Latest / Randy Unscripted / The Constitutional Foundations of Thanksgiving - NaPodPoMo 2025 #25

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The Constitutional Foundations of Thanksgiving - NaPodPoMo 2025 #25 · Randy Unscripted

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  Randy Black: Randy Black.
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  Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. Black.
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  Black. He's a troublemaker.
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  Welcome back to Randy Unscripted. I'm your host, Randy Black, and this is a continuation of our NAPOD promo series. That's national podcast post month. This is for 11/25/2025.
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  I'm sorry.
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  It's a day late,
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  but we had a
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  tragic
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  event in our family
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  that I'll go into detail on later on. But I wanted to still go ahead and get this recorded even though it's a day late and get it out for those of you who have been following along.
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  But National Podcast Post Month, the goal is 30 episodes in thirty days, and we're almost at the end. The light is at the end of the tunnel.
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  But we're gonna continue our Thanksgiving series today
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  where we're stepping into a space I don't think most people ever really
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  associate with with Thanksgiving,
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  and that's with The US constitution.
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  Now
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  that might sound a little bit odd at first. After all, Thanksgiving brings to mind, you know, feasts, pilgrims, parades, football, but our national day of gratitude
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  actually sets at a really intersection of law, liberty, and and faith in public life.
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  And as a former social studies teacher, I've always found that connection that exists there to be quite fascinating.
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  So today's episode is gonna explore how Thanksgiving became legal, how it became national,
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  and how its story reflects our ongoing,
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  American conversation
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  about faith,
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  civic unity, and the responsibilities
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  that come along with those freedoms we have.
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  So
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  let's address the obvious question that we might start with here,
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  that the constitution
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  never mentions Thanksgiving.
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  So
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  is Thanksgiving
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  constitutional?
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  There's no Article three, section four that says Congress shall carve the turkey or anything like that.
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  But what the constitution
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  does create
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  is the framework that makes national observances possible.
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  A president
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  who can issue proclamations,
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  a legislature
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  empowered to set national holidays,
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  and a federal government that can call the nation to unified action.
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  The constitution
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  gives us that mechanism to do those things.
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  Thanksgiving
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  gives us the meaning
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  that we need for it.
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  And that combination
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  form,
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  of form and of of faithfulness
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  becomes especially clear
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  when you look at the earliest thanksgiving proclamations that occurred.
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  Just months after the constitution went into effect in
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  1789,
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  president George Washington issued the first national Thanksgiving proclamation.
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  What's remarkable
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  is
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  how openly
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  he spoke about faith, something people today often assume that the founders
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  had tried to avoid.
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  Washington wrote
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  that the nation should unite to acknowledge the providence of almighty God
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  and to render unto him our sincere and humble thanks.
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  That was the first president using his newly created
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  constitutional office,
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  encouraging a national posture of gratitude
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  and grounding it in the idea that our freedoms are gifts from God,
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  not achievements we earned alone.
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  Washington's proclamation
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  didn't violate separation of church and state. Instead, it reflected the founder's assumption
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  that gratitude to God was compatible with and even supportive of a free republic.
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  As Psalms 100 verse four says,
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  enter into his gates with thanksgiving
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  and into
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  his courts with praise.
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  Be thankful unto him and bless his name.
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  The founders
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  weren't quoting scripture in the document,
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  but they absolutely
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  were drawing from a biblical worldview in what they did.
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  Washington wasn't an outlier.
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  John Adams continued the tradition during his presidency,
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  sometimes declaring days of thanksgiving, sometimes days of fasting.
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  He understood something important.
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  A constitutional republic depends not just on laws,
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  but on virtue.
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  Gratitude cultivates humility.
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  Humility cultivates responsibility.
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  And responsible citizens
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  sustain a free nation.
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  Adams believed
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  that government could encourage virtue without legislating belief,
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  something modern audiences often misunderstand.
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  Early Thanksgivings weren't about establishing a religion.
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  They were about nurturing
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  a a moral
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  citizenry.
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  Thomas Jefferson
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  broke the pattern by not issuing Thanksgiving proclamations,
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  not because he disliked
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  gratitude,
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  but because he held a stricter interpretation of the First Amendment while he was the president.
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  Here's what's important.
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  Jefferson's refusal wasn't a rejection of faith.
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  It was simply a constitutional stance.
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  He believed the president shouldn't recommend religions as religious observances
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  even if they were voluntary
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  because
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  it could imply federal endorsement of religion.
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  But he he wasn't perfectly comfortable with states continuing the tradition, and many did. He he felt that if the state felt that it was the right thing to do, that they could do it.
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  This is a great moment to highlight how the constitution supports
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  multiple interpretations
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  and how Thanksgiving tradition survived
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  because of intellectual diversity,
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  not in spite of it.
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  And again,
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  scripture gives us a universal principle
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  Jefferson respected even if he didn't proclaim.
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  In everything, give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
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  First Thessalonians
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  chapter five verse 18.
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  While Washington
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  set the tone,
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  Abraham Lincoln is the one who gave thanksgiving
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  its modern place in our nation today.
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  In the middle of the civil war, arguably the moment when the constitution itself was in crisis,
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  Lincoln called the nation to a day of thanksgiving.
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  His proclamation
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  isn't just poetic,
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  it's constitutional theology.
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  In 1863,
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  his proclamation had these things in it. He acknowledged the blessings the nation still enjoyed despite the conflict.
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  He invited citizens to humility.
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  He asked Americans to remember widows, orphans, and those suffering in the war,
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  and he framed gratitude as a unifying act,
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  one that would transcend the political divides that existed.
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  Thanksgiving became a civic ritual meant to stitch the nation back together.
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  Lincoln's words echo what we see in Psalms chapter 95 verse two.
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  Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving
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  and make a joyful noise under him with psalms.
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  Today,
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  thanksgiving stands as a rare national practice that
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  comfortably blends the constitutional tradition, the civic identity,
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  the cultural heritage,
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  and the personal expressions of faith that people have.
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  It remains voluntary,
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  unifying,
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  and, of course, deeply American, not because the constitution
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  requires it,
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  but because the constitution
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  allows it.
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  Faith provides the meaning,
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  law provides the structure,
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  and gratitude
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  provides the glue.
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  As we think about Thanksgiving this year, maybe the most constitutional thing we can do is simply this,
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  pause,
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  reflect,
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  give thanks,
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  and acknowledge
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  the freedoms that we enjoy, freedoms protected by the document the founders gave us and ultimately those gifts.
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  As Psalms one hundred and seven one says,
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  oh, give thanks unto the Lord for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever.
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  That is something that Washington understood,
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  that Lincoln understood,
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  and something that we as Americans still desperately
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  need to remember today.
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  Thank you for listening to this episode of Randy unscripted, another episode in our NAPOD Pomo national podcast post month series.
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  The goal is 30 episodes in thirty days.
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  We have another episode scheduled tomorrow about Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving Day, and I hope you'll tune in and listen to that. Sorry. Not tomorrow. In two days. We do have another Thanksgiving episode tomorrow and then a Thanksgiving episode on Thanksgiving.
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  I hope you'll tune in and hear those as well. Until then, I'm Randy,
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  and this has been Randy unscripted.