The First Thanksgiving Quotes

“Because “time is the very lens through which” we gaze on the past, the passing of time necessarily influences what we see in the past.1”
― Robert Tracy McKenzie, The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us About Loving God and Learning from History

“Reviewing how American memory of the Pilgrims and the First Thanksgiving has changed over time exposes our fundamental self-centeredness, for we see how readily we reconstruct the past in self-serving ways, using history to further our agendas rather than learning from it to challenge our hearts. But we need not despair. In God’s divine economy, guilt acknowledged calls forth grace, and grace received gives rise to gratitude, culminating in the second predictable hallmark of Christian reflection: praise to our gracious Lord. Theology should always lead to doxology, J. I. Packer once observed. I think the same is true of history. If theology teaches us the nature of God, history—viewed through eyes of faith—reminds us of our need for God. “If You, LORD, should mark iniquities,” asks the 130th Psalm, “O Lord, who could stand?” Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. (PSALM 84:5 NIV)”
― Robert Tracy McKenzie, The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us About Loving God and Learning from History

“I confess that my first reaction was a self-righteous astonishment that any group could so disfigure the past after its own image, but I did not know then what I have learned since: First Parish Church is but one example of a longstanding American tradition of remembering both the Pilgrims and the First Thanksgiving in self-serving ways.”
― Robert Tracy McKenzie, The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us About Loving God and Learning from History

“The Pilgrims thought of liberty as the freedom to do what is right, not to decide what is right. In their view, the persecution that they had experienced in England was not wrong because it violated their natural right to worship according to the dictates of conscience. It was wrong because it impeded their divine obligation to worship God according to the dictates of Scripture.”
― Robert Tracy McKenzie, The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us About Loving God and Learning from History

“It was here that the Scrooby faithful began to exhibit what one historian, with only slight exaggeration, calls “an extraordinary talent for getting duped.”
― Robert Tracy McKenzie, The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us About Loving God and Learning from History

“Separatists were convinced, and to remain in submission to such a “popish device” would be sin.”
― Robert Tracy McKenzie, The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us About Loving God and Learning from History

“First, under “the gross darkness of popery,”
― Robert Tracy McKenzie, The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us About Loving God and Learning from History

“Our historical pursuits should seek meaning as well as understanding, wisdom as well as knowledge. They should center on two pivotal questions: What can I learn about the past? and What can I learn about how to live?”
― Robert Tracy McKenzie, The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us About Loving God and Learning from History

“More of us concede that history can be entertaining, and we’re even willing to “watch some history” on TV whenever nothing better is on, provided that it’s peppered with UFOs, the paranormal and high-speed car chases. At least that’s what the executives at the so-called History Channel seem to think; a recent week’s offerings included programs such as Ancient Aliens, Ghosts in the White House, Pawn Stars, Ice Road Truckers and Zombies: A Living History. (I wish I were making this up.)”
― Robert Tracy McKenzie, The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us About Loving God and Learning from History