“Although it be not always so plentiful, as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want.”
These words, written by Pilgrim Edward Winslow, are part of one of the sole primary source accounts of the first Thanksgiving in 1621.
The Pilgrims hadn’t set out for the New World aboard the Mayflower in search of riches or because they were merely looking for an adventure. They were reluctant settlers, opting to sail for America only after spending a decade trying to establish a home for themselves in Holland.
They had left their native England in the 1600s because they were unwilling to let their worship of God be subject to the whims of the English monarchy.
The Mayflower had arrived in Plymouth in the Fall of 1620, and by November of 1621, nearly half of the ship’s 102 passengers had died. Despite the harsh conditions and unfamiliar territory, the settlers persisted and collected a good harvest that year.
That first Thanksgiving was a celebration not of the Pilgrims’ own accomplishments, but of the mercy God showed them in providing for them in the most foreign of lands.
The Christian foundation of Thanksgiving did not die out with the Pilgrims. The Christian nationalists who served in the Continental Congress in 1777 were unequivocal in pointing to God as they issued the first national Thanksgiving proclamation for the fledgling United States.
The proclamation set aside a day on which the people of the United States “at one Time and with one Voice” were to “join the penitent Confession of their manifold Sins, whereby they had forfeited every Favor; and their humble and earnest Supplication that it may please GOD through the Merits of JESUS CHRIST, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of Remembrance.”
In 1789 President George Washington declared a national day of Thanksgiving, using similar language to that found in the 1777 declaration. Washington wrote that the day should “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– That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks.”
Were you aware of the Christian roots of Thanksgiving?
Other presidents followed suit and issued their own Thanksgiving proclamations, but the day was not made a permanent national holiday until Abraham Lincoln did so in 1863. Lincoln’s proclamation came just a few months after some of the darkest days in the nation’s history occurred on some farmland in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
“No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things,” Lincoln wrote after listing numerous blessings the nation still enjoyed in the midst of a painful civil war. “They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.”
Thankful to whom?
While the historical evidence that Thanksgiving is a distinctly Christian holiday is overwhelming on its own, there is also a philosophical argument to be made. In modern times Thanksgiving has been stripped of its religious roots, rendering it a secular holiday centering around parades, food, and football.
But what is it exactly that unbelievers are celebrating? Since God’s law is “written on the hearts” of all humans (Romans 2:15), it feels right to most people to be thankful. But those who don’t know the God of the Bible are left with a conundrum. To whom are they to be giving thanks? A Proterozoic amoeba and random chance? Themselves, for earning all that they have through their own merit? The NFL, for scheduling an extra game on Black Friday this year?
Thankfulness requires an object, and it is only worth as much as the object to which it is given. If I give gratitude to a tree for providing shade on a hot day, I am a fool and my thanks is as tenuous as the tree itself — that is to say it is susceptible to an especially strong wind storm or a man wielding an ax. The instinct toward thankfulness in such a situation is correct, but it ought to instead be directed toward the Creator of the tree, who is able to provide for me in other ways should he choose to fell his craftsmanship.
Thankful for what?
Adherents to non-Christian religions don’t have the problem of lacking an object of thankfulness like atheists do. Other religions have their versions of deities which followers can (wrongly) thank for providing life and earthly comforts. But Christians have reasons to be thankful to God that go well beyond temporal blessings.
Unlike other religions that require people to earn their eternal blessing through their own righteousness, Christians acknowledge that they have utterly failed to live up to the standards set by a Holy God and will never do so under their own power. God himself has provided an all-sufficient sacrifice to atone for the past, present, and future sins of all who would believe. Through faith in Jesus’ death on the cross and his subsequent resurrection, a person is born again and counted among the righteous, worthy to dwell with God for eternity.
Like the Pilgrims and founding fathers before us, let us be thankful for what God has done in our nation and in our souls.
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