Do you know the history of Thanksgiving?

It’s difficult to sort out legend from reality in the history of Thanksgiving in the New World.  For a review of Thanksgiving prior to the 1621 Pilgrim Thanksgiving, I found The True Thanksgiving Story to be helpful.  Governor William Bradford’s widely distributed proclamation is great reading, but probably not an authentic 1623 document as claimed.

However, as the new country was formed, called the United States of America, the history of Thanksgiving is much clearer.  George Washington issued a memorable Thanksgiving proclamation in 1789.  Some presidents ignored the idea, some embraced it with a variety of proclamations, but it was Abraham Lincoln who declared it an annual holiday with a proclamation in 1863.  It only took congress 78 years to finally ratify it as a national holiday on the 4th Thursday of each November. A brief history of the holiday was recently published in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

As you gather to give thanks this week, take time to review this history of Thanksgiving in America.  Read one of the  presidential thanksgiving proclamations, such as Washington in 1789 or Lincoln in 1863.  Read a key Bible passage on Thanksgiving.

Can’t think of one?  How about the short but powerful Psalm 100?

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. 
Worship the Lord with gladness;  
come before him with joyful songs.

³ Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;   
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

My oldest grandson is 12 years old.

That was my age when Mrs. Marshall interrupted my eighth grade class at Lily Lake school to announce that President Kennedy had been shot as the presidential motorcade passed through Dallas, Texas.  A short time later, we heard that the president was dead. Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as our new president.

How does a 12 year old kid process the assassination of our president?   Continue reading “Through the Eyes of a 12 Year Old” →

How many times a day do you get off track, distracted from your work by “idle curiosity,” the term used by the church father, Augustine, for “the desires of the eyes” from 1 John 2:16?  How has being “online” all day every day added to the seduction?  I’m not talking about pornography here, though that is a deadly problem.  I’m not taking about time wasters, chasing links here and there to learn this or that, the equivalent of scanning the tabloids at the Super Market check out.  Tony Reinke’s post yesterday spoke to me, one link I clicked that I think might challenge you and help you avoid time wasting silliness.

Why We Click Stupid Links

By Tony Reinke | Nov 13, 2013 12:20 am

By “stupid links,” I mean hyperlinks on the Web that do nothing but tap our kneejerk curiosity. They do little for us because they have little to offer. We click, we read, we watch, and often we feel dumber for it.

Such clamorous links litter the Internet, offering up celebrity gossip, bizarre crime stories, violent videos, and sexual images — each link asking for little more than a click (such a petty request).

So just how pervasive are these links? As I write, the CNN home page features these seven hyperlinked titles as “Top Stories”:

• Crack-smoking mayor won’t quit
• Was pushed husband blindfolded?
• Woman killed in cougar attacks
• Misquotes fuel Tom Cruise attacks
• Deer pierced in the face by arrow
• Guess who’s back in skinny jeans?
• Do astronauts clean their undies?

The magnetic pull we sometimes feel to headlines like these predates the Internet and the evening news. It was a concern taken up by church father Augustine, born on November 13, 354 A.D. (more than 1,650 years ago). Continue reading “Stupid Links – Idle Curiosities on Augustine’s Birthday” →

Former Clinton Administration staff and current Democratic strategist and Fox News consultant, Kirsten Powers, has become a Christian.  Or as she puts it, “The Hound of Heaven has pursued me and caught me–whether I liked it or not.”  You can read Kirsten’s personal testimony, The God I Can’t Write Off, in the November 2013 edition of Christianity Today.

Even though she has generally represented the opposing political viewpoint from mine, I’ve always appreciated Powers’ respectful and sincere tone when I saw and heard her on Fox News.  I knew nothing about her beyond that until I read her story.

How did this alternating Atheist/Agnostic, having left her father’s borrowed Episcopal faith, come to faith in Jesus? Continue reading “Kirsten Powers, Democrat, and Believer in Jesus” →

October 31, 2013 – The iPhone forecast for Indianapolis is 100% chance of rain all day except for a mid-afternoon dip to only 90%, but back to 100% for the evening Trick or Treat hours. So here in central Indiana, Trick or Treat night has been officially postponed for 24 hours, expecting more favorable conditions tomorrow night.

October 31, 1517 — I don’t know about Wittenberg weather 496 years ago, but conditions were ripe if not favorable for challenge to a corrupt church, and even worse a heretical church. Martin Luther had no tricks up his sleeve when he posted his 95 Theses  on the Wittenberg church door and lit the spark for the Reformation.  But what he did was certainly threatening to the established church, not used to being challenged.  And it wasn’t just the Selling of Indulgences, selling salvation for money.  That was the main focus in Luther’s first public challenge, but issues of eternally greater importance weighed on Luther’s mind.

David Mathis of Desiring God reminds us of the primary issues that should lead us to celebrate this holiday.

Reformation Day is ripe for remembering an array of biblical truths — that the Scriptures are our only final authority (sola Scriptura); that God accepts us by grace alone, through faith alone, on the   basis of Christ alone (justification); that God often uses the unlikeliest of people to turn the world upside down; that God doesn’t just raise up great individuals, but collections of people, veritable teams, each with his lot, and his own local cohort, to bring about widespread change; and all these conspiring to the glory of God alone (soli Deo gloria).

For a larger perspective, read the entire article,  The Reformation:  Trick or Treat?

 

Last week, I posted my thoughts on Halloween and my preference to call it Reformation Day.

This week, a bit more about Halloween. I’ve wavered back and forth over the years from being hard line opposed to any participation in the “Devil’s Holiday” to a more practical acknowledgement of the cultural event that Halloween has become, and to give focus to the significance of the day as the first shots fired in what is known as the Protestant Reformation.

In our neighborhood, I’ve been amazed that Halloween is competing for Christmas in yard and house decorations, complete with grave markers in front yards. Why such obsession with death? Continue reading “The Dark and Light Sides of Halloween” →

In the preceding post, I referenced an article I wrote for the Indianapolis Star, Halloween or Reformation Day.  In the Star article, I noted the birth of a baby boy on Halloween 28 years ago. The father who made that call was Dr. Brick Scheer, our family dentist for 18 years in Wichita, Kansas. Brick practiced with his father, Dr. Harold Scheer, who had worked with his father, Dr. G. W. Scheer, three generations of dentists. Now, the fourth generation has joined the practice, Dr. Brandon Scheer, the Halloween/Reformation Day baby from 1985.

Take a look at this story from Wichita, Kansas as told by Larry Hatteberg – Woman Treated by 4 Generations of Family Dentists

 

 

Why is one of the most important dates in the church year mostly neglected by the church and celebrated only  by the world?  I speak of Halloween, the ‘een (the eve or evening before) of All Hallows Day or All Saints Day on November 1. October 31 is Reformation Day to me, not Halloween, as it is the most common marker for the birth date and place of the Protestant Reformation.  This is the day of Luther’s protest expressed in the posting of his 95 Theses on the Wittenberg Church door in 1517. If you’ve never read these statements, titled Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences, I urge you to do so. It won’t take long, just 95 crisp statements.

The roots of Halloween are complex and varied, but the secular holiday that it has become goes back more to the 18th century Celtic world, not the birthplace of the 16th century Reformation in Luther’s Germany. Continue reading “Halloween or Reformation Day?” →