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Progressives who think American leaders are required to check their faith at the door might be surprised to learn about all the “Christian Supremacy” lurking behind this one national holiday.
The fourth Thursday of every November is the day we set aside to reflect on God’s blessing, cherish time with family, and — my personal contribution — remind ourselves that today’s leftists truly want to rob Americans of the Christian heritage that underpins this nation.
Thanksgiving Day is a poignant moment for this reminder because the history behind the feast is so clearly Christian that it makes all the hyperventilating surrounding Mike Johnson’s biblical convictions even more ridiculous.
Here’s a quick recap of that hyperventilating to bring you up to speed.
After Johnson’s unexpected election to House Speaker, the Associated Press cobbled together a list of “religious” leftists for the purpose of denouncing the Louisiana congressman.
Johnson apparently “fuses Christian and American values,” and that’s a big no-no according to these “progressive” leaders.
Only secular values will do!
One of the libs interviewed is a gal named Amanda Tyler, who reportedly runs the group “Christians Against Christian Nationalism.”
She whined to the AP that “Johnson’s brand of Christian nationalism is bad American history and a betrayal of the historic Baptist commitment to religious freedom.”
Politico, on the other hand, found a homosexual-affirming “Christian” history professor in Kristin Du Mez to label Johnson — wait for it — a “white evangelical Christian nationalist,” despite her concession that Johnson doesn’t associate with the phrase.
Du Mez also accuses Johnson of embracing “Christian supremacy.”
Why?
Because Johnson said that America was established not as a democracy but as a “republic” with a “biblical admonition on what a civil society is supposed to look like.”
The apparent confusion by a history professor over basic facts regarding America’s founding is not reassuring.
In fact, as we mark yet another Thanksgiving, Du Mez may be surprised to learn about all the “Christian supremacy” lurking behind just one of our federal holidays.
Sure, we could start out where the tradition originated, with the Pilgrims organizing a festival over three days in 1621 to honor God and celebrate the ample harvest He provided after a devastating winter left many settlers dead.
But America wasn’t technically a nation yet, and the propagandist crowd already refuses to put the country in the context of the historical chapters that preceded it.
So, let’s jump ahead 168 years to 1789 when George Washington issued the first national Thanksgiving proclamation after the Constitution was ratified.
Here’s an excerpt:
“Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor — and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me ‘to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God…’
Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be…
And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions — to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually — to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws…To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue…and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.”
That’s a giant load of “Christian supremacy” right there!
Not only did Congress request a day reserved explicitly to thank God for His many favors, but Washington, in his statement,
Kristin Du Mez better get in her time machine and scold President Washington over this unconstitutional mixing of religion and politics.
Next, let’s leap forward another 74 years to 1863 when Abraham Lincoln formally announced a national “day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens,” which began the yearly federal observance.
Lincoln’s proclamation was given amidst the Civil War and read, in part:
“The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God…
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy…
And I… fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.”
Bananas!
All that talk about divine purposes, mercy from sin, and the gracious gifts of the Most High went completely unchecked!
Some reporter should’ve reprimanded Honest Abe about his ties to an “extremist movement that holds America is not a secular democracy,” as the discredited magazine Rolling Stone said about Mike Johnson.
Ironically, Lincoln’s words may seem bland in comparison to the liberal hero President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who, in his 1944 proclamation, encouraged a “nationwide reading of the Holy Scriptures during the period from Thanksgiving Day to Christmas.”
What’s more, FDR used the Bible as the benchmark for obtaining spiritual strength by advising men of “every creed” to seek their own “version of the Scriptures” to meditate on the “eternal truths and majestic principles” that “have inspired such measure of true greatness as this nation has achieved.”
These proclamations, mind you, overlook the various appeals for prayer, praise, and thanksgiving that took place often at the state level, which Benjamin F. Morris chronicles in his 1,000-page 1864 book The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States.
In truth, the progressive outcry against so-called Christian nationalism is a cunning attempt to scandalize what are standard evangelical beliefs about Christianity’s notable impact on America.
Thankfully for us, Thanksgiving’s very existence shatters the revisionist narrative that God-fearing politicians should be required to “check their faith at the door.”
They shouldn’t.
As President Ronald Reagan put it in his 1986 Thanksgiving proclamation,
“[T]he practice of offering thanksgiving underscores our unshakeable belief in God as the foundation of our Nation and our firm reliance upon Him from Whom all blessings flow. Both as individuals and as a people, we join with the Psalmist in song and praise: ‘Give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good.’”
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