© November 19, 2018
This year in 2018 Thanksgiving falls on November 22. If you
are a Baby Boomer I am confident you are aware of the cursory history of whence
Thanksgiving in relation to American history. Even though a large chunk of that
history learned in school is largely legend more than actual history.
I have a suspicion the Thanksgiving story as it relates to
our American heritage is largely ignored at least Public School today. Why? The
centrality of the story of that Thanksgiving story was Religious Liberty and thankfulness
to God Almighty. Today, Leftist propaganda and the impact of a Leftist activist
Judiciary turned Freedom OF Religion into Freedom FROM Religion. Which first
showed up when the Courts made it illegal to pray in school (irony – no more
giving thanks to God for your school lunch in class unity). AGAIN,
thanks to the activist Judiciary re-writing Constitutional interpretation
accepted for nearly 200 years, prayer at Public School football games has been
stripped before and/or after the game.
This Leftist forced reinterpretation of separating religious
faith (in reality – separating Christianity) from anything that
receives taxpayer support (mythical
Church/State Separation revised
interpretation) is contrary to everything representative of the
credited first American Thanksgiving. This is the reason I have doubts the true
nature of Thanksgiving is taught in Public School.
Now that you have consumed a little of my personal whine in
reading thus far, I have a little historical cheese that you may find of
interest – especially for anyone born after the Baby Boomer generation.
I found some history about the Christian Pilgrims (Separatist
Puritans) of the Mayflower that landed on Plymouth Rock (in present day Massachusetts)
that led to America’s beloved Thanksgiving. The article is by Bradley Birzer
found at Intellectual Takeout.
Even some Baby Boomers might find history that they had no awareness.
JRH 11/19/18
In this current state of media censorship & defunding, consider
chipping in a few bucks for enjoying this Blog.
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My America, 1620
November 16, 2018
In 1620, an extraordinary thing happened.
At a small landing on the extreme western edge of the
Atlantic Ocean, a boat named “Mayflower” rested just off shore of a rock, soon
to be named Plymouth. Lost, but not mortally or dreadfully so, roughly 100
“sojourners” and 30 “strangers” arrived on November 11. With Autumn full blown
and winter approaching quickly, the 130 had to figure out how to live with one
another, how to survive a New England winter, and, most importantly, how to
create a permanent community.
We all know the story. It’s been told repeatedly in every
grade school in America for the last 155 years, and, in New England, since 1620
itself. Every school child dresses up as either a pilgrim or an Indian,
and we celebrate the harmony of it all. Those of us well beyond the age of
school children remember the days of our dressing up as a moment of just and
happy innocence, when America really was about peoples coming together,
worshiping together, and loving one another without hesitation. We hunted and
cooked the turkey, picked the sweet potatoes and cranberries, sat around a
table together, and we broke bread with one another.
In November of the year of our Lord, 2018, we would do well
to remember all of this not with mere nostalgia, but with moral intent. Gender
confusions, LGBTQ questions, racial hatreds, social media rages, protesting
dissensions, mass shootings, and authoritarian bullyings plague every aspect of
our current American society. Some—on the so-called Left and so-called
Right—even claim a second Civil War is coming. While this latter seems too
extreme and horrific to contemplate, it is worth noting that we as a people
have not been this violent or divided since 1968. Maybe it’s time to remember
something that we all have in common.
Of the 130 members of the Mayflower, roughly 100
were “sojourners”—that is, those who considered themselves Puritan. Even among
the Puritans, though, they were an odd sect. To be exact, they were “Separating
Puritans.” That is, they believed that England and the English Church had
become so corrupt (read: Catholic) that, at any moment, God might declare His
mighty and just wrath by wiping the English isles off the face of the globe. As
“Separating Puritans,” the Pilgrims could create a new society, one based on a
proper understanding of the Gospels, as they interpreted them, as well as based
on the early Church as described in St. Luke’s Acts of the Apostles.
Mainstream “Non-Separating Puritans”—who were numerically
far superior to the “Separating” variety—considered the latter to be not just
wrong but downright dangerous. With love as the highest virtue, the vast
majority of English Puritans believed themselves a part of a larger Church, no
matter how corrupt or Catholic that Church might be. To separate was to divide
the body of Christ unnecessarily. Thus, they feared and despised their
separating brethren. In what became Massachusetts, the non-separating variety
would so out-populate and demographically surround the separating variety as to
make the separating variety rather meaningless within a generation or two of
initial settlement. All Puritans became one large New England family, more or
less.
Whatever one thinks of the theology of the “sojourners,”
their very attempt and survival in 1620 is nothing short of astounding. Imagine
landing in a world completely unlike your own and with winter quickly
approaching. There is no “escape.” To return to England would mean a cold death
on the high seas. To move into the wilderness would mean settlement with even
less knowledge of the land and much greater danger than life on the coast.
Further, imagine landing hundreds of miles north of any known European
settlement. There is no law, no authority, and no established way of life.
Yet, then consider what the Pilgrims really accomplished.
Armed with scripture, the English Common Law, some weapons, families (for
social stability), and an audacity rarely witnessed in the history of human
kind, the Pilgrims made a go of it. To establish the import of the moment of
community creation and to solidify their fragile community itself, the Pilgrims
wrote a covenant, now incorrectly labeled the “Mayflower Compact.” While the
re-naming of this document demands its own essay, suffice it to note here: New
England historians and archivists employed the name “Mayflower Compact” for the
first time ever in the early 1790s. Attempting to define American history from
Plymouth Rock, not from Charleston or some other southern port of entry, the
New Englanders of the 1790s renamed the document so as not to put off
non-religious Americans. Compact, after all, was more acceptable for a secular,
liberal, and Lockean people. Its original name—the Plymouth Combination—made
its authors too much into exactly what they were—a radically religious sect of
people. When the Pilgrims used “Combination,” they meant it quite literally.
Combination was the English term for “covenant.”
It’s worth reproducing here:
IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN.
We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign
Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France,
and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c.
Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith,
and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in
the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and
mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine
ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and
Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do
enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts,
Constitutions, and Officers, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet
and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all
due Submission and Obedience. IN WITNESS whereof we have
hereunto subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the eleventh of
November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France,
and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the
fifty-fourth, Anno Domini; 1620.
Once again, just imagine the audacity. With no king, no
judges, no lawyers, no bureaucrats, and no bishops, a small group of people
asserted the right to govern themselves as they saw fit. Though only half of
the sojourners and half of the strangers made it through the winter of
1620-1621, it would be impossible to call the experiment a failure. After all,
half did survive, rule themselves, and established the pattern for almost all
settlement of what would become the United States.
This glorious November as the election cycle brings even
more bitterness, more anger, and more division, it’s well worth remembering a
time that we all share in common—the real founding of America by a group of
ordered, well-armed, and determined Christian families. Though I’m a Kansan
Roman Catholic born in the Summer of Love, I can state with certainty, as I
remember the audacity of the “sojourners” and “strangers,” this is my
America.
This article has
been reprinted with the permission [to Intellectual Takeout] of the Imaginative
Conservative.
_____________________
Thanksgiving Whine,
Followed by some Historical Cheese
John R. Houk
© November 19, 2018
_____________________
My America, 1620
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