"Whereas it is 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-- and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.
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 which we experienced 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 enabled 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 hath been pleased to confer upon us.
And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions-- to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually--to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed--to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord--To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us--and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.” (Emphasis mine)."
There are things we can learn, or at least be reminded of, as we read this first Thanksgiving Proclamation given by our first President with the encouragement of our national leaders at that time. Certainly we will learn that the sentiments shared by our national leaders towards God and His role in America from the time of Washington and the founders up until most recently are in stark contrast with the views of God held and propagated by the current President of the United States and his administration.
In recent decades our American institutions—government, education, the media, etc.—have come under the influence and control of men and women who have no appreciation for those things that are foundational in our heritage and fundamental to our way of life as a free people. Their ambition is to radically transform America into a totally secularized, socialistic society under their own supervision. In other words, the end goal is the changing of America into a godless totalitarian state.
Those bent on the transformation of America understand that they cannot achieve their objective without removing God from the American consciousness and revising our history. They agree with our 34th President that, “Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first, the most basic, expression of Americanism. Without God, there could be no American way of life.” They also concur with Alexander Solzhenitsyn, that, “To destroy a people you must first sever their roots.”
Totalitarians, whether, communists, fascists or Nazis have always understood the importance of implementing lies in dealing with whatever opposes their agendas. Those who are determined to bring about fundamental change in America realize that they cannot honestly refute the place of God in our history and so they resort to the counsel of men such as Adolph Hitler to deal with this problem. Hitler wrote in Mein Kamph, "The great masses of the people . . . will more easily fall victims to a great lie than to a small one." Hitler said, “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.” This is the hope of the godless progressives and liberals (regardless of their party affiliation) in dealing with God-consciousness in America.
The Thanksgiving Proclamation presents a real problem to those who propagandize that God and Christianity had no significant role in the minds of our founders and the making of our country. Our current president is using his position as what Theodore Roosevelt once called a “bully people” to advocate the lie that America isn’t and never has been a Christian nation, that the Bible and the Godof the Bible has never been any more important, if as important, to America than the belief in Allah, Islam and the Koran—he has stated, for the world to hear that America is not a Christian nation. George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation is just one of thousands of documents that presents a real sticky wicket for the proponents of the big lie where God and America is concerned.
Notice please that it is a matter of historical record that our Congress wanted God to be recognized, and thanksgiving to be made to Him by way of a national decree, and they wanted the people to do the same in both publicly and privately. Notice that they acknowledged “The providence of Almighty God,” were “grateful for the signal favors, of the Almighty God,” and referred to Him as “that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.” Do you think they were talking about Buddah, the souce, Allah, or Hare Krishna? Not hardly.
When George Washington, expressing the sentiments of his Congressional colleagues and the rank and file of his fellow countrymen recognized the duty of the nation “To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue,” do you think he was referring to New Age religion, Islam, Pantheism, or Wicca? There is no honest, historical or sane argument that he had anything other than Christianity in mind when he referred to the “true religion.” Patrick Henry understood what Washington and all Americans at that time understood, writing, “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship.”
What do you think John Marshall, nominated to the Supreme Court under President John Adams, and serving as its Chief Justice for three decades, meant when he said, “The American population is entirely Christian, and with us Christianity and Religion are identified.” Who do you think is the more creditable source for understanding God’s place in America, Men such as Washington and the other founding Fathers, and John Marshall, or the sexually immoral, campus burning, dope indulging, America-hating 60’s radicals who have wormed their way into seats of power in our institutions and are undermining our institutions and corrupting the minds of our citizens with all the destructive power that such human vermin are capable of? Will you be led mentally or otherwise by heroic men and women who bled and died to secure our Constitutional Republic and maintain it; the generations, who under our capitalistic system of economics worked hard and brought a prosperity unprecedented in the annals of history to this country; or will you follow the lead of vile, self-serving, mental midgets and moral amoeba that have slithered into leadership in the political arena , our educational institutions and the news media?
How do people let themselves completely ignore the facts of history, all standards relative to honesty and basic common sense to even remotely consider the possibility that the God of the Bible had, and has, no relevance to America. The answer, “The great masses of the people . . . will more easily fall victims to a great lie than to a small one … If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.”
This Thanksgiving is a good time to conform as never before to the spirit of the First Thanksgiving Proclamation and recognize that without God’s blessing we would not have become a nation, survived as a nation or be able to continue as a nation. This Thanksgiving is a good time too, to be stirred with a resentment of what is taking place in our nation—when a small minority of immoral, selfish, would be tyrants have succeeded in pushing our God’s very name out of the public school, the public square and the personal sensibilities of our society in general. It’s time for some God-honoring, righteous indignation and some rock-ribbed resolve to rebuke and resist those who would deprive us of our heritage and enslave ourselves and our posterity.