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November 23, 2006
Thanksgiving as an Environmental Holiday
by Jesus Politics
Newsweek and The Washington Post have set up a forum for a conversation on religion. Today there is an interesting article about our Thanksgiving holiday written by Rev. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, president of Chicago Theological Seminary.
Some excerpts:
The origins of Thanksgiving are as a celebration of the bounty of the creation and the gifts of the Creator. That makes it perfect for becoming THE environmental holiday in the United States. Thanksgiving is part of American "Civil Religion." It is and should be celebrated by people of faith and humanists alike. [ ]
It was Abraham Lincoln who, in 1863, proclaimed the first Thanksgiving as a national holiday and in that proclamation called on all Americans to give thanks for the “blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies” that show the “ever watchful providence of Almighty God.”
Thanksgiving as a national holiday has now become part of what we call “civil religion,” that is, the shared ritual practices of a nation that serve to unite them. Civil religion is based on the idea that there can be broad values that people of diverse religious perspectives, and people who would count themselves humanists, all share. One does not need to be a “believer” in God to share deeply in these values.
There can be great abuses of civil religion, as when the nation becomes an object of worship itself. But Thanksgiving as practiced in the U.S. is a great unifier and we could do more with it.
Let’s take our cue from the Wampanoag and John Calvin and Abraham Lincoln and make Thanksgiving THE environmental holiday. We need to give thanks for THIS creation and commit ourselves to saving this environment so we can have, as Lincoln said, “fruitful fields and healthful skies.”
Posted by Jesus Politics at November 23, 2006 07:15 PM
Comments
In somewhat related news, the soon-to-be president of the Christian Coalition resigned because he wanted to expand the organization's agenda beyond gay marriage and abortion to include poverty and the environment, but the board of the Coalition nixed the ideas.
Slowly but surely, a faith-based environmentalist movement is taking shape. Evangelicals are increasingly tying their faith to responsible stewardship of the earth. Progressive Christianss and hippie-Jesus-people's environmental concerns are becoming more vocal and mainstream. This isn't just an area that we can build connections between progressive and evangelical Christians, but an area where we can start to erase such arbitrary divisions from the ranks of Christ-believers.
Posted by: john g at November 25, 2006 11:59 AM
Whether we can link Thanksgiving into an Earth Day consciousness is problematic, even if we tried to link the two more functionally. Stewardship should be part-thankfulness, but that'd be an uphill battle.
But arguments were made before the Supreme Court today [Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2006] for making the EPA responsible to enforce tailpipe emissions numbers on auto manufactuters. Altho' the Dubya regime disallowed Chris Whitman from letting the EPA function without inteference, there may be a chance now for the court to throw this responsibility back on the EPA: one early reading seems to show a 6-3 split in this favor, but the first question of the states having the standing to sue could yet preempt the initial question tone. The longterm consequence is that of Global Warming & CO2 contributions to deterioration, but will that link hurt or help the politics at bay? It's an "epic day" however it turns out, and the battle is just beginning, not ending with a Court ruling. We are all stewards of the environment: good or bad. I'd love to keep "civic religion" out of this matter if I could.
Posted by: Arden C. Hander at November 30, 2006 02:36 AM
