Today’s Thanksgiving feast has its origins in an English Reformation tradition carried on by the pilgrims who arrived at Plymouth in 1620. In an affront to the Catholic liturgical calendar, Puritans celebrated days of fasting and days of feasting—notably the day of feasting at the end of the fall harvest—in gratitude for God’s provision. In an age where consumption of food is often far removed from fields where it is produced, a growing number of evangelicals have reinterpreted the holiday as a time not only to thank God for abundance, but to examine where abundance comes from and the ethics of food, hunger, and environment.
June 12, 1744: David Brainerd, missionary to the New England Indians, is ordained by the Presbyterian Church. Within the next three years, he enjoyed success in his missionary efforts, but he died of tuberculosis at age 29 (see issue 77: Jonathan Edwards).
