to plant the first colonie in the Northerne parts of Virginia, doe by these presents solemnly & mutually in the presence of God...”

Do you read as I read? Do you get the impression that America’s first colonists were on a mission for God?

Abraham Lincoln in 1863 was the first president officially to declare the last Thursday as a day of national thanksgiving. In his proclamation, the President stated, “It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.”

As I read Webster, the signers of The Mayflower Compact, and President Lincoln’s proclamation, it is unmistakable that Thanksgiving Day is a national day to express gratitude to God for his many blessings, protection, and providence in all of our lives, even the Indians. However, regardless how religious any one of us says we are, Thanksgiving Day has been transformed into a day for family — with or without God, mainly without. Like, how many of us were in a Christian church service this past Thursday? If we want to return Thanksgiving Day to its original moorings, perhaps we of the church should plan meaningful services through which the people can thank God for his many blessings, rather than so intent to gather around the stuffed turkey!

Perhaps the revisionist historians are only working to accommodate us and our practices. If we believe it’s a day to give thanks, then why not many more of us gathering in the House of God to render thanks? Are we not revising the meaning of Thanksgiving Day by our very habits?

And God help us by what we are doing to Christmas Day!

John Hatcher is pastor of Outreach International Center, 1091 South Jeff Davis Drive, Fayetteville, Georgia 30215. 770-719-0303.