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President's Thanksgiving Proclamation and Thoughts On It

By Howard M. Friedman

Last week, President Bush issued the Thanksgiving Day 2008 Proclamation, declaring today to be a National Day of Thanksgiving. The Proclamation begins:

Thanksgiving is a time for families and friends to gather together and express gratitude for all that we have been given, the freedoms we enjoy, and the loved ones who enrich our lives. We recognize that all of these blessings, and life itself, come not from the hand of man but from Almighty God.

Author Susan Jacoby comments on the Proclamation in a posting at Newsweek titled Thanksgiving Proclamations: Cracks In The Wall Of Separation. Meanwhile, taking a somewhat different tack, The Becket fund republished an op-ed written 11 years ago by Seamus Hasson titled Forgetting the Holy: The Feast of the Intransitive Verb. It suggests that by referring to the day as a time "to give thanks", we avoid focusing on who we are thanking.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on November 27, 2008 (boomark / email).