Happy Thanksgiving

We’ve had a fine Thanksgiving holiday. Last night we had the whole Trunk family over for dinner; Mrs. Rocket made a great leg of lamb. This afternoon we did something we’ve never done before: we went out for Thanksgiving dinner, with my parents.
There have been a number of stories in the news this year about schools that have banned any reference to God in connection with Thanksgiving. Which raises, obviously, the question: to whom are we giving thanks, if not to God? I think the real answer, although always unspoken, is that instead of being thankful to God for our blessings, some would have us be thankful to the government.
In the end–and the end may be quite far off, for, as Adam Smith said, there is a lot of ruin in a country–there are only two alternatives for any nation: religious faith and tyranny. Because if each individual is not, as the Declaration says, endowed by his Creator with certain inalienable rights, then those rights are only the creation of governments. And what governments give, they can, and surely will, take away. In the end, it is only the religious belief that each person, by virtue of being created in the image of God, is of transcendant value that stands between all of us and the boot heel of tyranny. Absent such belief, people are but cattle and, sooner or later, will be treated as such.
So on this holiday, we’re thankful for lots of things, and we’re thankful to lots of people, including the troops who are serving around the world. And we appreciate the readers who have written to say that one of the things they’re thankful for is this web site and others like it. But let’s not forget to say, as we Lutherans do at the end of every service: Thanks be to God.