November 2013 – Andy Unedited

The First Thanksgiving 3: How the Story Was Misremembered

How did we come to think that the Pilgrims

were rugged individualists when they were strongly bound to community?
were patriots first and committed Christians second?
would support Thanksgiving Day football even though “the 1650s the Plymouth General Court prescribed fines for individuals who engaged in sports on days of thanksgiving” (p. 145)?

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The First Thanksgiving 2: What We Don’t Know Is Inspiring

The First Thanksgiving by Robert Tracy McKenzie corrects a lot of the errors and myths that surround that original celebration by the Pilgrims in 1620.

In telling us the real story, McKenzie points us to more fruitful lessons we might learn than the warm feeling we get when we think about those independent-minded Pilgrims seeking new lands and freedom, and thanking God for helping them on the way. For example:
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The First Thanksgiving 1: What We Know Ain’t So

What you thought you knew about the first Thanksgiving is wrong. But what you didn’t know can be even more valuable. That’s the message of Robert Tracy McKenzie’s fresh and fascinating book The First Thanksgiving.

Squanto did indeed teach the Pilgrims to fertilize their cornfields with fish, but what else did you learn in school that isn’t true?
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Fifty Years Ago Three Great Men Died

One of the most dramatic events of the twentieth century was the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. What is less well known is that two other great men died the same day — Christian scholar and author C. S. Lewis, and novelist and pantheist Aldous Huxley.
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