From Bill Bennett's American Patriot's Almanac:
In 1863, when Abraham Lincoln was president, the cooks at the White House received a live turkey to fatten up for a holiday feast. The turkey’s name was Jack, and it didn’t take long for Lincoln’s son Tad, age ten, to make friends with the bird. Soon Jack was following young Tad around the White House grounds like a pet.
One day, the story goes, Lincoln was in a Cabinet meeting when a tearful Tad burst into the room. He announced that Jack was about to be killed and begged his father to stop the execution.
“But Jack was sent here to be eaten,” the president tried to explain. “He’s a good turkey, and we mustn’t kill him,” Tad sobbed back. The president halted his meeting, took a piece of paper, and wrote out a reprieve. A joyful Tad raced away to show the presidential order to the executioner and save the life of Jack the turkey.
According to the White House, people sometimes gave live holiday turkeys to presidents in the years following the Lincoln administration, but it wasn’t until 1947 that the first official National Thanksgiving Turkey was presented to Harry S. Truman, who followed Lincoln’s example and pardoned the bird.
The reprieve has become an annual tradition. Each year, the National Turkey Federation chooses a plump bird and brings it to Washington. (Believe it or not, an alternate is also chosen in case the winner cannot fulfill its responsibilities.) Just before Thanksgiving, the president of the United States pardons the National Thanksgiving Turkey at the White House. The grateful bird then retires to a petting zoo or a resort such as Disney World, where it stays the remainder of its happy, natural life.
Every day, Bill Bennett provides via email--for free--a reading from his American Patriot's Almanac. You’ll read about heroes, their achievements, and key events that took place “On This Day” in American history. Click here to subscribe.
Welcome to the Intersections Blog, where I try to work out where politics, pop culture, and the Bible meet
So What's This All About?
In case you didn't know, I'm in the multi-year-long process of posting a Christian devotional at the TAWG Blog. The TAWG Blog is, and always will be, mostly apolitical. For the most part, Bible-believing Christians will find little to disagree with there. But I also firmly believe that God's word can--and should--inform everything in life, and this should include politics and popular culture. How should we vote? How should we respond to hot topics such as abortion, capital punishment, taxes, and other issues? Which party, if either, is closer to the Biblical ideal? Tony Campolo and Ron Sider, Evangelicals whose political leanings are on the Left, have made the case in several of their writings that God wants his followers to vote politically on the Left more than on the Right. At times, some of them have gone so far as to equate voting on the Left with obedience to Christ, either subtly or not-so-subtly contending that the converse is true as well: If you vote Republican, you're sinning against the Savior.
I don't agree. I think that to the degree they actually resort to the Bible, they're misinterpreting it. With a whole bunch of caveats, I think politically conservative positions are a lot more compatible with the Scriptures than the Leftist positions.
Just to clarify, I would never accuse people who disagree with me--especially siblings in Christ--of what they accuse me of. I don't judge my own heart, much less anyone else's, and I don't equate political disagreement with theological fidelity to God. I have no reason to doubt their love for the Lord and "for the least of these," but I believe that they're sincerely wrong.
Just to clarify, I would never accuse people who disagree with me--especially siblings in Christ--of what they accuse me of. I don't judge my own heart, much less anyone else's, and I don't equate political disagreement with theological fidelity to God. I have no reason to doubt their love for the Lord and "for the least of these," but I believe that they're sincerely wrong.
So there are two main purposes for this blog. One is to make a case for my political beliefs based on Scripture. The other is a bit more vague, basically to work out my political beliefs and figure out what's based on Scripture and what's based on my own biases. I certainly don't have all the answers. Some of this stuff I'm still figuring out. And I'm certainly open to correction. As long as you make your case civilly and based on Scripture, feel free to make a comment, and I promise I'll post it and consider your arguments thoughtfully and prayerfully. Who knows? Maybe we'll learn a little something from each other.
May God bless our common striving together towards both the "little t" truth and "Big T" Truth. Our watchword here is a line from C. S. Lewis's The Last Battle: "Further up and further in!"
P.S. -- Below on the left is "Topics I've Covered" which lists everything I've posted topically. It's come to my attention that some people would like to see everything just listed for them. If that's you, you can get it here. Thanks to my friend Stephen Young for the tip!
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