Christian Educators' Advocate: Teachers, Tell Students About Thanksgiving's Real Meaning
by Jim Brown
November 26, 2003
(AgapePress) - The head of a Christian educators group is encouraging teachers not to fear discussing the subject of Thanksgiving in the classroom. Since Thanksgiving was founded to give thanks to God, some public school districts have told teachers that broaching the holiday in class would violate the so-called "separation of church and state." But Finn Laursen, executive director of the Christian Educators Association International says to teach about the pilgrims who established the Plymouth Colony and wrote the Mayflower Compact is to teach real history.
"It's part of our national heritage," the director says, "and [the pilgrims] certainly were giving thanks to God. That ought to be shared, or you would miss that whole historical issue and many of the traits that we'd love to see in our citizens of today, of thankfulness to God."
The head of the Christian educators group is challenging instructors to take advantage of the opportunity to discuss the meaning of the Thanksgiving holiday with their students. He contends that talking about the Pilgrims and their search for religious freedom does not violate the Constitution at all, and in fact, to fail to do so is to ignore the roots of the great American republic.
"That would not be any violation at all to bring up those issues in a classroom," Laursen says, "to discuss them, to see how that that's part of our heritage. The issue is -- and I think this is a wonderful protection for everyone, including Christians -- that educators cannot take their personal beliefs and use their position to shove them down anyone's throat. However you can certainly discuss them in the context of the history of our nation."
The director of the CEAI says his group is poised to defend teachers who are censored or prohibited from discussing the origins and meaning of Thanksgiving.
