THANK GOD FOR AMERICA!
As you are well aware, November is the month in which Americans prepare for and celebrate Thanksgiving Day. It originated as a harvest festival. Thanksgiving has been celebrated nationally on and off since 1789, after Congress requested a proclamation by George Washington. It has been celebrated as a federal holiday every year since 1863, when, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens," to be celebrated on the last Thursday in November.
The event that Americans commonly call the "First Thanksgiving" was celebrated by the Puritan Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World in October 1621. This feast lasted three days, and -- as accounted by attendee Edward Winslow -- it was attended by 90 Native Americans and 53 Pilgrims. The New England colonists were accustomed to regularly celebrating "thanksgivings" -- days of prayer thanking God for blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought.
It might be easy this year for many Americans to forget to thank God for our national blessings. Many Christians are angry about how secular ideas keep making headway in the United States. Many people got worked up over the Senate hearings related to the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh. Many people have been angry and protesting via the #MeToo movement, #BlackLivesMatter, etc. Many people think they got a "bum deal" by being a citizen in the United States, and they want something more, or better, or they are just angry at America.
Christians may critique the government or its policies on occasion, but we should never fail to pray for and thank God for our rulers. Saint Paul writes:"First of all I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings, and for all who are in high positions" (1 Timothy 2:1-2). So whether the ruler, president, senator, congressman, city council member, or mayor is of your party or the other one; whether you agree or disagree with him or her; we are commanded as Christians to PRAY FOR them and to give THANKS to God for them. This should be in our regular prayers, our Sunday prayers, but especially in our Thanksgiving prayers!
On this topic of the Christian's relation to government, our Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod has published an excellent resource through its "Commission on Theology and Church Relations." The treatise is titled "Render Unto Caesar...and Unto God: A Lutheran View of Church and State" (St.Louis, MO: LC-MS, 1995). You can download it in PDF format here: http://www.lcms.org/Document.fdoc?src=lcm&id=360 Blessed Thanksgiving to you and yours!
Yours in Christ,
P.S. I am offering a class titled "The Holy Christian Church" to our school parents, starting in early November. I am also offering the class to our members and anyone else who is interested in the topic. It is intended to instruct the class aobut the basics of what all Christians teach, how churches differ in what they teach, and a bit of history that explains how the different Christan denominations around the world and in America came into existence. The class is offered on a "per request" basis, which means that if no one signs up, the class will not convene. I plan to meet once a week, on a weekday evening and time that works best for those who sign up. If you are interested in attending, please contact our office staff, and leave your name, phone number, email address, and preferred weekday evenings and times for meeting. I will get back to you as soon as possible, so we can set up a date for our first class for the first full week of November.
