Kerby Anderson
Each year, we take time from our busy lives to celebrate a day of Thanksgiving. Though many holidays have become secular celebrations, this holiday still retains much of its historic religious overtones.
A day of Thanksgiving was set aside by the Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony. Life was hard in the New World. Half of the Pilgrims died in the first terrible winter. After the first harvest was completed, Governor William Bradford proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving and prayer. By 1623, a day of fasting and prayer during a period of drought was changed to one of Thanksgiving because the rain came during their prayers. The custom prevailed in New England and eventually became a national holiday.
Religious freedom is one of the lessons of Thanksgiving. In 1606, William Brewster led a group of Separatists to Leiden (in the Netherlands) to escape religious persecution in England. After living in Leiden for more than ten years, some members of the group voted to emigrate to America. Having been blown off course from their intended landing in Virginia by a terrible storm, the Pilgrims landed at Cape Cod in November 1620. While still on the ship, the Pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact.
The Mayflower Compact provides the second lesson of Thanksgiving: the importance of political freedom.  On November 11, 1620, Governor William Bradford and the leaders on the Mayflower signed the Mayflower Compact before setting foot on land. They wanted to acknowledge God’s sovereignty in their lives and their need to obey Him.
During this Thanksgiving season, let’s return to the wisdom of the Pilgrims. They valued their freedom and were willing to endure hardship in order to come to this country and freely worship. Let us thank God for these freedoms and be willing to defend them against all who would seek to take them away.

Kerby Anderson
Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I suspect that you are doing lots of things to get ready for this special day. Let me suggest you add one more item to your to-do list. Visit our website and download a copy of my Thanksgiving Quiz.
Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to gather as a family, but I also believe it can be a great time to teach our children and grandchildren about America’s godly heritage. I created this short quiz to be a conversation-starter around the Thanksgiving table.
We used to go around the table before the meal and ask our children to tell us what they were thankful for. After a few years of hearing about how they were thankful for their cat, their doll, and their video games, I knew we needed to do something else.
The Thanksgiving Quiz was born out of that frustration. It has twenty questions and answers on the Pilgrims and the Mayflower Compact as well as some questions and answers about the Christian heritage of America.
Who were the Pilgrims and why did they leave Europe for America? Why did they celebrate Thanksgiving? What is the Mayflower Compact, and why is it significant? What lessons did the Pilgrims learn about work and even free enterprise? How did the Christian faith influence America? These are just a few of the sorts of questions that you can ask around the table and give short answers.
Perhaps it is time to recapture the importance of Thanksgiving. On the bicentennial celebration of the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, Daniel Webster, on December 22, 1820, declared the following: “Let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political, or literary.”
It is my hope this quiz will help your family see the importance of Thanksgiving.