Post # 51 -- A Thanksgiving for Religious Freedom
Dear Family and Friends
I have been thinking about the upcoming Thanksgiving Day in this month of November
and about just how thankful I am for the opportunity to be even contemplating
spending another Thanksgiving with my family😊
Our Heavenly Father is truly aware of each one of us ant
He knows each one of us personally – just as our parents know us or just as we
know our children. He knows what we need before we need it, we only need to ask
Him for it – and if it be a righteous desire and for our best good He will help
us get what we need. Is is most important though that we always give thanks to
Him for all that He gives to us!
I found this article that I wanted to share with you all,
I hope you will enjoy reading it and learn from it. These pictures are not the original pictures that were with the article, but I could not get them to transfer, so I added these from the internet. I hope that they fit ok with the content and that you enjoy learning more about our rwligious freedom and the first thanksgiving in America and what was behind their move aross the ocean. as well as the importance of their courageous efforts for their relicious freedon amd how that effects each of us today.
A Thanksgiving for Religious Freedom
Commentary 21 NOVEMBER 2011 - Salt Lake City
They sought to breathe a freer air,
To worship God unchain'd —
They welcomed pain and danger here,
When rights like these were gain'd.
—Author Unknown
To worship God unchain'd —
They welcomed pain and danger here,
When rights like these were gain'd.
—Author Unknown
As the United States
celebrates Thanksgiving, citizens across the nation gather with family and
friends to commemorate the shared gratitude between the English pilgrims and
the local Native Americans. During this season, many recount the history of
these English pilgrims.
Persecuted, arrested and
fined for their form of Christianity, these so-called separatists fled their
beloved mother country to find what the governor of Plymouth, William Bradford,
called “freedom of religion for all men.” After a ten-year sojourn in Holland,
the separatists prayerfully decided to depart for America.
Some members of their
congregation, including the group’s long-time preacher, John Robinson, stayed
behind in Holland. Edward Winslow, a fellow worshipper, recorded Robinson’s
tender farewell
address: “[Robinson] charged us before God and his
blessed Angels … [that] if God should reveal anything to us by any other
instrument of his, to be as ready to receive it, as ever we were to receive any
truth by his Ministry: For he was very confident the Lord had more truth and
light yet to break forth out of his holy Word.”
You can find this address
here: https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/robinson-words-of-john-robinson-robinsons-farewell-address-to-the-pilgrims
According to the account, Robinson also commented on the reformed churches of the day, stating that “though [Calvin and Luther] were precious shining lights in their times, yet God had not revealed his whole will to them: And were they now living … they would be as ready and willing to embrace further light, as that they had received.”
I
can not even begin to imagine all the things that the Pilgrims had to endure
before they had the opportunity to flee from their homeland and the religious
persecution that they had endured while living there. To embark on the seas of
the great ocean for months to come to America to be able to worship God in
their own way.
It
seems that Robinson knew that the Lord had not revealed His whole truth to the
people at that time and he was looking for the time when the Lord would reveal
His whole will to them. If you haven’t done so already – Are you ready to
receive further light from the Lord and know His will for you?
For members of The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), Robinson’s premonition that “the Lord had more truth
and light yet to break forth” proved prophetic. Latter-day Saints believe that
the pilgrims, among many others, helped create the environment of religious
freedom in the United States that paved the way for a restoration of Christ’s
ancient church.
Speaking to the body of
the Church in 2005, Elder
Robert D. Hales of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles recounted that as “religious persecution in England continued …
many were prompted to seek freedom in new lands. Among them were the Pilgrims,
who landed in the Americas in 1620.”
You
can read Elder Oaks talk that Elder Hales quoted from here: https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/oaks-religious-freedom
“Other colonists soon
followed,” he continued, “including those like Roger Williams, founder and
later governor of Rhode Island. ... Williams said that there was no regularly
constituted church of Christ on earth, nor any person authorized to administer
any church ordinance, nor could there be until new apostles were sent by the
great Head of the church, for whose coming he was seeking.”
In the 18th century, the
founders of the United States established religious freedom for all citizens
through the Bill of Rights. This newly secured liberty allowed for the lawful
establishment of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In 2009, Elder
Dallin H. Oaks stated, “‘For the rights and protection of
all flesh’ the United States Constitution includes in its First Amendment the
guarantees of free exercise of religion and free speech and press.”
“Without these great
fundamentals of the Constitution,” he continued, “America could not have served as the host nation for
the restoration of the gospel, which began just three decades after the Bill of
Rights was ratified.”
Though The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began in 1830 with only six members, today it
is a global religion with more than half of its 14 million members living
outside the United States.
As a result of the
Church’s global membership, the Thanksgiving holiday is not celebrated by most
of its members. Yet the pilgrims’ historical role in fostering religious
freedom and their example of gratitude resonate with people around the world, especially
Latter-day Saints.
You
can read more about our religious freedom and the protection of our religious
freedom here: www.mormonnewsroom.org/official-statement/religious-freedom
In 1843, Joseph Smith
said with regard to religious liberty, “I am bold to declare before Heaven that
I am just as ready to die in defending the rights of a Presbytarian [sic], a
Baptist, or a good man of any other denomination; for the same principle which
would trample upon the rights of the Latter-day Saints would trample upon the
rights of the Roman Catholics, or of any other denomination.”
More recently, Latter-day
Saint Apostles have frequently emphasized the importance of religious liberty,
and the current president of the Church, Thomas
S. Monson, has highlighted the Thanksgiving holiday’s
theme of gratitude.
“A grateful heart … comes through expressing gratitude to our Heavenly Father for His blessings and to those around us for all that they bring into our lives,” said President Monson in a 2010 address. “This requires conscious effort—at least until we have truly learned and cultivated an attitude of gratitude. … When we encounter challenges and problems in our lives, it is often difficult for us to focus on our blessings. However, if we reach deep enough and look hard enough, we will be able to feel and recognize just how much we have been given.”
In the United States of
America and many other nations around the world, people are grateful to God for
their blessings during this time of year; among these blessings is that of
religious freedom.
I
want to add my voice to his in that “When we encounter challenges and problems
in our lives, it is often difficult for us to focus on our blessings. However,
if we reach deep enough and look hard enough, we will be able to feel and
recognize just how much we have been given.” This is so very true, sometimes
though, we must look hard for those blessings because we are spending all our
energies on the problems at hand.
I am
very grateful that we have religious freedom in our country! I am grateful to
those who paved the way for our religious freedom, many with their very lives. And
I am so very thankful that I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints – it has changed my life for the better and continues to
change it every day, again for the better.
Well,
I believe it was Daffy Duck used to say, ‘That’s all for now, folks!’ I hope
this upcoming month of November you try to count your many blessings and look
daily for the hand of the Lord in your lives, I promise you that you will be
pleasantly surprised at what you find. So, until my next post everyone please have a great week😊 If
you are interested in learning more about Jesus Christ’s church – even The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you can check out this site:
https://www.lds.org/?lang=eng
So, I did find this picture
of daffy duck, he doesn't look very happy. I also found out that he was not
the only looney tunes character that said that phrase -- but he was the one
that came to my mind first😊
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