A friend writes:

“Larry

“I don’t agree with you at all. There have been and always will be nuts out there who despise America and go on tv to scream about it. There will always be the Ted Kennedy ‘holier than thou’ drunk murderers who think they are self-righteous and don’t appreciate our great nation.

“Of course we have problems. Who doesn’t? But you are overreacting quite a bit.

“I have always believed in the silent majority and think they make up the backbone and beauty of this great country. Tomorrow, I look forward to celebrating my second religion that I call America. It has a spirit all of its own. To me, Thanksgiving is as Holy a day as Shabbat, Rosh Hashana, Christmas, Easter or Passover. I love it. I already feel its Spirit taking over.”

Here’s my reply to him:

Dear ______

I knew you would feel that way. I know what I’m saying goes against deep feelings connected with the great holiday of Thanksgiving. But I cannot abide this continuing national cult of self-congratulation when America is splitting apart and sliding into a moral abyss. Every day brings things that once would have been inconceivable, and are now considered so unobjectionable that if you object, you’re considered weird or evil.

In the old days, during the crises of the Revolutionary period for example, America had official days of fasting, prayer, and humiliation. And that was when America felt it was IN THE RIGHT in its confrontation with Great Britain! We never do that now. We didn’t even think of doing it after a disaster of Biblical proportions struck us two years ago.

What’s called for now is humiliation and prayer and repentance, not thanksgiving and self-congratulation.

A flawed America is still far better than any other country.
As a son of LEGAL immigrants, I am happy to give thanks for being an American.
On Friday, I can go back to trying to fix it.

I fully agree with Mr. Auster that our emphasis should be on national repentance. But though there is much to be distressed over, is there _nothing_ for which to give thanks? I don’t think it’s contradictory to give thanks even as we make repentance.

“In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God…” If He chastens, we should give thanks for His righteous judgment; if he’s showing us mercy, we should give thanks for His undeserved grace and lovingkindness.

Like Ron and Joel, I think it is appropriate that we give thanks for being an American, for at least having a chance at helping to prick the conscience of our fellow citizens. That said, we DO desperately need a time of national humiliation and repentance. If I read Mr. Auster’s post correctly, it is the unseemly celebrations - the self-congratulatory tributes to our greatness, or the greatness of the American proposition

But the horror of it, Joel, is that we are NOT being chastened. To the contrary, the further the country moves into depravity and self-destruction, and more self-congratulatory and full of itself it becomes.

I think you have a good point. I cannot imagine a Thanksgiving Day Proclamation being released today that emphasizes any kind of national shame, unlike Washington and Lincoln’s:

“And also, that we may then unite in moft humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions…”

— George Washington, The First Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, 1789

“I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged…”

— Abraham Lincoln, Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, 1863

Like Ron and Joel, I think it is appropriate that we give thanks for being an American, for at least having a chance at helping to prick the conscience of our fellow citizens. That said, we DO desperately need a time of national humiliation and repentance. If I read Mr. Auster’s post correctly, it is the unseemly celebrations - the self-congratulatory tributes to our greatness, or the greatness of the American proposition that rankle. In fact, such jingoism and boasting are the mark of overbearing pride, which is why they are so disturbing. It is a triumphalism of the liberal religion, an attitude that democracy somehow makes us righteous.

The humble sort of thanksgiving expressed by Ron and Joel offers no conflict with the basic need to repent. As Joel stated, such thanksgiving actually compliments repentance.

Also, let us remember that it’s not the left that is giving thanks. The left is _angry_ at America. It’s the “right” that is into being thankful. Which brings us back to the grotesque irony that it is conservatives who celebrate the America that has been created by the America-hating left.

The left’s function in the liberal system is to perform the work of sabotage and destruction; the maintream right’s function is to _validate_ what the left has done, by casting over America as it actually exists a mantle of patriotism, chosenness, and national blessedness.

I am certainly not feeling very thankful. In addition to all the other problems we are facing (mass unskilled immigration, affirmative action, out of control government spending, judicial activism, moral decay) America has now been saddled with the biggest new entitlement since the Great Society—prescription drugs.

As a 19 year old, I cannot even begin to describe the anger I feel about the tens of thousands of dollars in tax liability Congress and our leftist President have imposed on my generation. I also can’t stand the sheer ARROGANCE of George W. Bush…he thinks that America can convert tens of millions of mutlicultural, unskilled immigrants into good, assimilated, middle class Americans, and that America will magically be able to afford massive increases in domestic spending with no real consequences, in spite of clear evidence to the contrary.

As for repentence…there are certainly things that I need to repent for, but I don’t think I or most people here need to be repenting for the mass unskilled immigration, fiscal irresponsibility, affirmative action, judicial activism, and other leftist policies that are destroying the USA.

Thinking further on this, I begin to understand a little better where Mr. Auster is coming from. In reviewing Daniel’s prayer of confession (Dan 9) and Jeremiah’s Lamentations, which are very applicable right now, this is really where our hearts should be. There is more contrition here than anything else, even while Jeremiah acknowledges God’s unfailing compassions.

Carl’s take on Mr. Auster’s words was helpful, and Mr. Courrèges makes a valid point that we don’t have anymore a corresponding day (or at least emphasis) of repentence to our Thanksgiving observance.

Regarding Matt W.’s last comment, I would refer again to Daniel’s prayer. He wasn’t personally involved in the egregious sins that brought his people down, but when he made confession, he said “WE have sinned.” “And whiles I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel …” We are in this together; it is OUR nation that is in trouble, and we all must together repent in humility and beseech the Lord for forgiveness and healing. None of us should feel above this need — indeed, if we don’t, who will?

Mr. Auster observed that we are not being chastened. Not yet, however God’s patience won’t last indefinetly — but His timing is His own.

I was about to post a clarification, but see from Mr. Lefevre’s last that it’s not necessary. However, just a couple of further things.

What I said does not preclude gratitude in our private lives. In my initial post I said, “On neither basis can I say ‘thanks’ this year.” The bases I was referring to were public things, not private things.

Second, in the days of fasting and humiliation during the Revolutionary period, the colonists felt that they were being mistreated by England, not that they themselves were in the wrong. Yet the fact of bad things being done to them indicated to them that they were not right with God, and so they sought as a community to turn back to God. In other words, they could be _right_ in their controversy with England, but _not_ right with God. This apparently is an understanding utterly beyond the reach of modern Americans, who assume that to find any fault in ourselves is tantamount to saying that Al Qaeda is justified in trying to mass murder us.

Mr. Auster’s makes a tremendous statement about the attitude of Americans during the Revolution, which I had never considered before. This is worthy of reflection.

On reading President Washington’s first Thanksgiving Day Proclamation (linked below), published in the newspaper on Oct. 14th, 1789 (setting aside the last Thursday of November that year as “a Day of publick Thanksgiving and Prayer”), I was stricken by the very obvious strong Christian religious faith of Washington himself (unless he was being a complete phony and merely mechanically endorsing the politically expedient words of some 1780s speech-writer or private secretary, something I don’t believe for one second) and also of both houses of Congress who, acting through “their joint committee,” requested that he proclaim a day of national thanksgiving and prayer. What I’m getting at is, how can anyone today who calls himself a historian insist with a straight face, and without blushing bright crimson at telling such a bold lie, that the Founders did not view this as a Christian nation, regardless of whatever degree of personal religious skepticism certain individuals among them may have harbored privately? I mean, the “God” they are invoking here is our God — it’s Jehovah — and none other, right? (Leftists please correct me here if I’m wrong. Which other god-with-a-small-g were they talking about or was Washington talking about in this proclamation?). Would all leftists and left-liberals (Reverend Barry Lynn, take special note) please read this proclamation and then try to make the case that the men who founded this country — including in this instance the Father of our Country himself and both houses of Congress during his administration — did not view this as a Christian nation? I mean, Washington’s whole statement here, from start to finish, is about God and our nation’s relationship to him. He’s not talking about a Hindu God, and he’s not talking about the Buddhist God — and he’s certainly not talking about Islam here (again, correct me if I’m wrong). He’s talking about OUR God, the one who brought this country into being in the first place; the one who always protected it; the one who never abandoning it but brought it always through, safe and sound; the one we pray to. Please don’t deny this again, leftist historians. Please don’t lie to us again.

http://earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/firsts/thanksgiving/original.html

Bravo to Unadorned for providing the link to Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation. The religious terminology used is quite strong, for example, speaking of “the great Lord and Ruler of nations” and “true religion and virtue”. Just imagine the reaction of today’s anti-Christian fanatics and inquisitionists if today’s president used similar terminology.

Here is part of Washington’s 1789 thanksgiving proclamation:

“Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to 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 for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted’ for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.”

And in the closing paragraph of Washington’s famous circular letter to the governors of the states prior to resigning his military commission, written on June 14, 1783, he uttered this prayer:

“I now make it my earnest prayer that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection; that he would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow-citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for brethren who have served in the field; and finally that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation.”

The Divine Author of our blessed religion is, of course, Jesus Christ. G.W. is saying that our hopes for national happiness depend upon the imitation of Christ. It was most unusual of him to make such a reference to Christ in a public document, but he made it. I’ve seen no suggestions that he had a “ghost writer” for the circular letter, but even if he had, he carefully considered every word that he sent out over his signature, especially in this circular letter, which he considered his final political counsel and testament to the nation prior to his retirement from public life.

In any case, Washington in this letter saw America as a Christian nation, not just in the external sense of church membership, but in the sense that following Christ is the key to our success and happiness as a nation.

Further evidence of General Washington’s views on this can be found in his statement to the Delaware Indians:

“You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are. Congress will do every thing they can to assist you in this wise intention.”
May 12, 1779

And this exerpt from a letter to Rev. John Etwein:

“… if an event so long and so earnestly desired as that of converting the Indians to Christianity and consequently to civilization, can be effected, the Society of Bethlehem bids fair to bear a very considerable part in it.”
May 2, 1788

Well, you may be right, and I’d be pleased to learn that Washington was a Christian, but I’d always heard he was a Deist. A moment ago I punched “Washington + Deist” into Google and came up with the following, from a site called deism.com. For what it’s worth:

‘In the book Washington and Religion by Paul F. Boller, Jr., we read on page 92, “Washington was no infidel, if by infidel is meant unbeliever. Washington had an unquestioning faith in Providence and, as we have seen, he voiced this faith publicly on numerous occasions. That this was no mere rhetorical flourish on his part, designed for public consumption, is apparent from his constant allusions to Providence in his personal letters. There is every reason to believe, from a careful analysis of religious references in his private correspondence, that Washington’s reliance upon a Grand Designer along Deist lines was as deep-seated and meaningful for his life as, say, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s serene confidence in a Universal Spirit permeating the ever shifting appearances of the everyday world.”

On page 82 of the same book, Boller includes a quote from a Presbyterian minister, Arthur B. Bradford, who was an associate of Ashbel Green another Presbyterian minister who had known George Washington personally. Bradford wrote that Green, “often said in my hearing, though very sorrowfully, of course, that while Washington was very deferential to religion and its ceremonies, like nearly all the founders of the Republic, he was not a Christian, but a Deist.”’

That said, I agree it’s probable that whatever his personal beliefs were, Washington would not have denied that America was a Christian nation. And if he were alive today, he might well agree with Thomas Fleming that America has tragically become, not simply a non-Christian nation, but an anti-Christian nation.

Well, we best give thanks before the Waffen PC that seemingly runs the country makes it illegal to do so. Here’s an article at VDARE on the brewing assault on Thanksgiving:

http://www.vdare.com/fulford/they_came.htm

I thought Deism meant belief in a god that created the universe and then had nothing more to do with it. That’s hardly Washington’s belief. For him Providence is a deity who is watching over the universe, guiding it, directing its events according to his purpose. Moreover, as Washington said in his first inaugural, it is only through man’s following God’s law that he receives God’s aid: ” … since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained … “

Thus, while this is not exactly Christianity, it’s much more than Deism. It’s belief in a god who is personal, who orders the universe, who draws men to the good, and who responds to men’s prayers and virtuous behaviors.

Probably the most definitive volume addressing the question of Gen. Washington’s spirituality is “George Washington: The Christian” by William J. Johnson, published in 1919. Here we find every reference possible that attempts to settle the matter. (paul t’s reference to the 2nd hand account of Rev. Green doesn’t tell the whole story of Rev. Green’s observations, as Mr. Johnson shows.)

The one piece of evidence that remains open to question is the “Daily Sacrifice,” a set of original papers sold at auction in 1891, among the papers owned first by Lawrence Washington, Bushrod Washington, Thomas B. Washington, and J.R.C. Lewis and acquired by the Rev. Dr. W. Herbert Burk. It was said, by those who studied them at the time, to be in the handwriting of the General when he was about 20 years of age. (Whether written by him or copied was unknown.)

These include such words as, “accept of me for the merits of thy son Jesus Christ.” If these are indeed his papers, then there can be no doubt that he was indeed a born-again Christian. But later attempts have been made to cast doubt on their authenticity, (as Washington’s writings.) The Smithsonian refused to accept them over said doubts.

But then there does seem to be a desperation on the part of secularists to deny a genuine Christian faith to the General. Web sites exist dedicated to proving that he was never a communicant, but Mr. Johnson provides a plethora of evidence to rebut this assertion.

In fairness, it should be pointed out that no documented evidence exists that would reveal a conversion experience. But enough evidence does exist to show his father’s Christian faith, and having been saved at around the age of 4 myself — well below any reasonable age of accountability — I find that point irrelevant.

As compared to other Founders who were certainly Deists, the General’s conduct seems quite distinct. Mr. Jefferson in letters (with request of discretion) not only rejected orthodox Christian doctrine, but mocked those (“Athanasians”) who accepted it. Dr. Franklin, who boasted in his Autobiography of having spurned the urging of George Whitfield to accept Christ, expressly repudiated a belief in the Deity of Jesus in a letter to Ezra Stiles and indicated that he had no intention of considering the matter further, “when I expect soon an opportunity of knowning the truth with less trouble.” (And he knows it now — Woops…)

Gen. Washington never made any such expression of doubt. There are numerous examples of a saving faith; for brevity’s sake one will suffice. As President, residing in Philadephia, he was known to retire promptly at 9PM with a lit candle in hand. A young member of the house, wondering about this consistent behavior, crept up and looked into the room one night finding the President on his knees with an open Bible and the candle nearby.

This is hardly the behavior of a confirmed Deist. Honestly, could we imagine Mr. Jefferson or Dr. Franklin doing this? (This is from an account by Rev. E.C. McGuire, who married the daughter of Robert Lewis, nephew and private secretary of the General.)

His first act upon taking the Presidential Oath of Office was to kiss the Bible! The absense of explicit testimony may have been due in part to a recognition that he represented the whole people without regard to religious belief. His ‘aloofness’ was legendary among even his closest acquaintances, (as Gouverneur Morris once learned the hard way.)

His character of course is attested to by his contemporaries as being a model for any professing Christian. While it can’t be asserted definitively that Gen. Washington was a genuine believer in Christ, the weight of evidence would seem to point in that direction.

Regarding Mr. Auster’s assessment of Deism, I agree with the tenor of his statement in context. But “Deism” as it pertains to the Founders seems to be a notch above mere Agnosticism. Dr. Franklin for instance made several notable statements expressing a belief in a more active Deity, intervening directly in the affairs of men, than Agnosticism would typically allow.

But he seemed in general less concerned with objective truth in the matter for its own sake. As example: in the aforementioned letter he wrote concerning belief in the Deity of Christ, which he rejected, that, “I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as it probably has, of making his doctrines more respected and better observed …”

There’s more to the status of “being Christian” than just individual men’s doubts concerning this or that specific tenet. When you’re generally well fed you can, yes, prate when the platter’s brought out about details such as too much or too little salt or pepper, or this bit or that seems over- or underdone or whatever, but the hungry, the starving, aren’t finicky. Christianity and the West’s Christian identity weren’t threatened in the Founders’ day as in ours. There’s a whole Christian culture, history, and identity to which these men, all of them, belonged and knew perfectly well they belonged, as we do today. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson knew they belonged to a Christian world with in every sense a thoroughly Christian culture and CERTAINLY never thought of doubting that fundamental fact or rejecting that aspect of their inner identity and the core identity of the world around them. Today people are trying to deny all that; to dismantle it. Strengthened by God’s love we will do our best to withstand them.

Some lines come into my head from last night’s bed-time reading:

“… There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, —
The desert and illimitable air, —
Lone wandering, but not lost. …

“… He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.”

In the long way that our nation must tread alone, God Almighty will, we can pray on this Day of Thanksgiving, continue to lead its steps aright.

Speaking of wicked and depraved: an article in Toronto’s National Post, putting “The case for more parental control” over video games, notes the latest in fashionably edgy entertainment for children:

“…in the controversial Postal 2 computer game, players can decapitate a policeman with a shovel and then urinate on his dismembered body.”

[The Post story is at : http://www.nationalpost.com/search/story.asp?id=38037259-11BA-4B05-A8AC-99B5C8C19CC5]

The names of the executives responsible for approving this game, should, I suggest, be found out and published widely, along with their photographs, if available.