Puritan Thanksgiving.
They didn't have Internet or TV so they had to do something.
So why do Catholics do Thanksgiving?
Puritans didn't like many groups.
If you had to choose a group the Puritans really had a special hatred for, it would be Catholics. (After that came splinter groups like Quakers and Anabaptists, and then anyone else who was not a Puritan.)
They were hapless precursors of Theology of the Body and 'spousal' spirituality ...
The Puritans believed that the love between married people was the closest humans could get on Earth to experiencing the joy of being united with Christ in heaven. And love in marriage had no higher expression than sex. The Puritan minister at Cambridge, Mass., Thomas Shepard, often described the passion people felt in marriage in his sermons: “In all marriage bonds there is a choice made, and, if love be great, there is little standing on terms — let me have him though I beg with him.”Don't kid yourself though - they weren't the 'church of nice' either.
The Puritans didn’t leave England to found a society where all religions would be tolerated. After all, they were granted the pejorative moniker “Puritan” in England because of their efforts to purge Catholic influences from the Anglican Church. - Five Myths about Puritans*
I'm against it.
*h/t E
Another reason to go to somebody else's house for Thanksgiving. Costco makes great mashed potatoes. Someone once asked me for the recipe. I did not tell a lie.
ReplyDeleteBoring History Lesson. The Mayflower Pilgrims weren't Puritans, but Separatists as they felt that they should not be linked to the government...(which would shock many alt Right Wingers today...) and actually, the first marriage to take place in what is to become the United States was a Civil Ceremony as the Pilgrims felt that marriage was a contract.The Pilgrims themselves were more "nice" then the Puritans, after spending a decade in Leiden, which was very multicultural, etc, they picked up a "little"bit of live and let live, which helped them form a relationship with the native Americans.
ReplyDeleteThe Puritans landed in Salem..(and we all know how that turned out...religious whack jobs always leave a trail of blood when unchecked...)who are our ideal of Puritans...(no celebrations, stern, suspicious, unhappy litigious..) the first "Church Militant." (they would never approve of Voris dance moves...) They merged with the Pilgrims to spread though the colonies and fought and split, which is where the first states came from.
Roger Williams of RI tired to even "purify" the Purtians, and he fought the confiscation of Indian lands, and that everyone should be free to practice the faith they choose. That was too much for the Puritans ("Tolerance...that is SO Church of Nice!") so they kicked him out, and he and his followers moved to Rhode Island...which became a home for religious minorities.. they also advocated the separation of Church and State. It was Williams..a Puritan whose idea of a "Wall of Separation" between Church and State (get that Right Wingers...) inspired the founders to incorporate that into the Constitution etc.
So Catholics can celebrate Thanksgiving as it was not started by those mean Puritans that the Alt Right Wing Traddies would seem to like to emulate!