George Washington's Thanksgiving proclamation
Well, yesterday Father Orthoduckâ„¢ gave a real-life example of the negative side of popular religiosity, that is, he showed how our popular religiosity with regards to ex-cons actually contradicts and goes against both our official religiosity and even what we declare and believe about ourselves as Christians. In fact, when most people think about popular religiosity, their attitude is almost uniformly negative. They may not know the term per se, but when examples are given, they almost inevitably speak negatively about it. And, that attitude is unfortunately shared by many scholars. In another post I will mention why. But, are there positive and powerful examples of popular religiosity. Yes there are!
The most powerful example is Thanksgiving Day in the USA. Thanksgiving Day is not part of the Christian liturgical calendar. In fact, it comes in the midst of a fasting season for the Orthodox and, in many years, for traditionalist Roman Catholics. It is “technically” a secular holiday, but with such strong religious overtones and such popular support in the culture that, despite its clearly Christian overtones, it has crossed the line into every part of the culture. In fact, it would take a very hard and determined atheist to resist feeling vaguely spiritual on that day, even if one does not attend church, synagogue, mosque, ashram, or whatever. It is a day that normally pulls families together, even if it may just be a very temporary show of unity. The strong cultural push is that this is clearly a day to put aside differences, and reach towards forgiveness of each other and thankfulness for what has come before and what is to come.
How strong is the “push,” or maybe I should say the “clout” of Thanksgiving Day? Well, unlike Christmas, you see no alternate holidays being celebrated or developed artificially. You see no lawsuits trying to stop the portrayal of Thanksgiving Day in the schools, despite the fact that prayer and thanksgiving are often mentioned in the presentations of even the most progressive of schools. Among the Orthodox, even the most observant will not observe the fast on that day. No bishops (hierarchs) have issued directions saying that the fast may not be broken on Thanksgiving Day. What I have encountered in Orthodox churches, from both cradle and convert, is, at times, a vague feeling of distress that they are going to break the fast, but no intention to keep the fast on that day, nay on that weekend. My wife and I do not keep the fast on that day, and, since we are often visiting family, we often do not keep the fast from Wednesday (when we arrive at the relative’s house) through when we leave their house. I think I have heard only one person speak of having a tofu turkey on Thanksgiving Day, and I think they did not repeat the experience. I am sure that there are very observant people who keep the fast and preach that it should be kept on that day, but they would be few. In fact, I hate to think how much disobedience would result were our hierarchs to officially declare that the fast must be kept on Thanksgiving Day or to declare that Thanksgiving Day is merely, and nothing else but, a secular holiday. The same would be true of almost any Christian group in the USA. I suspect even Jewish and Muslim groups would be hard put to mount a determined opposition to Thanksgiving Day.
Thanksgiving Day is an example of the power of popular religiosity. Popular religiosity can have such a strong hold on the people that even the official religiosity cannot hold against it. That does not mean that every bit of popular religiosity has the power of a Thanksgiving Day. But, when a bit of popular religiosity gains such power, it can sometimes even change, or at least bend, the official religiosity. So, though Thanksgiving Day is not an official holy day, yet there are homilies and sermons preached about it every year from Baptist through Orthodox. Every priest or pastor has to take Thanksgiving Day into account for the week in which it falls. Generally church meetings have to be cancelled. And, depending on your church, you either may experience an influx of people or fewer people on the Sunday after Thanksgiving Day.
Finally, sometimes popular religiosity can have such power that it ends up as part of the official religiosity. Thus, there are some Christian groups in the USA that argue that Thanksgiving Day is a holy day, not merely a holiday. In those cases, the power of the popular religiosity has been so powerful that it has added a holy day to their church calendar. What makes this interesting is that it means that this would be a case of a bit of popular religiosity making it into the Church by way of (more than one) Presidential proclamation. And, it is also interesting in that the mantra of separation of Church and State does not seem to apply when the President talks about Thanksgiving Day.
Does this help you to see the power that popular religiosity can have? More than that, can you see that, between yesterday and today, popular religiosity can be either positive or negative?
===MORE TO COME===
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