COMMENTARY: Thanksgiving: At its Core, a Religious Holiday

c. 2005 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Is Thanksgiving a religious holiday or a secular celebration of national identity and traditions like family and football? I say “yes” to religious holiday on two counts: what is and what ought to be. As a harvest festival dating back to 1621 _ first, as an occasional event proclaimed […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Is Thanksgiving a religious holiday or a secular celebration of national identity and traditions like family and football?

I say “yes” to religious holiday on two counts: what is and what ought to be.


As a harvest festival dating back to 1621 _ first, as an occasional event proclaimed during glad times and sad and, since 1863, an official event on the nation’s annual calendar _ Thanksgiving Day expresses an ancient desire to thank some higher power for the undeserved blessing of harvest.

As President Abraham Lincoln said in his October 1863 proclamation of Thanksgiving Day, it is amazing that, despite the unprecedented ravages of civil war, Americans enjoyed the “blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies.” Said Lincoln: “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.”

Even though commerce and entertainment reap a less-than-holy harvest from Thanksgiving, as they do from Christmas and Easter, the fall event retains a strong religious core. Some Christian denominations have special liturgies for Thanksgiving Day. Others delay observance three days to Thanksgiving Sunday. Many communities hold interfaith worship events, some incorporating all faiths that are willing to participate. I remember one in Charlotte, N.C., that embraced Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism.

Even families that rarely pray together are inclined to say grace at the Thanksgiving spread, in recognition that “all good gifts around us are sent from heaven above.”

Even more pertinent is the “yes” of what ought to be.

Thanksgiving Day ranks high as a foolish assertion of hope amid the flood. In his proclamation, President Lincoln recommended “humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience.” Six weeks later, standing on the battlefield at Gettysburg, Lincoln prayed “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.” Neither humility nor peace came to the battered nation, and to this day freedom is under assault by those who want more than their share of the harvest. But it was important to raise the small sail of hope.

When President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939 moved Thanksgiving Day one week earlier, it was his hope that an extra week of pre-Christmas shopping would help to do what it actually took a war to do, namely, lift the nation out of its Depression.

So what if families bicker during Thanksgiving dinner and prefer football to prayer? Faith isn’t dependent on outcomes. So what if Thanksgiving Day worship draws but a handful, while “Black Friday,” as the day after Thanksgiving is known in retailing, fills every mall? Faith looks beyond numbers for its fulfillment. So what if not every religious persuasion will bend its knee to pray alongside others? God remains one, even as the religious remain prideful and divided.


As a religious holiday, Thanksgiving bids us to look beyond our specific religions. Our nation was intended to be an escape from the sectarian wars of Europe. This was to be a land where all could worship freely, where the Lord of harvest didn’t ask for proof of baptism or circumcision before enabling earth to yield its increase. All could plow these fields and scatter seed, not just those deemed worthy by piety’s gatekeepers. All could share in the “good gifts” of this fertile land, not just those whose religion matched that of early settlers.

When we are true to our heritage, the promise of America belongs to all who come, not just those bearing certain national, ethnic or religious credentials. Even as we sometimes join other nations in raging furiously over religious hatreds, our better nature remembers that the giving of thanks is a universal need, and a nation that enables people to give thanks to their God has a greater chance of being the just and open society that God clearly desires.

MO/JL END RNS

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, consultant and leader of workshops. His book, “Just Wondering, Jesus: 100 Questions People Want to Ask,” was published by Morehouse Publishing. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C. His Web site is http://www.onajourney.org.)

Editors: To obtain a photo of Tom Ehrich, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug. If searching by subject, designate “exact phrase” for best results.

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