Happy Thanksgiving, to one and all! May you enjoy wonderful fellowship with your loved ones today, and, if you have the time, please read this analysis of the first Thanksgiving in Massachusetts. At a time when the Founders are being relentlessly denigrated, it's good to arm ourselves with knowledge about what these men and women were really all about.
Ray to Nick and Jack
ReplyDeleteHappy Thanksgiving to the both of you.
What the Pilgrims attempted to do clearly failed, at least culturally and morally speaking. The Mayflower landed at the tip of Cap Cod in an area approximately near where Provincetown, Mass. is today. That town is now the longtime destination and haven for the LGBTQ+ crowd.
Also, on the Mayflower were a number of people that booked passage on that ship, who were NOT Pilgrims, and in fact were quite secular in outlook. However, the article at Breibart was good, even if The Pilgrims failed to convince anyone other than themselves.
Ray to Nick and Jack
ReplyDeleteAnd best of all, the Pilgrim heritage at Plymouth is only 50 miles from Martha's Vineyard, where the Obamas' now reside in their $12 million dollar mansion, paid for entirely out of their book royalties.
Dr.Waddy from Jack:The article you posted was outstanding! It was well reasoned , expressed and documented. It presents a very plausible argument for 1621 for the significance disingenuously arrogated to 1619 by the woke.It is free of the ad homina routinely practiced in this discussion by the woke and used by them to force agreement. Its spare, sound eloquent writing is exemplary and puts the rant of the woke to well deserved doubt.
ReplyDeleteRay, we can both agree that modern America isn't the haven of godliness that the Pilgrims envisioned, but frankly our country did cleave to its Christian and Biblical roots for a very long time. Some would argue that 200+ years is a good run, and it's always possible, if not probable, that we'll have a revival and return to our roots... With God, all things are possible?
ReplyDeleteJack, I concur: it was a good article. Granted, it did take somewhat for granted the Pilgrims' claims about themselves, but the fact that Pilgrim-Indian relations were, in truth, "complicated", rather than genocidal, is undeniable. Turning the Founders into the ultimate villains is just silly, but when your goal is to trash America and turn it into North Korea, hey, extreme measures are only to be expected.
Ray to Nick
ReplyDeleteNot going to get any revival from the Republicans, many of whom support the LGBTQ + crowd.
Well, Ray, no political party is going to lead a religious revival. That would have to come from below. If American culture changes, though, both political parties will fall in line, to a point. The problem is that a religious revival may be next to impossible, because the popular culture more or less precludes any (positive) discussion of religion. How would the message even get out? Now, there have been some proselytizing tv ads lately. Of course, they're insipid, but the fact remains that the desire for meaning and spiritual fulfillment is inate (and God is mighty plucky), and thus we can never foreclose the possibility that God and His people will find each other.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: We should consider the Great (Christian) Awakenings in the US to perhaps discover some similarities. I think one was around 1820; I read that a traveler described American towns where everyone was drunk. The early twentieth century , when I think another one occured, also saw epidemic drinking, especially among blue collar men. The
ReplyDeleteboys would send a kid to a saloon at lunch time for a pail ot beer.When they got off they'd hit the beer joints again for some relief from their onerous jobs, get soused, and come back to the old lady and the kids. If the old man was a nasty drunk the family was in for it. If the wife sought the same solace she risked losing everything.This was a life I heard about from those who had lived it and saw even in '50s Buffalo. Is intoxication a common relevant factor? Could it be again? The South, with its glorious Bible Belt, should rise again to our redemption!. Maybe Gov. DeSantis could work that eventually.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Perhaps the counterintuitive political excess and the malaise and outrage it causes may have an effect analogous to that which booze may have had in the Great Awakenings. I thought a wave of revulsion was at hand this year but perhaps we are not disgusted enough yet.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: How could the message get out? Country music, which is exceptionally popular today in the real America.
ReplyDeleteJack, you raise some interesting points about alcohol abuse. Does a period of over-indulgence then lead to a period of temperance/religious revival? If so, then one might see religion as a tool that women use to encourage better behavior in their men! Of course, feminists have often seen it as...the opposite. Personally, I have no idea what conditions lay the groundwork for a revival, but I sure hope they obtain soon!
ReplyDeleteCountry music? Oh, it's popular, all right, but isn't it becoming less and less distinguishable from (woke) pop all the time?
Dr.Waddy from Jack: I've been a fan of country music since the late 60s, when I was introduced to it by Southern friends in the Navy. It was mostly a regional custom back then. I don't like the stuff they have now (too pop and too much bling); it doesn't put me in mind of rural life. But I can't gainsay its tremendous popularity; actually the older music I liked was often criticized as being "all the same". Now I think the same of what is popular in country but there is no doubt its BIG! In the bank in our little town its all you hear anytime of day. I think it could become the voice of a religious revival if it were purposely aimed at that objective. I have some good friends in Pennsylvania mountain country who love country and western.They grew up with it. They once said about Trump "he says what I want to say. . .!" I think they see the same in country music.
ReplyDeleteJack, I know squat about country music, but my sense is that you're right: It's the closest thing we've got to an authentic/wholesome mirror of popular American culture. Could it be used to promote Christian values as opposed to woke abominations? I have no doubt it could. And let's hope it will be.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: Driving on two lanes in rural N.Carolina recently, though I knew I was in the Bible Belt, I was astonished by how many Gospel stations I heard on a week day afternoon. And the profusion of Baptist roadside churches was a real eye opener. The South has provided us many cultural benefits (eg.jazz, zydeco, some rock, etc) and I'd like to see the Bible Belt expand northward. Modern country music,, enabled by modern technology could do it. Country and western earned a much more regionally varied and expanded audience between the 70s and now. Today's spiritual vacuousness , its obvious origin in neomarxist motivated presumptuous dismissal of it by the woke and the catastrophic dissolution it has fostered may still birth a new surge of trust in long held faiths encouraged by modern media!
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: Some other benefits championed by the South and enhancing the nation: religious fundamentalism, respect for the military, convinced patriotism and Scotch-Irish culture. Now of course none of these factors guarantees the perfection of wokeism but "all's one" yes?
ReplyDeleteJack, the persistence of genuine, heartfelt traditional Christianity in the American populace, especially juxtaposed against the almost total obliteration of Christianity in many parts of Europe, is an immensely hopeful sign for the future of our country, and a signal that the basic decency of the American people remains intact. Unfortunately, just as we are fairly evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, we are also bifurcated into two nations, as it were: one godly, and one godless. It's taken several generations of secular, mostly quasi-Marxist, propaganda to thin the ranks of American believers, but there's no question that it's worked, and it's working. Be that as it may, we've rallied before, and we can (and may) do it again.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: Ditto magnus.
ReplyDelete