While no one expects the eloquence of Abraham Lincoln to issue from Barack Obama’s lips, the President’s Proclamation of Thanksgiving 2014 lacks not only Lincoln’s style, but unfortunately even a basic understanding of what America’s greatest feast is all about. When Abraham Lincoln solemnly proclaimed the Thanksgiving holiday in 1863, during the bitter heat of the American Civil War, he consciously instituted a God-centered feast. He invited a divided America in the midst of acute hardship to count its blessings and to acknowledge the goodness of Almighty God, rendering Him the gratitude that was due. Lincoln saw that “we are prone to forget the source” from which our blessings flow, and to remedy that, he enumerates the bounty that has been poured out over America by our Maker. These gifts of God are so great, Lincoln reasons, that they “cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty […]
