A passage in the 1928 Episcopal prayer book says this: “It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should at all times and in all places give thanks unto thee, O Lord.” The word “meet” is an archaic adjective meaning, “precisely appropriate.” This Thanksgiving, let us remember that it is both meet and dutiful to give God thanks, specifically for our blessings as a nation.
In his book, Gratitude, conservative leader William F. Buckley, Jr., asked: “How to acknowledge one’s devotion, one’s patrimony, one’s heritage? Why, one juggles before the altar of God, if that is what one knows to do … Americans growing into citizenhood should be persuasively induced to acknowledge this patrimony and to demonstrate their gratitude for it.”
There are two elements here, both of which were essential from the first Thanksgiving onward. The first element was, of course, the entity being thanked, the one God the Massachusetts settlers worshipped. The second element was that it was specifically for this new land, this America, and its abundance, that the settlers were thankful, not merely as individuals but by duly constituted civil authority.
In 1623, the order for a general Thanksgiving came from the colony’s governor, William Bradford, in his official capacity, who later explained the settlers “set apart a day of thanksgiving … By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine now God gave them plenty … for which they blessed God.”
Lest anyone think the next 175 years saw a wedge driven between American civil authority and public expression of faith in one God, President George Washington reinstituted Thanksgiving in 1789 by leading with words similar to those in the Anglican prayer tradition, namely by proclaiming “the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor.”
Similarly, Thomas Jefferson’s famous quote was no outlier, but an expression of common understandings even of those, like he was, who were less traditionally devout. The “liberties of a nation” are not “secure,” he said, without “their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God.”
If polls are to be believed, though, too many of us, especially millennials and younger, value neither our liberty nor the God who bestows it. One survey in August showed that “nearly 80% of people aged 55-91 said being patriotic is important to them, while only 42% of millennials and Generation Z, or those aged 18-38, said the same. Thirty percent of millennials and Generation Z said religion was important, compared to the over 75% of baby boomers.” Meanwhile, support for limiting freedom, especially the First Amendment protections for speech and religion, is alarmingly high.
Concomitantly, most millennials seem to think they live in a land of relative economic distress, rather than in what is actually the most abundant economy in the history of mankind. Not only is there a lack of a sense of a source to whom to be grateful and of freedoms for which to be thankful. There is also a misguided idea that material abundance is instead hardship, and thus cause for distress rather than appreciation.
Somehow, as a culture and a nation, long-term, we must reinvigorate our love for liberty, regain perspectives on our blessings, and renew our faith in the God who grants us both. In the meantime, on this Thanksgiving, let those of us who do feel blessed and grateful express it openly — both as meet and bounden duty and as heartfelt joy.
Correction: A sentence in this piece initially said “support for limiting freedom…is alarmingly low.” It should have read, and now reads, as this: “Meanwhile, support for limiting freedom, especially the First Amendment protections for speech and religion, is alarmingly high.”
