Jonathan Lange: Governments Should Encourage Worship, But Church Should See It Done

Did you ever look at our National Day of Thanksgiving through the lens of the U.S. Constitution? Our founding fathers did. And you should, too.

A little more than a year after the newly drafted Constitution of the United States was ratified, George Washington was in the first year of his first presidential term. Two states — North Carolina and Rhode Island — still refused to ratify it. And not all those that did were wild about it. It squeaked by in New York, for instance, by the scant margin of 30-27.

Anti-federalists were worried that the Constitution gave too much power to the federal government. And refugees from two centuries of religious wars wondered how the world’s first government without a state religion might fare.

Not only did the new Constitution forbid a religious test for public office, but on Sept. 25, 1789, the very first Congress of the United States proposed to add a Bill of Rights that began, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.”

Barely a week after that vote, on Oct. 3, 1789, President George Washington proclaimed: “Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.”

Don’t think for a minute that this presidential proclamation was a thoughtless reversion to Old-World habit. These men had not only been debating for years the relationship between church and state, but on the very day that they sent the Bill of Rights to the states for ratification they also vigorously debated the President’s Thanksgiving Proclamation.

On that day, New Jersey Rep. Elias Boudinot introduced a congressional resolution that requested the President to “recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a Constitution of government for their safety and happiness.”

The resolution did not have the force of law. It was only a “request” for the president to “recommend.” Nevertheless, opposition to it was bitter. Thomas Tudor Tucker of South Carolina objected that this was a “religious matter” that should be left to the various states. Congress considered his objection and passed the resolution anyway.

Washington acted on the request and gave us our first National Thanksgiving Day. He considered it “the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor.” A dozen years later, Thomas Jefferson refused to follow suit. He feared any state sponsorship of religion.

I agree with both.

It is, indeed, the duty of every creature to know and obey its creator. And nations are creatures of God, no less than people are. Political entities do not evolve into existence any more than people have evolved from primordial slime. The same God who created the universe also raises up kings and brings them down again.

Nations and political rulers defy this fact to their own peril. They can get away with it for a while, but only as long as their creator permits. Nobody has ever lived forever, nor has any nation.

But Jefferson’s point is also true. Give the government an inch and it will take a mile. One day Congress is “requesting a recommendation from the president” and the next day the governor is issuing a “health order” that forbids certain kinds of worship altogether.

That is the genius of America. Jefferson’s caution is balanced by Washington’s reality. The “Establishment Clause” and the “Free Exercise Clause” are not in competition with each other, but are complements to one another. They should each be guarded with equal fervor.

It is “the duty of all Nations [not only of individuals] to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor.” Governments should encourage and commend “the free exercise of religion.” But it is the place of the church and not the state to see that this is done.

Jonathan Lange is a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod pastor in Evanston and Kemmerer and serves the Wyoming Pastors Network. Follow his blog at https://jonathanlange.substack.com/. Email: JLange64@protonmail.com.