Abraham Lincoln is credited for officializing Thanksgiving in America. Even as hundreds of thousands were dying in the Civil War, Gettysburg having been only a few months before, he declared America had much for which to thank God:
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.
And:
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Even with the war’s vast cost, America was prospering:
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
And God was to be credited:
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
Note his citing divine anger for national sins. Even while thanking God for unprecedented blessings, America needs to atone for “national perverseness and disobedience:”
I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans. mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.
More famously, Lincoln later suggested in his Second Inaugural Address that the war was divine punishment for slavery:
Fondly do we hope ~ fervently do we pray ~ that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’
It may strike many Americans today as strange, this concept of simultaneous divine blessing and judgment. Yet Divine Providence is endlessly multifaceted, contending constantly with every aspect of human behavior, by individuals and by groups, including nations. As in Lincoln’s day, so in ours, God is constantly blessing and judging America.
Never have we been more prosperous or had more opportunities as a people. Yet amid material plenty and freedom we often are rebellious, selfish, ungrateful. The spirit of our age is characterized by entitlement, ingratitude, and resentment. In our national politics, we angrily blame others but pretend we ourselves are innocent.
“Humble penitence,” as Lincoln advised, should be America’s chief attitude, with constant thanksgiving for all that we have. Lincoln’s call was to all Americans. Christians should especially heed and model, starting in our churches. Our prayer for 2023 and beyond should be for a grateful and penitent America. And we should also ask ourselves: how can we better thank God for all that He has given?
Comment by David on November 26, 2022 at 12:47 pm
“Never have we been more prosperous or had more opportunities as a people. ” Actually the US probably peaked in the 1950s when many of the advanced countries were bombed out or economically exhausted from WWII.
“Recent research, however, shows that in the United States, the rate of upward absolute income mobility—the fraction of children who grow up to earn more than their parents, after adjusting for inflation—declined substantially over the past 50 years.”
https://equitablegrowth.org/the-american-dream-is-less-of-a-reality-today-in-the-united-states-compared-to-other-peer-nations/
As for Lincoln, his famous quote is, “The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my profession.” Of course, once he sought public office, he began to pander to religious people with references to God, much as politicians do today.
Comment by Tom D on December 2, 2022 at 3:26 pm
Let’s put the entire quote in context, shall we?
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A charge having got into circulation in some of the neighborhoods of this District, in substance that I am an open scoffer at Christianity, I have by the advice of some friends concluded to notice the subject in this form. That I am not a member of any Christian Church, is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures; and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general, or any denomination of Christians in particular. It is true that in early life I was inclined to believe in what I understand is called the “Doctrine of Necessity” — that is, that the human mind is impelled to action, or held in rest by some power, over which the mind itself has no control; and I have sometimes (with one, two or three, but never publicly) tried to maintain this opinion in argument. The habit of arguing thus however, I have, entirely left off for more than five years. And I add here, I have always understood this same opinion to be held by several of the Christian denominations. The foregoing, is the whole truth, briefly stated, in relation to myself, upon this subject.
I do not think I could myself, be brought to support a man for office, whom I knew to be an open enemy of, and scoffer at, religion. Leaving the higher matter of eternal consequences, between him and his Maker, I still do not think any man has the right thus to insult the feelings, and injure the morals, or the community in which he may live. If, then, I was guilty of such conduct, I should blame no man who should condemn me for it; but I do blame those, whoever they may be, who falsely put such a charge in circulation against me.