September 9, 2021 Show with Bill Potter on “The First Thanksgiving: Separating Fact from Fiction”

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Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this ninth day of September 2021, and I am so thrilled to have back on the program someone who

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I absolutely loved interviewing the last time he was on, who was very strongly recommended by my dear friend,

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Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III, and I am speaking of Bill Potter, who is a historian and an author, and I am really looking forward to addressing the topic we have at hand today.

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Today we are going to be addressing something that should not be controversial, but over the years has become a matter of dispute, largely because of the attacks on everything that Americans hold sacred by the left.

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Today we're going to be addressing the first Thanksgiving, separating fact from fiction, preparing in advance of the holiday to accurately respond to those perpetuating myths and fallacies, and our guest

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Bill Potter, who received his B .A. from Cedarville College and his M .A. from the

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University of Dayton, and his Ph .D. from the College of William and Mary. He is also the chief historian for landmark events, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Bill Potter.

03:18

Thank you. Sorry, I had you on mute there for a second. Bill, before we go on to the subject at hand, tell our listeners about landmark events.

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Landmark Events is a company that sponsors history tours domestically around the

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United States in places where great historical events have occurred, great and small.

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We also give tours of England, Ireland, and Scotland when they're open, which hasn't been recently, and we teach from a biblical, providential,

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Christian worldview perspective, which makes us somewhat unique,

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I think, among history tour organizations. And if you want to ever vacation with your family with purpose, you need to look us up.

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It's landmarkevents .org. We're geared to families, and we have a huge response from homeschooled families in particular.

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Kevin Turley, who's the president of the company, and myself, both homeschooled all of our children all the way through.

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And I wish we'd had this organization when

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I was raising my children. I had to do it on my own when it came to going on history tours.

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But we provide 50 people at a time all over the United States and Canada these tours, and you can go online and see it all.

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Just follow the links. Great. Well, that website for Landmark Events is landmarkevents .org.

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The first Thanksgiving has been really attacked as of late.

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That's actually started being attacked some time ago, but it just seems to be more vocal in the media these days.

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First of all, why is it important, do you believe, that we have an accurate understanding of the first Thanksgiving and how this celebration began?

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Well, Thanksgiving has always been a part of Christian civilization.

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It wasn't unique to the pilgrims. It's their

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Thanksgiving that we have used as the template for making it a national holiday.

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But Christians have always had special times of Thanksgiving, even in the

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Old Testament. A number of the great celebrations that the Church of the

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Old Testament had was a matter of Thanksgiving and feasting and celebrating

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God's provision. So the pilgrims were in a long

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Christian tradition in doing what they did. But for us, it is at the earliest days of our country.

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Now, English settlers that came to Jamestown, they held a

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Thanksgiving at Berkeley Plantation in 1619, preceding the pilgrims by two years.

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And the transplantation of Christian civilization is really the story of all of the colonies that England set out to transplant.

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But the ones in New England were particularly poignant because of the 50 percent of the first settlers that first winter died, and God provided for them throughout the rest of the following year.

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And the Thanksgiving that they gathered for in November of 1621 was a great, great import and significance to the survival of their colony, but it also established in a very real way a template for us when we see what the goals and the actual beliefs and the way they lived them out in Plymouth and later in other colonies as well, has always had great significance.

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This is the 400th anniversary of it. Anniversaries are special. The 300th anniversary of the pilgrims of Thanksgiving back in 1920 was perhaps more celebratory, and there wasn't anybody who was involved in that who did not understand and know about the pilgrims and their biblical worldview and the establishment of a

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Christian colony. It was common currency. Everyone understood it.

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The virtues and the courage and the all of the good things that come with the study of who these people were and how they persevered for the glory of God, that was generally understood in our culture.

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Today, that is not the case. People have no clue as to why we celebrate

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Thanksgiving. They don't know its roots. They've been told for 18 years, and then if they go to college longer, they're told that our country was founded as a secular nation, that the

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Founding Fathers had really no biblical concept of their origins, but rather involved and embedded in the

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Enlightenment and all of that. But it was George Washington who proclaimed a national Thanksgiving when he was president.

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It was common currency among the Founders to give thanks to God and to understand their biblical roots in law and in culture.

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So it's a long -standing thing, and it really begins in a dramatic way with these settlers in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

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So tell us exactly what the circumstances were at that first Thanksgiving, who were in attendance, and let's also separate some of the facts from fiction as we continue on through the discussion.

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Well, we need to understand who they were. They called themselves

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Pilgrims, and the great book written by their governor, William Bradford, said that they knew that they were

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Pilgrims in this world, and from that they got their name. But they were

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Separatists in England. England was ruled by King James, and the king was declared the head of the church.

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And the Reformation that had taken place, the Protestant Reformation, over the previous century for the

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Separatists had not gone quite far enough when it came to returning to a solid biblical worldview and biblical preaching, and in particular, biblical worship.

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And the king of England had somewhat called a halt to the reforming of the church, and he was still considered the head of the church and dictated how

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God was to be worshipped. And the Pilgrims had determined the

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Separatists, and there were many different kinds of Separatists. This particular congregation was in the town of Scrooby in England, and they, from reading their scriptures, didn't see things like the reading of prayers, and the going to confessionals, and using particular liturgies, and other things that were sort of imposed on the church from outside the scriptures.

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So they believed that the church had not reformed quite enough, and they declared themselves separate from the

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Church of England. Well, that was illegal, and you paid fines, and you went to jail if you did not attend an

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Anglican or a Church of England church. Now, many of the Church of England churches had

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Puritan pastors who were still seeking to purify the church. But the

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Separatists had decided that the Puritan movement within England was not going to succeed, and they did not want to wait and tarry for the king and the bishops to come alongside.

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They gave up on them, as it were, and determined to worship God according to their lights, based on the scripture.

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And so they were harried out of the land, as King James said he was going to do.

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Some were arrested, they were thrown in prison, and a man of noble birth,

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William Brewster, had gathered the church in his home, which was large, and he was influential, and had connections in the

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Netherlands, and he determined, as an elder, along with the pastor of the congregation,

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John Robinson, to move the congregation from Scrooge to Amsterdam, where there was pretty much total religious freedom among the

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Calvinist Dutch. And so they moved their congregation and eventually ended up establishing themselves in Leiden in Holland.

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And the congregation reached about 300 souls at one point.

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It had grown while it was there, and various aspects of Dutch culture and quarrels in the churches and problems had erupted over the years, and a number of the members of the congregation, in fact the entire congregation, determined that they ought to go to the

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New World, where they could establish a biblical church based on what they would call the regulative principle of worship.

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That is, you only worship God according to his commands. And so a portion, a small portion really, of the congregation were able to get together and make that perilous journey into the wilderness, landing in Plymouth, landing at a place that they called

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New Plymouth when they arrived. The whole story of the pilgrimage itself is an incredible tale, and the fact that none of them actually died on the voyage is somewhat remarkable in and of itself.

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That first winter that they were there, and for various reasons, over half of them died and were buried secretly at night because they didn't know exactly where they had landed, they didn't know who lived there, they didn't know if they were being watched by men who would not want them there.

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And the first year of existence was extremely perilous with a high mortality rate.

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And that first Thanksgiving was conducted in response to God's showing them favor, enabling them to have a harvest, enabling them to establish good relations with the tribes that lived in the neighborhood who gave them food and seed to plant and showed them how, and basically had very positive relationships with them.

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They had them in their homes for meals and such. And so this great celebration in November of 1621 was announced, and Governor Bradford recorded the event itself.

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It was a three -day feast to celebrate God's provision for their needs.

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And it was a tremendous time, and the neighbors came, the

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Wampanoags, who outnumbered the pilgrims, but they didn't come empty -handed.

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They brought loads and loads of venison with them. So it was a great, great

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Thanksgiving, that very first one, thanksgiving to God for his provision.

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Was it just that one Indian tribe that gathered with the pilgrims for that celebration? Can you repeat that?

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I didn't catch the first part of what you said. Was it only the one Indian tribe, Native American tribe?

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Oh, yeah, well, there were a number of major tribes in New England at the time, and the one that lived at the closest to the

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English separatists were the Wampanoags. And the place where they had landed at one time, it had been called

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Patuxet. There'd been an Indian village there, and several years before the pilgrims had landed, the

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Patuxets had all died of some probably European plague, some disease that had come ashore with sailors at some point, and it carried off everybody in the village, so there were no survivors.

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And it was sort of an empty place where they landed, but it was a beautiful harbor, and it had fresh water and a hillside to build the fences, and it was, in some ways, a perfect place to establish a colony, a small colony.

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But around them was this confederacy of various Indian tribes and clans, and the

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Paramount chief, Massasoit, actually his main town was in what later would become

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Rhode Island, was south of Plymouth, but there were various smaller groups that were allied with them, and collectively known as the

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Wampanoags, and the Poconocots, and there were some other smaller divisions, but they were all under the authority of Massasoit, who brought a number of his warriors with him when they came to visit on that Thanksgiving, and they had earlier signed a treaty with Massasoit, and it was a treaty of mutual defense and legal agreement on punishing malefactors, whether they be

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Natives or English, and that treaty held for more than 50 years.

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And it was put to the test early on when an Englishman had murdered one of the local

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Natives, and he was executed for it by the English themselves.

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So it was a serious agreement, a covenant, as the

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Pilgrims would have called it, and it was held to for more than 50 years, until a few years after Massasoit died when the treaty was violated in King Philip's War.

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But the peaceableness or the agreeableness of their getting along was wonderful, and during those years a number of the

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Natives were converted to Christ, which was one of the goals of the Pilgrims, was to, well, it was stated in the

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Mayflower Compact that they had signed a board ship. Since they didn't land where they were supposed to, they were north of Virginia, and they were not at a location where they had particular rules that they had to follow, and they created their own little self -government through the

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Mayflower Compact, and they stated very clearly that they had come there to establish a

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Christian colony under the authority of King James, and to raise their families in that place as God had commanded them in Scripture.

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And so they knew why they were there, and they were very forward -looking people.

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They thought of their children and the generations to follow. They saw themselves as representing generations to follow, and follow they did.

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It's estimated there are 30 million people in the United States today that are descended from this 102 members of the

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Mayflower group that landed in Plymouth.

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And can you remind me of the year of the actual first Thanksgiving celebration, and the date for that matter, if you have that?

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Yeah, they had left England on August the 5th, and had gotten turned around because one of their ships was leaky, and they actually didn't get underway until a month after their first attempt.

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So they ate up a lot of their food sitting out there in the ocean, not moving.

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But they finally spotted land on November the 9th, 1620, and they landed at Cape Cod, and they tried to get around Cape Cod, but the shoals were too treacherous, and eventually they moved further and further into the harbor, and landed at what today is called

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Plymouth Rock, and that was in November of 1620.

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And the first Thanksgiving was a year later, in November of 1621.

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So last year was the 400th anniversary of the landing of the

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Pilgrims, and this year is the first Thanksgiving, 1621.

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Great, and do you have the exact three dates of that feast? Well, they changed the calendar in 1725, and let's see if I've got that...

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You can look that up when we go to our first break. If anybody wants to join us on the air with a question about the very first Thanksgiving, as we rapidly approach the 400th anniversary of that three -day feast, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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This is Chris Arnzen, if you just tuned us in. Our guest today for the entire program is historian

37:52

Bill Potter. We are addressing the very first Thanksgiving, and if you have questions on this topic as we approach the 400th anniversary of the first Thanksgiving, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

38:08

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

38:18

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Bill, I believe you were hunting for those three exact dates in November.

38:29

Well, people have been hunting for those for centuries. The primary sources that we have from the pilgrims themselves did not keep track of particular dates as a rule, and Thanksgiving itself, what we know for sure is it was held somewhere between September 21st and December 1st.

38:55

And I guess traditionally in the United States, even from the time of the

39:03

War for Independence and such, November has kind of been the traditional month of Thanksgiving, and the date wasn't nailed down until, actually,

39:17

I think Abraham Lincoln made it the third Thursday of the month, and then Franklin Roosevelt made it the fourth

39:24

Thursday of the month, and made it an official national holiday.

39:30

So they just, the government, the federal government sort of, it wasn't totally arbitrary.

39:38

There's a tradition that it was, you know, late in November, but we really don't know.

39:45

It could have been in October, could have been September. Now, how did the pilgrims and the

39:52

Native Americans that were present at this three -day feast, how did they overcome the language barrier, or were they bilingual?

40:01

Had they both learned the other's language by that point, or how did that work itself out?

40:11

Well, this was one of the very special providences that the pilgrims were so thankful for, and that is when they landed and had been there a short while in the springtime, suddenly a local

40:30

Native came striding through their camp, and walked up to one of the men, and greeted him, and asked him if they had any beer, and they were flattered.

40:47

A universal language. That was a universal language.

40:53

They brought it with them, but it was already gone. So, they didn't have any to offer him, but they found out that this particular native,

41:07

Squanto, as they kind of abbreviated his name to Squanto, knew some

41:19

English. He had come in contact with English sailors along the coast, had picked up English words, and they were able to, with the

41:31

English that he knew, they were able to communicate with him, at least a little bit, and he made them to understand that there was another local native that was even better at English than he was.

41:48

And so, relation, that's how they were able to, that was how they were able to put together the agreement with the

41:59

Poconocots, with the Wampanoags and Chief Massasoit, is they had translators who spoke

42:08

English, and that was, it was a little bit, it was too soon, they hadn't,

42:15

I mean, that was early on, and Thanksgiving is going to be, you know, six months later, or however much later the

42:25

Thanksgiving celebration was, but in that interim time, most of the colonists hadn't picked up much of the native tongue, but they did have these two that were able to speak

42:40

English, and they were the intermediaries, and they did a fantastic job of doing that.

42:52

And then as time went on, more of the colonists made it a point to learn the local languages, because they, eventually, they wanted to be able to communicate the gospel to them in their own language, and to translate the

43:10

Bible. Eventually, when the other Puritans came, the Pilgrims were a subset of the

43:18

Puritan movement in England, and the Pilgrims were there 1620, and between 1630 and 1640, 10 ,000

43:29

Puritans emigrated to the shores of America, and established the

43:35

Massachusetts Bay Colony. And with them, there were several men who learned the native tongues very quickly, and were able to translate the scriptures and such.

43:49

So the communication was by sign language for most people, but when the translators were there, they were able to communicate through them to Samoset and to Squanto.

44:12

Squanto was the one that was more fluid, and Samoset is the one that they had met first.

44:21

I think I said it the opposite way, but in any case, they had two men who were able to speak

44:28

English. And so that's how they that's how they communicated initially. So by the time of the first Thanksgiving, probably most of the people were using sign language to communicate with Massasoit and his men.

44:45

And when he came to the Thanksgiving feast, he brought over 90 of his people with him.

44:52

So they outnumbered the Pilgrims at their own feast. And so I'm assuming then the prayer was quite long by the

45:01

Pilgrims. Yeah. Just out of curiosity, and I'm sure this is on the minds of many, as far as the food that was eaten, prepared, cooked, served, eaten at that table during those three days of feasting, how different was it than what we normally experience today?

45:31

Well, at least in most places, I know that there's a variety of ways people celebrate

45:38

Thanksgiving. The Italians that I know celebrate it quite differently. But, you know, turkey and stuffing and corn on the cob and mashed potatoes, all those things.

45:50

So you already said venison. I love venison. Yeah, we do know a little bit. We do know a little bit about what they had.

45:57

Governor Bradford dispatched a four -man hunting party to obtain game for the celebration.

46:04

And they returned with a week's supply of waterfowl and wild turkeys. That's from Plymouth Plantation by Bradford.

46:14

Oh, so there was turkey at the Thanksgiving dinner, the first. Yes. Uh -huh. Waterfowl and wild turkeys.

46:21

Added to the events menu was the venison brought by the Poconokets.

46:28

I wish I could find somebody's house to crash during Thanksgiving that had this venison, because I love venison.

46:35

Oh, well, come on down. Oh, yeah? Yeah, we usually do. But they don't know, you know, everything that they had there, but we know what they normally had to eat in Plymouth Colony over the next, you know, over the next 50 years.

46:54

There were certain foods that were common to them, and some of them from the very beginning.

47:00

So some of this was there. I mean, they included beaver, baked clams, lobster, cod, bass, various kinds of fish,

47:10

Indian corn, which we know they had because that is really what saved them, was the corn, the seed corn they had gotten.

47:19

In fact, they had stolen when they landed on Cape Cod, but eventually they found out whose it was and paid them back.

47:27

Peas and beans, cabbage, onions, parsnips, cheese, porridge, biscuits, all that kind of stuff.

47:36

They had puddings they made out of corn, and typical beverages would have been beer, ale on the spring water.

47:46

So, you know, it was more than probably a simple meal. It was a three -day event, and they were used to doing that.

47:52

In Holland, there was always a Thanksgiving service, or a

48:00

Thanksgiving celebration they did when they lived in Holland, in Leiden, because the

48:06

Dutch celebrated their victory over the siege of the Spanish army that had taken place in 1574, a very brutal siege.

48:15

And they had a Thanksgiving celebration every year after they drove the Spaniards away at that time.

48:23

And these were people of the book, too. I mean, they knew the scriptures frontwards and backwards, but especially the

48:31

Psalms, because that's what they sang. That's all they sang was the Psalms.

48:37

And so, you know, they were constantly quoting, Oh, give thanks unto the

48:42

Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever. I mean, those kinds of Thanksgiving Psalms, they were quoting constantly.

48:52

They probably also had some during that celebration, some sports, the

49:02

Separatists and the Puritans, of which, as I said, they were a subset. They loved field sports, and they called them recreations.

49:13

But they typically, the festivities followed the usual, they followed the usual Puritan pattern that included wrestling and foot races and jumping contests.

49:25

And it also usually included the use of firearms. Winslow reported, quote, we exercised our arms, which may have referred to target shooting, or just firing demonstrations for Massasoit.

49:41

But they had their weapons there, and they had some sort of demonstrations.

49:48

And I'm guessing they probably had some sharpshooting exhibition, knowing some of the military guys that were part of their group.

50:05

Anyway, they had field games, most likely, along with the food.

50:12

Whether they put out tables, you know, all the artwork over the centuries that has tried to depict the first thing, this particular

50:20

Thanksgiving, usually has big long tables. There's no indication that there were.

50:27

We really don't know. But they were very practical people. So it very well may have had some sawhorses and planks.

50:37

It's hard to say. Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina, our guest

50:44

Bill Potter stole your thunder and already answered your question. So if you want to send in another one. Grady was asking if the pilgrims had brought from England and Holland, a

50:56

Thanksgiving celebration that was already being conducted before they arrived on the...

51:03

Yeah, they did have Thanksgiving traditions. Yep, already. Well, thanks

51:09

Grady, and try to submit another question so we don't have to have a duplicate there. We're going to go to our midway break, actually.

51:19

It's the longer break than normal, folks. So please be patient with us. Please use this time wisely, because it's so long.

51:28

Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show, because they have to localize

51:38

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and all their programming geographically to Lake City, Florida. And they do so by airing their own public service announcements in the middle of the show and other local things, while we air our globally heard commercials.

51:53

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52:06

Buy their products, use their services, support their parachurch organizations, visit their churches.

52:13

But when you can't do any of those things, please, I'm urging you, please, at the very least, respond to our advertisers by thanking them for sponsoring this show.

52:24

We cannot exist without our advertisers, folks. The funding that they provide is what primarily keeps us on the air.

52:31

We do have some faithful and loyal financial benefactors, contributors, but the number of these folks who are so generous are comparatively very few.

52:45

We cannot survive alone on the contributions that come in, especially after the coronavirus pandemic hysteria has hurt so many people in our audience financially.

52:55

So please keep that in mind, that we really depend on our advertisers to exist. So write down the information they provide, and at the very least, thank them for sponsoring the show, if indeed you love the show and you don't want it to disappear.

53:08

Also, send in your questions to Bill Potter about the first Thanksgiving as we approach rapidly the 400th anniversary of the first Thanksgiving celebration here on the

53:20

American continent. Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

53:29

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

53:35

As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

53:44

USA. Don't go away, we're going to be right back after these messages. I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries.

53:57

My friend Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I are headed down to Atlanta, Georgia once again for the

54:03

G3 conference. This year's G3 will be held Thursday, September 30th through Saturday, October 2nd on the theme,

54:11

Christ is supreme over all. I'll be joined by over 20 other speakers and musicians to lead in the worship of God through preaching, teaching, and singing, including

54:20

John MacArthur, Phil Johnson, Conrad M. Bayway, Daryl Bernard Harrison, and Virgil Walker.

54:26

For details, visit g3conference .com. That's g3conference .com. Chris Arnson and I hope to see you

54:33

September 30th through October 2nd at G321. This is James White reminding you that Christ is supreme over all.

54:47

When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Rich Jensen of Hope Reform Baptist Church in Quorum, New York, and the

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Here's a great way for your church to help keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew bibles tattered and falling apart?

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Hi, this is John Sampson, Pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona, taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnzen and the

56:41

Iron Sharpens Iron podcast. I consider Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity. He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big penetrating questions while always defending the key doctrines of the

56:53

Christian faith. I've always been happy to point people to this podcast knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the internet where folk won't be led astray.

57:01

I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide. This is a day of great spiritual compromise and yet God has raised

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57:18

I'm pleased to do so and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting

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I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris if you would. All the details can be found at ironsharpensironradio .com

57:39

where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com. Here's what

57:48

Gary DeMar, President of American Vision, had to say about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio recently.

57:54

Good to be back, Chris. I always enjoy our time. You, I have to tell you, one of the better interviewers out there and I've been doing this for 30, more than 30 years.

58:04

Wow, that's some compliment. How much do I owe you for that? You don't have to owe me anything.

58:11

We're in good shape. I'm glad you said it on the air so I don't have to brag about myself.

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Tell your friends and loved ones about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio airing live Monday through Friday 4 to 6 p .m.

58:25

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58:40

Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

58:46

Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens Iron Radio financially.

58:55

Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers who strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in scripture through the person and work of our

59:07

Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, the end for which we strive is the glory of God.

59:14

If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

59:27

Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior. Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.

59:37

Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org.

59:45

This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our

59:50

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01:09:19

Chris Orensen, Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Before I return to Bill Potter and our discussion on the first Thanksgiving as we are quickly approaching the 400th anniversary of that three -day feast,

01:09:33

I just wanted to remind you of a couple of things. If you are a man in ministry leadership, whether you are a pastor or an elder, and by the way, folks,

01:09:42

I believe that's the same office, if you're a deacon, if you're a parachurch leader, whatever leadership position you hold as a man in the church, you are invited to a free

01:09:54

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio pastor's luncheon. We've been conducting these for two years.

01:10:01

I'm sorry, two times a year, I should say, ever since we relocated to Pennsylvania, and we've been conducting them for decades, going back to the 1990s when

01:10:14

I was on Long Island, New York. This is the brainchild of my precious late wife,

01:10:20

Julie, who started these luncheons, and I have been continuing them after her going home to Christ in her memory and honor.

01:10:31

And I hope that if you are a man in ministry leadership, you can make it somehow by plane, train, automobile, or parachute to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Monday, September 27th, 11 a .m.

01:10:43

to 2 p .m. at the Bongiorno Conference Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, absolutely free of charge.

01:10:51

And our guest speaker is none other than a man I have been raving about ever since I launched this program in 2005, and I've been raving about him actually for a decade before that, over a decade before that.

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I met Dr. Conrad M. Bayway, the most powerful preacher alive on the planet

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Earth, in my opinion, in 1995 when he was speaking and preaching at a conference at Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick, New York, which was the former church where I was a member before moving to Pennsylvania.

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And Dr. Conrad M. Bayway is the pastor of Kabwatha Baptist Church of Lusaka, Zambia, Africa. He's the founding chancellor of African Christian University.

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He has become, over the years, a very highly sought -after conference speaker, speaking at such places as the

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Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, the Church of John MacArthur, and the

01:12:00

G3 Conference, which is coming up in Atlanta, Georgia, and many other prominent conferences.

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This man is extraordinary. I am not exaggerating. I am not flattering him. I am not using hyperbole.

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He is absolutely phenomenal. He is our guest speaker at the free

01:12:19

Iron Sharpens Iron radio pastor's luncheon, Monday, September 27th, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m.

01:12:25

at the Bongiorno Conference Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. And not only is admission free, but you'll be leaving with a heavy sack of brand new books donated by most of the major Christian publishers in the

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United States and the United Kingdom. I select a particular title from each publisher that I want every man at the luncheon to have, and they donate 100 copies of that title.

01:12:54

So there's going to be thousands of books there, and you are going to be leaving with a very heavy sack of them if you are in attendance.

01:13:03

All of this is free. That was an insistence of my late wife, who I said first organized these luncheons, and it was her requirement of me that I never charge a penny to the men in ministry attending them, and that I never sell anything there, and that I never have an ulterior motive or hidden agenda.

01:13:26

She wanted these events to be nothing but a wonderful treat to fellowship, feasting, rest and relaxation, and revival, and just a wonderful time for the pastors to enjoy without having the hidden agenda that many things that pastors are subject to thrust at them while attending meetings such as this.

01:13:58

So remember, it's absolutely free. Send me an email if you'd like to come. If you're a man in ministry leadership, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:14:04

chrisarnson at gmail .com, and put Pastors Luncheon in the subject line. Also, if you love this show and you don't want it to disappear, please,

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Remember folks, one of the main reasons, one of the primary reasons I launched this show in 2005 was to be a friend, a helping hand, a platform, and an extension of the local pastor and the local church.

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01:16:08

click support, then click to donate now and use some of that money that's collecting interest in your bank, the money that you use for recreational purposes and trivial purposes.

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01:16:38

Last but not least, if you are not a member of a local Bible -believing church, a biblically faithful church, a

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God -honoring church, I have extensive lists of biblically sound churches spanning the globe, and I have helped many people in our audience all over the world find churches sometimes very, very close to where they live.

01:16:58

That may be you, no matter where you live, so send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put

01:17:04

I need a church in the subject line. I may be able to help you out, whether it's for a permanent church home or whether you're going on vacation and need a solid church to visit, or if you have family, friends, and loved ones who do not belong to a solid church, send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com

01:17:19

and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you could send in a question to Bill Potter, who is a historian, and in fact he is the chief historian for landmarkevents .org,

01:17:33

and today we are addressing the first Thanksgiving Separating Fact from Fiction, Preparing in Advance of the

01:17:40

Holiday to Accurately Respond to Those Perpetuating Myths and Fallacies. The email address, again, is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

01:17:48

Bill, first of all, let me make sure that you finished saying all that you wanted to say before the break.

01:17:55

Were you pretty much wrapped up, or can I go to a different area of this subject?

01:18:03

You can go to a different area, that would be fine. I did want to make a remark, though, about your advertisers.

01:18:09

Okay. They are all in the theological tradition of pilgrims.

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We're talking about our ancestors theologically. Forget about the

01:18:22

DNA, it's spiritual DNA. Amen. And I see it in virtually every single advertiser that advertises on your program.

01:18:34

They are all descendants, theologically, to a large extent, of the people that we're talking about.

01:18:42

And, you know, God tells us in the scriptures to look at the faith of our fathers, and to emulate them, and to not forget them, to remember them, and to celebrate them.

01:18:55

And that's really what we're doing. And that's what, you know, the company I work for, that's what we do.

01:19:02

And that's, you know, that's why our Plymouth tour every year is a highlighted year, every

01:19:10

November. The week before Thanksgiving, we're there. And we go to all the significant places.

01:19:18

And we even have a Thanksgiving dinner with the, oh, it's not on the Thanksgiving day, it's the week before, with some of the actors from Plymouth Plantation.

01:19:30

Wow. And they're really terrific. We have a Pilgrim meal. And they are quite, they're quite entertaining, and even, you might say, biblically sound, although I don't even know if they're believers or not.

01:19:45

But we have a terrific time. So if anybody's interested in that, you can go to our website and see what our

01:19:53

Plymouth Pilgrim tour looks like. And that's landmarkevents .org, landmarkevents .org,

01:19:59

and hopefully we'll remember to repeat that later in the show. Thanks. Last time you were on, which was

01:20:06

August 17, we addressed exposing the lies of the 1619

01:20:13

Project fraud. And how does that relate to the slander and the history revisionism, historic revisionism, of the left in regard to Thanksgiving?

01:20:31

You know, it's quite remarkable when you think that liberals, one of the hallmark of liberals, one of the hallmarks that was actually honorable that Bible -believing

01:20:45

Christians have emulated and should continue to, is that those, regardless of their skin color and ethnic origin, are equal in the sight of God, and should live at peace and in harmony, and actually, beyond that, enjoy celebrations and fellowship without ever having skin color or ethnic origin.

01:21:16

Enter into the equation. It's amazing how liberals could highlight that as one of their hallmarks, and then we come to the point where liberals are not really in authority now.

01:21:29

It's leftists, and there is a difference. Totalitarian leftists.

01:21:36

They have been besmirching things like Thanksgiving for a long time, but it seems to have come to its height.

01:21:45

How are those things connected? The 1619 Project fraud, those involved in it, and the slander of Thanksgiving?

01:21:54

Well, there is an interesting connection. The slandering of the pilgrims and slandering all

01:22:01

Europeans who came to the New World has a long and extinguished history.

01:22:10

Well, it's not extinguished yet. And they began against Thanksgiving really a good while ago.

01:22:20

The United American Indians of New England declared Thanksgiving a national day of mourning 50 years ago.

01:22:28

Well, 1970. Their argument is that the pilgrims and everybody who followed them came here to destroy these pristine woodland cultural people.

01:22:47

Now, who was that? I'm sorry, I missed who was that declared it a national day of mourning. Who was that?

01:22:53

The United American Indians of New England. And, you know, in their literature, and you don't have to go very far online, you type in Thanksgiving and go down to like the second or third link, and you've got the attacks on Thanksgiving.

01:23:11

They say it's not. It's a day of mourning, article after article about how many, many

01:23:18

Indians don't believe in Thanksgiving, but rather it's a day of mourning to mourn the hundreds of thousands of Native Americans who perished in this

01:23:33

Holocaust brought from Europe. And one of the interesting things about the study of history, and we have a tendency too in that study to overlook the sins of our heroes.

01:23:48

All mankind, every person ever born, is a sinner and will remain so unless arrested by the sovereign grace of God.

01:23:58

And when we study history, there's going to be, when we study the history of our own country, there's going to be, there's going to be a lot of evil, a lot of bad things that have happened.

01:24:09

And in teaching history, we need to be aware that it certainly isn't a bed of roses, and that as long as men are sinners, there is going to be a lot of sin in our past.

01:24:26

And we see it, and we try not to avoid talking about those things, but we also see the good, and we see the grace that God has bestowed on our nation and our people.

01:24:45

And it doesn't mean that, you know, that our past is perfect. It's just very imperfect. And, you know, the country was founded by imperfect people.

01:24:55

And so there has been oppression and lawlessness.

01:25:04

You know, the Tokums and the Puritans, one of the laws that they passed early on was that everybody had to be in a family.

01:25:13

So single young men were not allowed to live by themselves.

01:25:20

They had to be under the discipline and government of the first government, self -government, and if they were failing at that, they needed to be under the government of the family.

01:25:31

And so single young men would take off to the frontier where they could be their autonomous selves and work out their sinful proclivities.

01:25:41

And there have always been those lawless men. But even good men in the past have made mistakes and committed sins against other people.

01:25:55

Well, one of the recurring events in the contact between European cultures and native cultures of North America was primarily in trade.

01:26:10

That's how Squanto was aware of English.

01:26:16

The natives along the coast had been trading with English, French, and Spanish and Dutch traders for quite some time.

01:26:24

And European diseases were notoriously carried by sailors.

01:26:31

And those sailing ships were full of men who really were not anchored in any kind of Christian or biblical view or environment.

01:26:41

And they brought diseases with them as well. And in coming in contact with native populations,

01:26:50

European diseases could be absolutely devastating. And prior to the Pilgrims coming, their disease had wiped out the tribe that lived at the place where they landed at Plymouth.

01:27:02

And it wasn't something that Europeans self -consciously sought to do to exterminate the natives.

01:27:11

And some of the native diseases, of course, were carried back to Europe, too, with some of the same kinds of effects.

01:27:19

But the problem was that a lot of the native people didn't have resistance to European type diseases that were fatal.

01:27:29

And unfortunately, a certain number of people have used that as a ideological weapon to accuse the

01:27:39

English and the Pilgrims and all the settlers of coming to annihilate the populations of the native populations of North America.

01:27:49

And it simply isn't true. It wasn't done with malice or forethought.

01:27:55

They were interested in trade and in profit. Both sides were.

01:28:01

And so one of the providential circumstances of those contacts were devastating diseases that depopulated areas of the coast.

01:28:14

And that should not be used as an accusation and as a weapon. Now, also,

01:28:20

Europeans sought to, and the English especially, sought to purchase their land from local natives.

01:28:30

And oftentimes the natives were quite willing to make those kinds of deals. And they also made treaties.

01:28:37

And both sides broke treaties. Natives broke treaties. Europeans broke treaties.

01:28:44

Sinful men stole property from other sinful men and caused conflict.

01:28:50

And sometimes those led to warfare. And where biblical law was not reigning, where biblical law was not thought of, there were always legal problems and troubles.

01:29:05

And so there's always been conflict of some sort. And the historians who have an ax to grind against European settlement in North America always try to make it look like contemporary natives aren't going to celebrate

01:29:28

Thanksgiving because it's a national day of mourning for them. Well, that's not true.

01:29:35

Most Native Americans are not in that ideological straitjacket. Intellectuals are, white liberals and white leftists are, and that they want to erase the past and, you know, use it as an ideological weapon of their current gripes, whatever they might be.

01:29:58

And so when you read these articles attacking the pilgrims, and there are those who you can attack successfully because of, you know, historically there were problems with settlements, always were.

01:30:15

The least number of problems, though, were the pilgrims themselves, who really sought to live by a biblical worldview.

01:30:24

And the Indians saw that. And guess what? Numbers of them were converted, and Indian churches were established.

01:30:31

And when the Puritans came, they were highly interested in establishing

01:30:37

Native churches and converts to Christianity, and they succeeded. They were called whole towns of converted

01:30:47

Natives were called praying towns. And that doesn't mean that the

01:30:53

English Christians went about everything the right way in communicating the gospel, trying to turn the

01:31:04

Natives into little Englishmen rather than sound Christians, but they wanted them to follow the biblical model for families, and for home leadership, and for biblical worship.

01:31:19

And when the Indian converts did those things, they abandoned most of what they had learned in their pagan cultures.

01:31:31

So Christianity does change things. It changes their culture. It doesn't turn them into Englishmen, although some tried to do that, but it turned them into Christians, and their value systems changed.

01:31:47

And, you know, when that violation of the treaty, the breaking of the treaty, when it occurred in King Philip's war later in the century, the first victims of the

01:32:04

Indian, of the Wampanoag, and Narragansetts, and those who allied together to drive the

01:32:10

English into the ocean, the very first victims were the praying Indians. They went after their own tribesmen because they believed they had, because they are the ones who had gone over and abandoned the ancestors.

01:32:27

You know, they're the ones who abandoned the ancestors and abandoned the worldview of, you know, of paganism, and indeed they had.

01:32:36

And ironically, the Puritans themselves did not trust the praying Indians when war came along, because they didn't know if they would go back and give up their faith and join in the rebellion, or join in the war.

01:32:54

And so they forced them all into concentration camps on islands, because they didn't know what the reaction was going to be.

01:33:06

But you know that there are Native American churches on Cape Cod that were formulated, that were formed during that time, the time of Plymouth, and they're still there, and they still have

01:33:21

Native members of the congregations. So the Christian faith has had a continuity from the very beginning, even among the

01:33:31

Natives. Well, when you read these historians who, it's all part of a larger political and social agenda to try and destroy the

01:33:46

Christian past, and in this case the

01:33:52

Pilgrims, or the Puritans, or whoever, the Jamestown settlers, you name it.

01:33:59

But it's not the majority of them. I mean,

01:34:04

I can't believe that it is or would be, because most

01:34:10

Native Americans are actually Christians that are churchgoing people at all.

01:34:17

There are many, many Native American Christians, and they're part of the American culture, and they don't buy into this radicalism and this violence.

01:34:26

Now, we go, we do our tour there every year, and there's a tradition the week before Thanksgiving that some of the radicals come with their bullhorns and they stand on Coal Hill, where the

01:34:41

Pilgrims are buried, next to the Massasoit Monument, and they scream out various political slogans.

01:34:51

And it's quite a mixture of people, and I'm guessing it's composed of Harvard students and a few radical wampanoags and others of like radicalism, and they march through the town, and if you're dressed like a

01:35:10

Pilgrim, the police tell you to get away, to leave, because sometimes they get violent with Pilgrim reenactments of marches and singing psalms and things like that.

01:35:26

They're attacked. Well, the 400th pretty much got called off last year because of COVID, handily enough.

01:35:36

But this year, some of the commemorations and celebrations are going to be held, and we're one of them.

01:35:45

And there will be pushback. There always is, from those who hate the idea that Christianity came here and changed people's culture and changed their lives.

01:36:02

And the way that they get people on board is to make the big blanket statements.

01:36:09

Most Indians think that this is a day of mourning. It's not

01:36:14

Thanksgiving. The Great Spirit wants us to remember the slaughter of millions of our brethren, blah, blah, blah.

01:36:24

They have the eyes and ears of the press, of the intellectuals at the universities, public schools, and now corporate financing for radicalism.

01:36:43

And they started this quite a while ago when it comes to the Pilgrims and the celebration of Thanksgiving.

01:36:51

And it's not at some extreme level. They're not being destructive as much now, but they're putting up other monuments.

01:37:02

They're putting up counter -Pilgrim monuments in Plymouth.

01:37:09

And sometimes local officials are cowed by radicalism and threats and that sort of thing.

01:37:18

So there has been a certain kind of revisionism for a long time when it comes to the settlement of the

01:37:29

New World. Columbus has certainly been victimized by this attitude, and by this radicalism.

01:37:41

And the Pilgrims have too. My Pilgrim ancestors that were on the

01:37:48

Mayflower are buried in that sarcophagus on Coles Hill, and they died the first winter.

01:37:54

And they died the first winter, and that's where their bones are. And that's where the radicals begin with their bullhorns.

01:38:04

I remember one year they were calling for freeing that Indian radical that was accused of murder on a reservation, killed some

01:38:15

FBI agents. I can't remember his first name. Pelletier. And they were marching around Plymouth, which is the motto of Plymouth is

01:38:25

America's hometown, and marching around town with placards of this radical native who they believe was railroaded by the

01:38:37

FBI and locked away for the rest of his life. And they were protesting that.

01:38:42

And that was just a few years ago. And it was an incident that I think occurred back in the 70s. So it's interesting to see.

01:38:51

So there's a continuity of protest over the last 50 years in Plymouth also.

01:39:00

And all the more reason we should be celebrating the good that came out of that settlement and the very modest and peaceable

01:39:14

Christian people that sought to establish a Christian society there that would be perpetuated through their own families, through their own generations.

01:39:26

And, Grady, looks like you're going to have to send in a question again, another question, because our guest answered your second question about evangelizing the

01:39:36

Pilgrims, evangelizing the Native Americans. So if you've got another question, send it in. And let me ask a question by CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island.

01:39:47

I'm going to ask the question, and then I will have you answer it when we return from our final break.

01:39:56

CJ says, Chris Arnzen, I know that you are a native Long Islander. I was wondering if you knew about one of the oldest churches on Long Island that was planted in the 1640s and was a great

01:40:14

Christian influence on the surrounding Shinnecock Native Americans in Southampton.

01:40:22

And there is also still to this day in existence the Shinnecock Presbyterian Church. I was wondering if your guest also knew of this.

01:40:31

Oh, that's a great question. I know of the existence of these churches, and I know that David Brainerd was a missionary in Southampton as a part of his travels, but I will have

01:40:43

Bill answer that when we come back from the final break. If you have a question of your own, you want to get in line,

01:40:51

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back.

01:41:07

Hi, I'm Phil Johnson, host and executive director of Grace To You, the media ministry of John MacArthur.

01:41:14

I hope you plan to join me and Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, for the

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And don't forget to look for the current Iron Sharpens Iron Radio full -page ad in the latest edition of World Magazine.

01:51:38

And in fact, there is a part of that ad that advertises my guest and my mutual friend,

01:51:47

Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III, uh, because it promotes his, uh, multi -volume commentary on the

01:51:57

Westminster Larger Catechism in that, uh, full -page ad in World Magazine.

01:52:03

So keep your eye out for that. And, um, Bill Potter, we had

01:52:09

C .J. from Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, asking if you are aware of the

01:52:14

First Presbyterian Church of Southampton that was planted in 1640s. And it's work amongst the

01:52:23

Shinnecock Native Americans at that time. And there's also a Shinnecock Presbyterian Church.

01:52:29

Now, I cannot vouch for the theological soundness of those churches today. They still exist.

01:52:35

But as most of us know, the PCUSA, the largest Presbyterian denomination, has, uh, in most cases, abandoned a biblical orthodoxy, although there is a remnant left in that denomination.

01:52:50

But anyway, do you know anything about these churches or the history? I do not. I do not.

01:52:56

1640 is so early. Um, I really don't, uh, I really don't know.

01:53:02

The Dutch, the Dutch were in Manhattan. And I don't know that they were very evangelistic.

01:53:10

Probably not. But, uh, 1640, I'm... I looked up the website of the church and it says it was founded, the

01:53:20

First Presbyterian Church was founded by English Puritans who settled in Southampton, Long Island. Okay.

01:53:26

Well, they would have been part of the Puritan, uh, migration. And I know that Long Island was involved in the, uh,

01:53:35

King Philip's War extended down that far. So, uh, so the Puritans, uh,

01:53:41

I guess would have had some influence there. Arnie and Perry, Arnie and Perry County wants to know how did the pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving tactfully have a gathering and a celebration with the

01:53:59

Native Americans, knowing that they at that time were probably largely worshiping false gods and involved in pagan religion and idolatry.

01:54:11

After all, this was a Thanksgiving celebration. So was it really a pilgrim

01:54:18

Christian Thanksgiving to the biblical God, or was there some unbiblical ecumenism going on?

01:54:26

I would say that, uh, it certainly was a, uh, a, a biblical, um, celebration and Thanksgiving.

01:54:35

And there may very well have been in the thinking of the pilgrims. Um, the idea that the

01:54:41

Bible, um, commands to entertain strangers, uh, and to show love toward enemies and all those, um, all those commands that, that perhaps, um, the local natives would have kind of, that would have thought of them in that way.

01:55:00

Uh, and the fact that the fact though, that they, they brought their own brought some of their own food, um, and, uh, celebrated with them for three days.

01:55:11

They came in, they slept in their homes with them. Um, the, the natives did, and that, that had to have been, that had to have been strange and uncomfortable.

01:55:21

Um, but they did it. And, um, Bradford doesn't tell us how, you know, how they thought about that.

01:55:31

They, you know, he doesn't, he doesn't say what their, what their attitude was.

01:55:36

Uh, they would have been considered strangers. And there were a few strangers that is people that were not members of the church on board the

01:55:43

Mayflower. There were unbelievers on the Mayflower too. Uh, in fact, some of them signed the

01:55:48

Mayflower compact. And so they were not, they were not unaware of the unbelieving world and their responsibility toward them.

01:56:00

So, uh, and you know, according to Bradford's account, it was a, it was a thoroughly

01:56:05

Christian celebration from the perspective of the Pilgrims. Um, the natives, they probably were looking at the

01:56:14

Pilgrims as potential allies against their own enemies, you know, the Narragansetts. And certainly they're the ones, if the, uh, the

01:56:24

Wampanoags were, were, were definitely interested in, uh, getting their help against potential enemies.

01:56:32

Um, they didn't, uh, they didn't welcome the Europeans with open arms saying, we, we, we couldn't wait till you got here.

01:56:41

Um, I'm sure they were, they were wary. Um, they probably felt extremely superior, uh, militarily.

01:56:48

And they just physically, they were imposing, imposing people. And, um, but they were, they were hospitable and they were, they enjoyed the, they enjoyed the fellowship such as it was.

01:57:04

Um, that's all we know. We, we, they, they don't reveal in any of the primary sources any more than that.

01:57:12

And before we run out of time, uh, Joe and Becky Moorcraft send their greetings and they uh, believe that my listeners will want to know about a book that's hot off the press, the

01:57:24

Pilgrim Psalter, a carefully researched and beautifully published hardcover book with Mary Huffman as editor, uh, and Colonel John Eidsmo wrote a beautiful endorsement of the book.

01:57:37

Can you tell us about this book in any further detail? Yes, it is.

01:57:43

It is the original, uh, Psalter, uh, used by the Pilgrims. Um, it's, uh, it is a beautiful book and it is sold, um,

01:57:53

I think I told you I'm on the board of directors of the Plymouth Rock Foundation. So if you go to Plym Rock, P -L -Y -M -R -O -C -K, uh, they sell that, uh, in their, uh, in their online store.

01:58:09

And I also have, I have a website that Dr. Moorcraft provided, psaltercompany .com.

01:58:17

Okay, well, it's out there now. We've been waiting for this for some time and, and now, uh,

01:58:23

Mary's really, uh, done a tremendous job on it. It's excellent. And it's what the, it's what the

01:58:29

Pilgrims would have been singing. Great. Well, uh, we are out of time and I look forward to having you back many times in the future, brother.

01:58:40

And let me, once again, repeat your website, uh, that is landmarkevents .org,

01:58:47

landmarkevents .org. You can find out more about the kinds of events that our guest today,

01:58:54

Bill Potter, is involved in. And, uh, I want to thank you so much for being an extraordinary guest, as I knew you would be, once again.

01:59:02

I want to thank everybody who listened. Please make sure you tune in tomorrow for our discussion on hyper -Calvinism with Professor David Engelsma.

01:59:12

And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater