It’s Thanksgiving time which means for a few weeks at least thinking about the Pilgrims and their big hats and dour expressions and the Mayflower and being thankful they made friends with the Indians, right?
It seems that’s about all we know, or care to know, about those early separatist protestants, part of our great puritan heritage. But there’s so much more to who they were, and what they gave us. And it’s so important we pass the right legacy onto our kids who are not hearing the true story about the puritans and the fact that, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, everything we think of as “puritanical” today is actually antithetical to who the puritans really were.
For starters, did you know that at least one puritan New England husband was excommunicated by his church for refusing to meet his wife’s sexual needs? Seriously. And please remember – these are people who could party and feast for three straight days. But what they gave us isn’t just democracy itself (The Mayflower Compact) but a pattern for thinking rightly about their world and their place in it.
So what does it matter if we get it right on the puritans? Well what frustrates me is not that an anti-Christian culture so dislikes the puritans. It’s that the puritans are almost as likely to be derided in our churches as in our public school classrooms. Leland Ryken, prolific Christian writer, puritan scholar, and professor at Wheaton college talks with me today about using Thanksgiving to reflect on who the puritans were and what the puritans gave us – and why it matters that we get it right.
A tip for parents – here’s a great book for kids on who the pilgrims really were:
So You Don’t Know Much about the Pilgrims, by Ken Davis – you can check it out on Amazon.
You can listen to the show in Chicago on AM1160/Thursday at 2:00 pm, or streaming at WYLL.com, or podcast afterward here or on www.nationalreview.com. And hey, the idea for today’s show came from a National Review Online listener – keep the suggestions coming!
We also get to meet today one of our new sponsors, Dr. Kyle Bonesteel, who offers parents struggling with kids with ADD or ADHD some real answers for objectively finding a correct diagnoses for your child – and treating it in many kids without medication. You can find out more by clicking on his link under our sponsors, “Neurohealth Associates.”
Thanks for listening – and have a great week.
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November 16, 2007
Dear Betsy,
I appreciate you helping to set the record straight about the Pilgrims..What I am wondering is if you can set the record straight on why it is you think a terrible PLAGUE is affecting the southeastern US..NO WATER!, and if you think this is God’s revenge on these red states for having voted for a man whose blatant disrespect for God’s perfect Earth and polices have contributed to global warming…Or could it be revenge on these red states for having voted for a man who is responsible for the deaths of nearly a million people in a foreign country that was not responsible for the attacks we experienced here.. the same man also responsible for the deaths of our servicemen (I think almost 4000 now) for having made such a huge mistake by leading us into this senseless ware that has put the future of our nation and children at risk …Do you believe that there are consequences to people, states, and a nation so foolish that they follow such an imbecile into such a war? Please set the record straight and lets start the healing…
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