It's Never Over
By: Pastor Andrew Isker
The holiday of Thanksgiving is one of the last remaining aspects of traditional America that has survived the cultural revolution. For most Americans it is simply a part of normal life: a day off, a day to eat turkey, stuffing, and cranberries, a day to watch football and spend time with family. But the holiday itself has its origins in the Puritan founding of America, and this alone is reason for the ongoing cultural revolution to seek its destruction.
The left will not be content to allow commercialized subversion of a Christian holiday—much like Christmas—to do its secularizing work. They will not be content to let Thanksgiving be about a Macy’s parade of floats about “product” and NFL games with John Madden’s turducken going to the winner, all filled with Black Friday ads to buy barely discounted Chinese manufactured goods.
No, the leftwing onslaught’s appetite is insatiable and even a commercialized, once-Christian holiday cannot be tolerated. “Don’t you know the American founding was evil? Don’t you know that the Puritans were religious bigots who criminalized homosexuality and that they were colonizers who genocided indigenous peoples?” No, the woke must eradicate it from memory, just as they demanded Robert E. Lee’s statue be publicly melted down and repurposed into a shrine to their saints like Harvey Milk or George Floyd.
But for the growing number of those who wish to preserve the historic American way of life, the ideological battle over our holidays is one we are now willing to fight.
For far too long, as the left assailed everything we love, the historic American sat idly by or even objected when anyone raised the alarm. “You are politicizing Christmas or Thanksgiving! Can’t you enjoy the time with your family!” Anyone who objected to our holidays being subverted was attacked, while those doing the subversion were given every benefit of the doubt. But now, as blissful lack of awareness of the revolution is impossible to maintain, our people are beginning to summon the will to stand up for what is ours.
And this is the point that we must understand deep in our bones: Thanksgiving is inevitably political. It is a celebration of a people who left a land that had severely persecuted them for their faith, to found a new Christian nation. This is unmistakably a political act. They came to the New World to establish a colony that grew into a nation. They were “colonizers.” The common phrase on the online right—“the woke are more correct than the mainstream”—rings true. They did bring Christian civilization to a barbaric wilderness. They did colonize a mostly barren land, and from that colony built a nation that would grow over centuries to become a global empire. The woke are correct in that this holiday is political and that it is a celebration of colonization.
The normie who just wants to grill eat turkey who tells you to “stop politicizing things” is wrong. The woke are, of course, wrong, too, to hate this holiday with every fiber of their being. Without the courage and faith of the Puritans there would be no America. This is, naturally, why they hate it.
But we don’t just celebrate Thanksgiving to “own the libs.” That would be such a facile and vain primary reason to do anything. We celebrate it because it is a quintessential celebration of the American founding. Thanksgiving is America. It is a celebration of Christian America. And even more than this, for those of us who wish for our nation to return to its Christian roots it is an example of what we can do, today.
Think of the example of these men and women (and children). For decades they were persecuted, first by Queen Mary’s efforts at counter reformation, they by the Church of England. The kind of persecution they underwent makes our current government—which imprisons people for non-violent, unscheduled tours of the capitol and for making memes—seem like a free country in comparison. They were killed, beaten, imprisoned, lost homes, businesses and wealth, and even driven into exile in a foreign land.
They expended great wealth to acquire a royal charter, gather supplies, and hire a ship for a dangerous voyage across the an ocean, all to live in a dangerous wilderness. It is difficult to place yourself in their shoes. Could I do this? Could I load my wife and children into a crowded, cold, wet ship for months? And then arrive in a barren land just before winter, knowing at any moment savage warriors could descend upon us and slaughter us all? Could I go to such lengths to be free? Would I dare do such a thing? But they did. The entire world was against them. They were a tiny minority even in their own country. They were despised and hated. If anyone had any license to despair, to blackpill, to say “it’s over” they did.
But they did not. They faced a brutal winter that killed off more than half of the original colonists. If you took your family on the Mayflower , by the first Thanksgiving if you survived, almost certainly your spouse, or a few of your children did not. After this, they could have given up. They could have said it is an impossible dream. An insane dream. But they did not. They were driven by a zeal to build a Christian nation. A place where they could collectively, as a people, practice their faith together. To them, such a dream was worth dying for. Such a dream was worth losing everything for.
Thanksgiving is a celebration of Christians who understood it is never over. No matter how few there are. It is not over. No matter how few there are who desire the goodness of a Christian people having a Christian society, it is never over. There are far more Christians today in America who desire to live as a Christian people than there were Puritan separatists in 17th Century England. From their resolute faith this small group built a nation as powerful as any in human history. And that nation was once Christian.
For those of us who want that nation to once again be Christian, Thanksgiving is a reminder and a promise that there is still hope left.
