c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Thanksgiving is America’s unifying holiday.

Most Americans, regardless of background, observe the day in similar ways _ football, parades, and festive meals, and with expressions of gratitude in the vernacular of their particular faith, or lack of faith. That’s what makes Thanksgiving so appealing.

Today, as we become a more diverse nation, that’s also what makes Thanksgiving so important. The day provides crucial social cohesion as a national and nonsectarian holiday that can be celebrated and enjoyed, without reservation, by each of us.

Thanksgiving’s inclusiveness deserves to be more than an incidental aspect of a beloved harvest festival, however. Thanksgiving can become the day when Americans remember that we live in a land, unique among the nations, that embraces the cultural and religious distinctiveness of all her inhabitants. Thanksgiving can become the day when we recall this achievement and commit to perfecting it.

This idea neither represents a radical departure from the traditional observance of Thanksgiving as a day for gratitude and unity, nor denies its original religious context. Rather, it is but one more adaptation in the holiday’s 384-year evolution since the English Pilgrims and the native Wampanoags gathered in Plymouth; an adaptation that retains Thanksgiving’s root meaning while emphasizing its contemporary relevance.

The Continental Congress established the first national Thanksgiving, in 1777, as a unifying day when, “at one time and with one voice the good people may express the grateful feeling of their hearts.” Echoing the majority religious affiliation, Congress articulated this sentiment in a Christian voice, invoking “the merits of Jesus Christ.”

As president, in 1789, George Washington made the religious appeal less particular and focused on enshrining the values of the new country by declaring a day of public thanksgiving and prayer in gratitude to “Almighty God,” especially “for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed.”

Thanksgiving further developed as a national unifying day through the efforts of Sarah Josepha Hale, a magazine editor. In an editorial written in 1859, she argued that the country, which had expanded from 13 original states to 32, would be strengthened by “a renewed pledge of love and loyalty to the Constitution of the United States.”

Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, and 78 years later, in 1941, Franklin Roosevelt fixed the date on the fourth Thursday in November.

Lincoln’s proclamation is a document of its day. Resonating with the anguish of a nation engaged in civil war, it attempts to reassure beleaguered citizens that the union remains strong and to call upon divine intervention to end the conflict. America was then a nation of about 32 million individuals, primarily from the British Isles, including more than 4 million slaves of African descent. The most recent national census, in 2000, counted 281 million individuals from 90 ancestries. We belong to hundreds of denominations.

This America requires language that speaks for today; that reminds us how our diverse backgrounds make America creative and vibrant, while our democratic values keep her united and strong.

To assert this notion, and to transmit it from generation to generation, I helped the American Jewish Committee, in cooperation with some of the nation’s leading ethnic and human relations organizations, create a brief publication called “America’s Table: A Thanksgiving Reader.” It is intended to be read aloud prior to the Thanksgiving meal.

The 20-page pamphlet succinctly tells America’s story and helps all, regardless of ethnicity or faith, express gratitude for being part of it. A simply written narration, universal in content and tone, is amplified by profiles of nine men and women whose lives illustrate the power of diversity and democratic values.

Ultimately, this simple reading can be the basis for an annual Thanksgiving ritual that strengthens social cohesion and civic responsibility among the inhabitants of our increasingly diverse nation. It can help us all appreciate and perpetuate our uniqueness as extolled in “America’s Table,” which points out that, “In some parts of the world, our differences would be threatening.”

But here in America, “We feel enriched … We feel at home.”

MO END RNS

(Ken Schept wrote “America’s Table” for the American Jewish Committee, a 99-year-old organization devoted to promoting pluralistic and democratic societies where all minorities are protected.)

Editors: To obtain photos of American Jewish Committee author Ken Schept and the jacket cover of “America’s Table,” 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.”

Also see RNS-DIVINE-THANKS, an analysis of how “ America’s Table” and other new Thanksgiving materials attempt to define the nation’s national purpose. That story moved Tuesday, Nov. 8.