Our episode takes you beyond the historical and into the spiritual and scientific realms of gratitude. Listen in as Pastor Carter Conlon and Dr. Giacomo Bono share profound insights on how Thanksgiving shapes our society and individual lives. This episode invites listeners to consider their personal and collective journeys of gratitude, exploring faith’s role in renewing communities and the startling scientific evidence of gratitude’s benefits.
SPEAKER 01 :
from the heart of our nation’s capital in Washington, D.C., bringing compelling interviews, insightful analysis, taking you beyond the headlines and soundbites into conversations with our nation’s leaders and newsmakers, all from a biblical worldview. Washington Watch with Tony Perkins starts now.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, welcome to a special Thanksgiving Day edition of Washington Watch. Today, no news, no election results, just to focus on this one day we set aside to express gratitude. We’ll look at the history of Thanksgiving, the biblical foundation for it, and then the benefits of it, not of the extra calories, but the attitude of gratitude that Thanksgiving is designed to inspire. Our guests today include Dr. Paul Jaylee. He’s the executive director of the Plymouth Rock Foundation. He’s going to take us on a brief journey through the history of Thanksgiving. And I’ll actually, maybe I’ll share my experiences of having had Thanksgiving dinner on the spot where the pilgrims were believed to have had that first banquet of gratitude. Pastor Carter Conlon, General Overseer of Times Square Church in New York City, will join me to take a look at what the Bible has to say about gratitude. And then Dr. Giacomo Bono, co-author of Making Grateful Kids, The Science of Building Character, will give us the science of gratitude. All of that on this special Thanksgiving edition of Washington Watch. But I want to start off… with Psalm 100, where it says, Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come into his presence with singing. Know that the Lord, he is God. It is he who has made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him. Bless his name. For the Lord is good. His steadfast love endures forever. and his faithfulness to all generations. Folks, I tell you what, that’s reason enough to be thankful, for the Lord is good, and his steadfast love endures forever. Well, speaking of Thanksgiving, I would be thankful if you downloaded the Stand Firm app so that you could stay in touch with us and know what to do as we enter this new year. It’s just around the corner. There’s going to be a lot to do. And with the Stand Firm app, you can stay connected. You’ll have action items and we can communicate with you and you’ll be ready to be an engaged Christian citizen. So go to the app store and download the Stand Firm app. All right, I got a question for you. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when I say Thanksgiving? All right, what’s the second? Probably one thing that came to mind was the pilgrims. You know, despite a decline in… knowledge and understanding of history, Thanksgiving still has a strong association with the pilgrims. But do we have a full understanding of what that first Thanksgiving was like and why? How did it come to be? Well, here to walk us through the history of the American Thanksgiving holiday is Dr. Paul Jaley. He’s the executive director of the Plymouth Rock Foundation. Dr. Jaley, welcome back to Washington Watch. Great to see you. Yes, good to be with you, Tony. I know this is a big time of year for you is around Thanksgiving up there in Plymouth. A lot of people still identify Thanksgiving with Plymouth, with the pilgrims. Let’s talk a little bit about that. Give us the history here.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, when the pilgrims first came here, of course, they came out of the Reformation. And in the Reformation, there was always a pattern that in the spring, you would have days called for fasting and prayer. And then in the fall, you’d have days called for days of thanksgiving. Now, that pattern probably had some aspect to do with the Feast of Tabernacles because it was called, of course, the Feast of Thanksgiving. Now, we have no evidence that the pilgrims actually wanted to reinvent that feast or something like it, and neither of those two, prayer and fasting, of course, because it was a day of feasting, three days of feasting, actually, or just the giving thanks for answered prayer were probably the origins of that first harvest festival. Most likely it had to do with a pattern of what they did in Holland and in other areas when they would give God thanks for the harvest that they were bringing in. And it was most likely in October of 1621. We don’t know the exact date. We don’t know whether they invited the natives or the natives had just stumbled upon them or who invited whom, but we do know that they kept together for three days. And those three days, most of the food was provided by the natives. And the interesting thing about that, there was recreation, there was competitive games, there were things that we know took place simply by the record of William Bradford. And so I often tell individuals that it’s somewhat historically accurate that if they like to sit down and watch competitive athletic games on Thanksgiving or around that, well, that’s not too far from the truth for that first one in October. Of course, the Pilgrims were not the first people who gave thanks on the eastern seaboard, even, in the years. That’s not what makes it so unique in Plymouth. It was multicultural, though. There were several things about that first Thanksgiving that made it unique. It was a three-day feast, not a three-day fast. There were only four adult women left alive at that first Thanksgiving, and they had probably hosted over 140 people with the 90 Braves that came as well. All dishes were wooden, and the children served the adults, believe it or not. And the meal probably consisted of cod, And sea bass, fowl, geese, swan, deer, and yes, wild turkeys. But the turkeys were not like today. They could run 25 miles an hour. You had to be physically fit to catch them. And then, of course, you would have that simply as an additive that wasn’t the main course.
SPEAKER 11 :
It could have been- Dr. Jaley, let’s go back for something you just said a minute, because I want people to understand, because people are saying, well, okay, so they gave thanks. But they just came off of a very tough winter. And you said there were only four women because the others died. They lost nearly half their population in that first winter, but yet they were approaching this with gratitude. Talk about that for just a moment.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, and I think the thing is half the number did die. The amazing part about it is there’s evidence that they saw the providence of God in the fact that over three-fourths of the adults died in the first winter, but only less than a third of the children died. So more children were left alive than adults. They saw that as the providence of God for the future. The other aspect about this is they got a peace treaty with the natives in March of 1621. Without that peace treaty, there probably wouldn’t have been a first Thanksgiving joined with the native population. Also, there was a reconciliation service in August of 1621 where the pilgrims apologized for the misbehavior of one of their own, Thomas Hunt, who had stolen natives’ and tricked them into trading and then taking them as slaves to Europe. So without this peace treaty and with a reconciliation admitting fault from one race to another, there probably wouldn’t have been that aspect of the first Thanksgiving. But I think people need to recognize when they came together, they were grateful not just for the food on their tables. They were grateful for their lives. They were grateful for the fact that when they came as a church planting mission, America was formed on a church plant with a remnant of individual believers coming out of Holland. that when this took place, they were very thankful that they were able to continue what they had begun by having a covenant with God and one with another and getting on that board, the Mayflower. And of course, they lost the Speedwell, so they had to cram on board. 20 had to stay behind. And so the story gets very, very interesting. But the point is that Thanksgiving, I think today when we sit down at our dinner tables and we have family and friends over. And regardless of the past, I pray that there’s all kinds of ideas of peace and reconciliation. And we recognize how blessed we are to be in a nation such as ours. And this is the key theme that we try to emphasize here in Plymouth.
SPEAKER 11 :
You talked about the past, what they had gone through. They were thankful. They were alive. But did they see themselves as a part of a bigger narrative that God was writing and that they were a part of something much bigger?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, in fact, William Bradford had written very clearly that they came to propagate and advance the gospel of the kingdom of Christ into these remote parts of the world, though they would be as stepping stones unto others for the performing of so great a work. So they saw themselves as part of a kingdom movement to bring freedom of conscience and liberty in the way they might have understood it back then in the early 1600s. And they knew that they were here for the future, not just for themselves. They weren’t out to just have survived themselves. They wanted to pass on something to their children and their grandchildren. And indeed, the whole history of Thanksgiving appeared that way. There were many, many days of Thanksgiving called in early New England, though not patterned necessarily on the exact same model as the pilgrims. But the idea was that to give God thanks, that went all the way through, up through the American Revolution. And even in the American Revolution, it was George Washington that issued that first Thanksgiving proclamation. And then, of course, every single year, Prior to that, in the revolution, a day of Thanksgiving was called for God’s miraculous intervention in winning the war for independence. And so, of course, not until, you know, we get to Abraham Lincoln do we become a national holiday. But even then, when you read these proclamations, and I tell people, you know, when you begin to gather all around, you can easily get, and you can get it online or everything else, but What Edward Winslow actually wrote about that first Thanksgiving, he said, our harvest was gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling that we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day, he said, killed as much fowl as with a little help, served the company almost a week. at which time amongst other recreations we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and the rest their greatest king, Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted. And they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor. And although it is not always so plentiful as it was at this time, yet by the goodness of God we are so far from want.” and often wish you partakers of our plenty. And that was written early after the 1621 feast and early in 1622 and sent over to England. And in a sense, it became an advertisement to say, listen, we are thanking God, we have peace here, and why don’t you come join us?
SPEAKER 11 :
You know, it’s pretty amazing how today we have a hard time enjoying and being grateful for what we have at the moment because we’re worried about tomorrow. That’s obviously counter to Scripture. But we see that they’re exercising that. They said that we have a lot right now. We didn’t have a lot before. I don’t know what tomorrow is bringing, but we’re grateful for this moment. And I want to go back to that point that you said that they saw themselves as a part of a bigger narrative. I would describe that as purpose. They saw their lives as having a purpose beyond themselves. Is that what caused them to endure the hardships, in part, that they had to face?
SPEAKER 07 :
There’s no question about it, because their whole kingdom vision went beyond the church. It went beyond. It was for the commonwealth. It was for the culture that they wished to see established, not by force, but by service. And so they believed that to do that, their Christianity went far beyond the church building and church walls. It was to reform every part of their lives. In fact, one of the phrases Bradford uses when they were getting converted in England. He said that the whole, the grace of God began to reform their lives and without tarrying for any. In other words, they wanted to see that reform come to their character, their families, their marriages, their culture, their neighbors. It was like a river that, as God described it, that flows out of the innermost being of a believer And it goes wherever that river goes, there’s life, as the scripture gives symbolically and literally.
SPEAKER 11 :
So it was much more than just religious freedom of being able to worship in a church building. It was able to structure a culture, a country around those beliefs.
SPEAKER 07 :
Exactly. In fact, they never called the church any building at all. In fact, they called the church building a meeting house because it was a meeting house for the church, which wasn’t a building, but it was the people in covenant with one another. And so they were very, very strict about those things and recognized they could meet under They could meet in a barn, they could meet under a tree if they didn’t have a building. The building was external, but the covenant relationship they had with God and one another, as they had given in that scrooby covenant in 1606, was a powerful remembrance. And that’s what kept them going. That covenant to see the kingdom of God come out in some measure and be manifested. in their day and in future generations.
SPEAKER 11 :
Dr. Jaley, we’re almost out of time. You mentioned Edward Winslow. Is there one thing that people should read? We’ve got 30 seconds left on this Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, we offer in our own foundation, Plymouth Rock Foundation, P-L-Y-M-R-O-C-K.org, an original document called Mort’s Relation. It’s a collector’s edition, and in it we’ll have the story of that reconciliation service, the peace treaty, and that first Thanksgiving. And that one book would be a great thing to read to your children. All right.
SPEAKER 11 :
We’ll put that up on the website as well. Dr. Jaley, always great to see you. Thanks so much for joining us. God bless you. Have a great Thanksgiving. You as well. All right, check out that website, folks. All right, when we come back, we’re going to be joined by Pastor Carter Conlon of Times Square Church, so don’t go away, all right?
SPEAKER 08 :
The throne of Jesus Christ is unchallenged. His name was never on the ballot to begin with, and it’s never going to be on the ballot. He’s the King of Kings, and He’s the Lord of Lords, and nothing’s going to change that. And so our mission stays the same, preach the gospel, make disciples, get ready for heaven. In the meantime, that we’re to advance the concerns of the kingdom of God here on earth.
SPEAKER 11 :
America has entered a critical and vulnerable period from now until January the 20th. Join Family Research Council for Operation Prayer Shield, a 10-week prayer initiative for our nation. From now until January 20th, our country faces global challenges, a transition of leadership, and a lame duck session of Congress. This season calls for heightened spiritual vigilance, discernment, and prayer. Text the word SHIELD to 67742 to join us. You’ll have access to prayer points, scripture, prayer calls. Text SHIELD to 67742. Unite with us and pray for our nation.
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Let’s not be discouraged. Don’t lose heart. Don’t lose the faith. Stand now strong because the Lord has given us the great privilege of living in a time when our choices matter, when our lives matter, when our courage matters. So let’s stand together and save this great country. God bless the United States of America.
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The American Republic has a freedom like no other. It has roots in the scriptures far more than any other heritage. And if we as followers of Jesus and conservatives don’t defend it, who will?
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Neutrality is not an option. There are many Christians who believe that if we just keep our heads down, if we just don’t say the wrong thing, that somehow we will come out of this unscathed. You’re naive if you think that, because what they want from us is not our silence. What they want from us is our submission.
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Part of the dilemma of Christianity in our generation is that we’ve relied a little too much on human wisdom and human reasoning, human strength, human resource, and we’ve relied too little on the power of God and God’s ability to open doors that we can’t open and do things that we couldn’t even hope to begin to do.
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This may not be an easy task, But we are living in a moment of challenge, but also a great opportunity. And we know always that we are not alone, that his spirit empowers us and protects us, and that he can do the unimaginable. Dobbs, after all, was never supposed to have it.
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Father, we thank you. You have entrusted us with this moment in history, and I pray that we would be found faithful, and that as a result of our faithfulness to you, that thousands, millions would come into the kingdom as they would experience the forgiveness of sin and the new life that is found only in Jesus Christ. Amen. Welcome back to this Thanksgiving Day edition of Washington Watch. As you’re grabbing that second piece of pumpkin pie, I want to build upon what we were just talking about with Dr. J. Lee. As he was talking about, you know, the pilgrims didn’t come to this country just to have religious freedom. In terms of being able to worship in a church they wanted to worship in, it was to build a life based upon the foundation of biblical faith. And that’s very important for where we find ourselves today, that our faith should inform us, our Christian faith, our biblical understanding should inform everything that we do. And there’s a lot to be grateful for right now. We’ve come off an election. I think we didn’t lose the country, but there’s a lot of work to be done. And I think it begins with a grateful heart. So joining me now to talk more about this, Pastor Carter Conlon, General Overseer of Times Square Church in New York City, also a member of the board at the Family Research Council and a very good friend. Pastor Carter, welcome back to Washington Watch.
SPEAKER 10 :
Thanks, Tony. It’s great to be with you again today.
SPEAKER 11 :
So it’s the time that we give thanksgiving. We give thanks, we’re grateful to the Lord, and there’s a lot to be grateful for. And I was just talking with Dr. Paul J. Lee, we were discussing about the pilgrims when they came here, it was to build community, to build society based upon that faith. That’s a good place to start for us today, is how do we build on that faith? What does biblical truth instruct us to do?
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, I think part of what we need to do in the future is to recognize where we’ve come from. You know, there’s an old adage, if you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going. If we fail to understand that those who formed this nation formed it with the intent that it would be governed by the presence of God, by the Word of God, and that the purpose of the nation was to bring glory to God and the earth. And realistically, we’ve had a taste, I think, in the last little while of what godlessness looks like. I think God in his mercy gave us that taste. Do you really want to live like this? And now, just as the pilgrims were doing, we’ve been given an opportunity, I think, to rebuild a nation based on the faith of Jesus Christ and based on the word of God. And pity us if we don’t take this moment that God has given to us right now.
SPEAKER 11 :
You were sharing with me earlier a passage from Psalm chapter 2. Share that with our viewers and our listeners.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, this is the word I feel that the Lord’s given me for America in our generation. It starts by saying, why do the nations rage and the people plot a vain thing? And you’ll notice that the godless can’t just speak civilly. They have to rage. They have to curse. They have to vilify. They have to denigrate anybody and everybody that doesn’t agree with them. The realistically It says they take counsel against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us. So the heathen are raging, the godless are raging and saying, we want no restrictions on our behavior. We want our evil to be called good. We want our immorality to be called good. Moral we want our confusion to be called wisdom and and every other such thing We don’t want to be governed by the Word of God and we want the cords in a sense or the restrictions on our behavior That was placed on us even historically by this nation We want that taken away from us so that we can live our own lives and we can call our perversions and our evil we can call all of it good now the scripture goes on and And so he says, he who sits in the heavens shall laugh and the Lord shall hold him in derision. And so we’re seeing that today. We’re seeing the scripture unfold before us where God is actually holding this godless worldview that tried to propagate itself and become the norm of thought in America. He’s holding it in derision. We’re seeing the derision everywhere. The confusion, the dismay, the disappointment, the inability to even self-access. I mean, it’s all like that. Self-access, I mean… But the second part of holding them in derision, it says, Now, I don’t know what that’s going to look like, but I’m telling you, Tony, I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of that. It’s one thing if God holds you in derision and exposes your agenda as the fraud that it really is. But when God starts to speak to you in his anger… It doesn’t sound good to me. It doesn’t sound like something I would want to be personally on the receiving end of. But then he finishes Psalm 2. by admonishing those in authority or those who have any kind of influence to be wise, to be instructed. He says, O kings of the earth, serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Now it says in the New King James says, kiss the son lest he be angry. In other words, embrace the son of God, lest you incur his wrath and bring yourselves under his judgment. Tony, I’m very, very thankful this Thanksgiving. I’m beyond thankful because it’s almost like a veil of evil has lifted off this nation, and we have a short window ahead of us to turn back to God. And my prayer… which I pray with thanksgiving as the scripture says, God, get a hold of our pulpits again. God, get a hold of those who preach the gospel. God, get a hold of people who are on the radio. Turn us again. Turn us back. We have a moment. And nobody can debate the fact that it’s almost like an evil cloud has lifted off this nation suddenly. There’s optimism. There’s joy. Everybody’s doing this dance out in the field and all this stuff that they’re doing. People are suddenly saying, we… We’ve had a taste of this insanity, and we don’t want this to be our future. But if you don’t want it to be your future, you’re going to have to go back to what you left behind. What did we leave behind? One of the Old Testament prophets said, God spoke to him and said, what fault did you find in me that you walked away from me? Bear witness of what I did to you that was wrong. What did I do, Christ says, to you as a nation, America, that you turned away from me and you chose another path? I’ve given you a taste now of what it looks like to walk without my presence. The insanity, the incivility, the confusion, the immorality, and it would only be on the increase. But now I’ve given you a window to turn back to me. Embrace the sun, lest you find yourself under a deeper judgment in the days ahead. That’s the word God’s put on my heart.
SPEAKER 11 :
there’s a responsibility here for the church. And I think the, as you said, there’s a peace, there’s a joy, there’s a freedom almost that has come as this weight of godlessness has been lifted. But it’s where we go from here that really determines the future. And I want to talk about that. We’re up against a break, Pastor Carter. I want to come back and I want to talk about this because I think there’s the story Jesus tells over in Matthew chapter 12 about the strong man being bound in the house. And the house is clean. He goes away. but it’s not filled with anything else. And so he finds seven friends and he comes back and he takes over the place. I think we’ve got to make sure that we’re filling the opening here with what God wants our nation to be and to pursue. So we’re going to talk about that next when we come back. Folks, stick with us. We’re going to continue our conversation with Pastor Carter Conlon here on this Thanksgiving edition of Washington Watch. Don’t go away.
SPEAKER 02 :
Everything we do begins as an idea. Before there can be acts of courage, there must be the belief that some things are worth sacrificing for. Before there can be marriage, there is the idea that man should not be alone. Before there was freedom, there was the idea that individuals are created equal. It’s true that all ideas have consequences, but we’re less aware that all consequences are the fruit of ideas. Before there was murder, there was hate. Before there was a Holocaust, there was the belief by some people that other people are undesirable. Our beliefs determine our behavior, and our beliefs about life’s biggest questions determine our world view. Where did I come from? Who decides what is right and wrong? What happens when I die? Our answers to these questions explain why people see the world so differently. Debates about abortion are really disagreements about where life gets its value. Debates over sexuality and gender and marriage are really disagreements about whether the rules are made by us or for us. What we think of as political debates are often much more than that. They are disagreements about the purpose of our lives and the source of truth. As Christians, our goal must be to think biblically about everything. Our goal is to help you see beyond red and blue, left and right, to see the battle of ideas at the root of it all. Our goal is to equip Christians with a biblical worldview and help them advance and defend the faith in their families, communities, and the public square. Cultural renewal doesn’t begin with campaigns and elections. It begins with individuals turning from lies to truth. But that won’t happen if people can’t recognize a lie and don’t believe truth exists. We want to help you see the spiritual war behind the political war, the truth claims behind the press release, and the forest from the trees.
SPEAKER 11 :
Welcome back to this Thanksgiving Day edition of Washington Watch. Good to have you with us. Pastor Carter Conlin, General Overseer of Times Square Church, my guest. Pastor Carter, thanks for sticking around. So I want to go, I mentioned this passage from Matthew where the unclean spirit leaves the house. Jesus tells the story and he goes looking for a place to go, can’t find anything, comes back to the house that’s been swept and cleaned and nothing’s there. And so he gathers seven friends and comes in and the end is… worse than the beginning. I think we have that opening here where we have a chance to seek God, we have a chance to pursue the things of God as a nation. What is the way forward for us as a nation? My concern is that if we feel like we saved the nation, we solved the problems on November 5th, we’re going to be disappointed.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, we didn’t save the nation. Thank God that, you know, the Scripture says when the wicked are in authority, the people mourn, and when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice. We have been given by God a window. And here’s what I think has to happen. Preachers of the gospel have to open the text of Scripture and start teaching it again the way it’s supposed to be taught. I think fathers in the home or mothers, whatever the case is, need to open their Bibles and begin to have family devotions with their children once again. I think it’s not just on a church level, it’s on a whole social level. I said it in the first part of this segment, but here’s what I want to say to the people. You’ve had a taste of what godlessness looks like. And if that’s the way you want to live, as you said, Tony, when it comes back, it’ll be seven times worse than it was, than we’ve already experienced. I have no doubt about that. But we have a window. We have a window to turn back to God as a nation. And I’m believing that we have enough sense in this nation for men and women to take seriously the Word of God, come back, and just… I think one of the prophets says, take with you words and just go back to God and say, Lord, we have failed, we have fallen. Lord, teach us. Lord, guide us. Enlighten our minds. Give us a renewed hunger for truth. Help us to understand what truth is. Guide us into it. heal our homes, our families, our minds, deliver us from our own compromises. We may just call it sins that we’ve allowed as God’s people into our lives that’s weakening our voices, weakening our testimony, weakening our effectiveness in society. It’s going to take a wholesale turning to God in America in the next few years. And it might very well be the last call for this nation as we have known it. And so I don’t want to appear to be negative. I’m actually quite optimistic that there’s enough sensible people in the nation to know that we need to turn back to God. And it is happening now, especially among our young people.
SPEAKER 11 :
There’s a lot to be thankful for, and the Lord has given us this opportunity, and so we want to express our gratitude to God. But it is a journey, and I’m going to go back to what you said, because I… I’ve already seen it and I’ve seen it before over my almost three decades involved in government that now that we’ve had a turning, we’ve elected some good leaders, there’s an idea that, well, our leaders need to call the nation back to God. There needs to be prayer meetings or prayer days held. But, you know, it needs to start in the church. We need the pastors, the spiritual leaders to call the nation back. This is not for the political leaders. It’s for the spiritual leaders. And so give us just three practical steps of where we should be going, where our spiritual leaders and where our leaders in our homes, what they should be doing.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, we’ve got to get rid of the fluff that so many have been standing in pulpits and speaking, making the gospel just all about me. You know, the enhancement of my own life, the enhancement of everything became about, you know, it almost mirrors the constitution of the country. My life, my liberty, the pursuit of my happiness. Well, that’s not the gospel. The gospel is about being given for the sake of other people. We’re representing somebody who didn’t have to but went to a cross for our sakes so that we can be redeemed. And we’ve got to start preaching the real gospel, the real truth, calling people actually to turn away from sin and turn back to God. We’ve got to step in our pulpits without compromise and just basically declare God’s Word as it is written, as you said today on your program. If you’re given a measure of freedom and your house is clean but you don’t fill it with something, that which was cleansed out is going to come back and it’s going to be seven times worse than at the beginning. And Tony, I’ve actually seen this in people’s lives who purportedly came to Christ but didn’t fill their life with anything of God. And when they went back to their old ways, they were worse than they’d ever been in their lifetime. Jesus said, if the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness. If you’ve known truth but not embraced it and made it part of your life, then the darkness that can come upon you is greater than the beginning. And I think the pastors of this country have got to begin to declare this, because leaders can only do so much. Political leaders, they cannot legislate morality in the people. That’s something only the Holy Spirit can do. It’s something only God is capable of doing, and we’ve got to start, in a sense, preaching the real gospel with real compassion, with real power, and As I told a group of pastors one time in quite a large conference in New York State, I said, if you’re not called, for heaven’s sakes, get out of the pulpit. If you don’t have any passion for God’s Word, if you don’t pray, if you’re not getting a living Word from God, do yourself a favor and find out what you’re supposed to be doing. But get out of the pulpit and make way for somebody who is called. And my challenge, too, is to the men and women who are called, it’s time to step up now. It’s really time to step up. We can’t afford to hide in the shadows any longer.
SPEAKER 11 :
We must pray that we not become complacent in this moment, but that we pursue the Lord with our whole heart and preach the whole counsel of God. Pastor Carter Conlon, always great to see you. Happy Thanksgiving and look forward to seeing you again real soon.
SPEAKER 10 :
Love you, Tony. Thank God for you.
SPEAKER 11 :
All right, brother. Thank you. Love you as well. All right. Don’t go away because when we come back, we’re going to dive into the science behind gratitude. There’s actually benefits to being grateful, being thankful. That’s next. Don’t go away. Hello, I’m Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council here in Washington, D.C. Behind me is one of the most recognizable buildings in all the world, the U.S. Capitol. What does it stand for? Well, most people say government. But you know, the Bible talks about four institutions of government. You know what they are? And do we have a republic or a democracy? Well, what do you say? Also, what about this thing separation of church and state? Does that mean Christians shouldn’t be involved in government? Guess what? We address those issues and more in our new God and Government course. I invite you to join us to see what the historical record and the Bible has to say about government. Join us for God and Government.
SPEAKER 02 :
The world is hurting, streets are filled with crime, families are broken, sin is celebrated, and God is mocked. Everywhere we look, the wages of our sin are on full display. As Christians, we know that surrender to God’s will is the solution to our biggest problems, but not everyone agrees. Even in church, we hear people say the most important thing is to be tolerant, that we shouldn’t impose a morality on other people, and that loving our neighbor means celebrating what they do. But you can’t do that. It’s not that you don’t love your neighbor. You do. But you care about God’s opinion more than your neighbor’s opinion, and this makes you different. In fact, sometimes it makes you feel alone, like you are the only one. But there is good news. You are not alone, not even close. Research has found that there are 59 million American adults who are a lot like you. There are millions of people around the country who are born again, deeply committed to practicing their faith, and believe the Bible is the reliable Word of God. But that’s not all. They’re also engaged in our government. They’re voters. They’re more likely to be involved in their community, and they’re making a difference in elections. The problem is that a lot of them feel alone, too. We want to change that. FRC wants to connect these 59 million Americans to speak the truth together, no matter the cost. If you want to learn more about this group and what it means to be a spiritually active, governance-engaged conservative, or if you want to find out if you are one of these sage cons yourself, go to frc.org slash sagecon and take the quiz to find out. The world is hurting and we have the solution. We can’t do it alone, but we can do it if we work together. That’s what we’re working toward every day. Join us. Go to FRC.org slash S-A-G-E-C-O-N SageCon to learn more. That’s S-A-G-E-C-O-N SageCon to learn more.
SPEAKER 11 :
All right, happy Thanksgiving, and welcome to this special Washington Watch. Glad you’re with us on this Thanksgiving. So earlier in the program, we were discussing what the Bible tells us about gratitude. We were talking about the history of it. And I know the Word of God is sufficient, but it’s also nice to see that the science tells us that, you know what, it’s true. Gratitude has positive benefits. It’s actually healthy to be grateful. And so let’s talk about some of those benefits. And joining me now to discuss this is Dr. Giacomo Bono. He is a professor of psychology at Cal State, and he’s the director of the Youth Gratitude Project. He’s also a co-author of the book, Making Grateful Kids, The Science of Building Character. Dr. Bono, welcome back to Washington Watch. Great to see you.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hello, hello, thanks for having me, yes.
SPEAKER 11 :
So let’s start off with, first off, tell us about this Youth Gratitude Project.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, so the main thrust of that work was up until the time, so this is research that I was starting back in 2014. Up until then, most of the research on gratitude had been with adults. And very little was understood about gratitude in youth, you know, children and teenagers. And so, yeah, so together with my co-author, Jeff Froh, on the book Making Grateful Kids, we started researching the benefits of gratitude to children and teenagers. And we started to see some, you know, some interest, a lot of the same benefits, you know, in terms of mental health. You know, it also seems to counter, depression and anxiety. But one of the surprising findings, I think, at least for me, was that we started to see that gratitude was related to a motivation for generativity. You know, generativity is about leaving a legacy, and it’s usually something that adults, you know, adults in middle adulthood do. You know, as we get into our 50s, you know, we start to think about, you know, how we’re going to impact society in a good way. And what we found was gratitude actually was increasing this generativity motive in teenagers. So anyway, that was quite surprising because we think that those are concerns that older adults have, but very much young people want to contribute. They want to be part of something beneficial, and they’re really hungry for it. And that’s sort of, I think, one of the surprising findings that we made with that research. Yeah.
SPEAKER 11 :
Dr. Bono, talk a little bit. You and I were talking about a project where young people were writing thank you notes. Talk a little bit about that and the effect that that had of just expressing gratitude.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, yeah. So so what I’ve and this is sort of one of the things that I’m sort of, I guess, distinct that distinguishes my work is, you know, I’m trying to bring in gratitude practices, especially interpersonally, you know, like sharing thanks with others. And I’m trying to just. uh get such practices into schools uh and so what we did was we did uh so i did this uh this intervention using a an app it’s it’s called give thanks g-i-v-e-t-h-x and you can find it online um But it’s this nonprofit that developed this app that works sort of like social media in the sense that you could thank others and be thanked by others, and schools sign up, different classrooms can sign up, even different staff at the school can sign up. The whole school can sign up. And so that’s what we did. And for six weeks, students and staff and teachers all practiced gratitude on their own terms. When they felt ready, they weren’t pushed. For example, a student would thank a classmate for helping them study or for helping them finish a project that they were behind on. Or, you know, if somebody was if a student was feeling like not speaking up in class or or, you know, feeling down, then, you know, receiving a thank you somehow would turn around the whole day for, you know, for someone who is for a student who is starting off the day, you know, feeling sort of. uh you know and hopeless or not great and and just a simple thank you uh would turn things around so we collected uh so over the course of six weeks we had uh 26 just over 2600 thank you notes exchanged and again this is all done naturally when you know when teachers and students felt inclined to do it because they received some gift or benefit from another and uh So that’s what the intervention involved. It also involved some, you know, journaling and, you know, more reflective types of things that adults often practice.
SPEAKER 11 :
Dr. Bona, were there some other measurable outcomes in that? I mean, did we see a kind of a change in the atmosphere within those places where gratitude became a focal point?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I’m glad you asked. So surprisingly, we found, so we had two different high schools, and one of them received, and basically about half of the classes at both received the intervention, whereas the other half did not. And so then we compared before the intervention, so at the start, and then six weeks later, we compared the classrooms that used the gratitude practices to those that did not. And what we found was that the gratitude practices reduced symptoms of depression. So feeling down, feeling hopeless, feeling unmotivated and uninterested in things, as well as anxiety, especially like general anxiety and social anxiety as well. So we found that gratitude, yeah, led to reductions in depression and anxiety symptoms. But also other almost every indicator that we looked at related to well-being. So we found that negative emotions also decreased, positive emotions increased, a sense of life satisfaction increased. And then the one that really surprised me was students reported being more satisfied with their friendships. So, you know, I think that that was really cool to see because, you know, teenagers really, really want the respect of their peers. And if you could make an impact on their friendships, I think that really says a lot.
SPEAKER 11 :
I mean, it’s almost as if gratitude is, you know, it’s a vaccination against anxiety and depression. If we just take it and we express it and utilize it. Now, you and I were talking about, some research that you’ve been doing going back to COVID when there was a lot of anxiety, there was a lot of uncertainty, and you found some very interesting implications of those who expressed Thanksgiving during that time. Can you share that with us?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. Yeah. So I that’s right. So when the pandemic started in the spring of 2020, I immediately thought, oh, this is you know, this is something we got to look at. So I retooled a survey that I was already giving to undergraduates. and had it focus on the pandemic. And we measured things like pandemic resilience, sort of having a constructive view of it and also coping with the hardship of the pandemic uh… but uh… you know believing that some good can come from it nonetheless and so we measured that kind of uh… resilient perspective of or thinking about the pandemic and we also measure mental health and all those things uh… and and specifically what i want to know uh… from this research was that you know does gratitude actually make make young adults more resilient And in this case, towards the pandemic. And does it protect young adults in terms of their mental health? And so what we found was that those who, the students who were higher in trait gratitude, in other words, gratitude as a personality quality, Students who had more grateful personality, they also were being more constructive and resilient about the pandemic. But here is the beautiful thing that we found, that when we looked at changes over, let’s see, about, 12 weeks. So, you know, we measured it basically at the beginning of the semester before the pandemic had started. And then at the very end of the semester, you know, once the pandemic was raging. So about 13 weeks. And what we found was that gratitude actually was related with decreases in depression and anxiety. And interestingly enough, The, you know, I looked at different groups and I found that, you know, some of the students who struggle the most, like, for example, first generation students, you know, who are new to college and maybe their families don’t understand college. and they’re struggling to adapt, they had even greater benefits from gratitude. So they were protected even more. And when I looked at other things like socioeconomic status, I saw a similar pattern. Gratitude helped protect them from depression and anxiety even more compared to students who were socioeconomically okay or even greater. So what this showed us was that the groups who are really having difficulty and are really stressed, those people who really need it can especially benefit from gratitude. So anyway, that was one of the surprising findings, yeah.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, we just got a few minutes left, Dr. Bono. Let’s talk a little bit about that. How, number one, how can we kind of begin to build an attitude of gratitude? What are some practical steps that we can take individually? But also, as you have focused a lot of your research on younger people, How can we begin to instill that into our children? What are some practical steps that we can do since it has so many benefits to it? How can we begin to practice that?
SPEAKER 09 :
yeah yeah i think you know it’s it’s really important to uh… so going back to the the uh… high school research that i you know the intervention study that i mentioned earlier uh… you know one of the one of the things about that that seems so impressive because uh… as it as at up to that point interventions in schools hadn’t really shown any effects on mental health. So what was the surprising ingredient? And I really do think that it’s taking a chance on people and putting it out there, expressing thanks to others. A lot of times in our lives, we’re doing our thing and we’re busy and we have stresses that might weigh on us. But it’s so important to take a chance on people and to see the goodness in people and to put it out there, even if you don’t feel confident about it. Small things. expressions of thanks really matter, like, you know, and even smiles and nonverbal expressions, you know, like a pat on the shoulder to thank somebody, you know, when they were listening to you. Although, you know, that’s also a way to express thanks. So that’s what I would say is, you know, get out of your shell and just say it. and share the goodness that people bring into your life because you know it’s a lot of times we forget that we don’t know you know about the good people and the good things in our life so it’s just a good reminder and it’s also a way to not be alone for when we are stressed right right so yeah that’s what I would say really take a chance and just you know give the gift of thanks and
SPEAKER 11 :
I don’t know if you’ve looked at this, but is there a number that we should shoot for each day, that we should be willing to express gratitude? I know sometimes it’s easier if we’re monitoring things to know whether or not we’re reaching a certain goal.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, I think like once a day is a good, is definitely a good thing, you know, because each day is almost like a, an odyssey, right? Like you never know what’s going to come up or, you know, there’s always unexpected things that happen each day. And, you know, and there’s always patterns with each day, like, you know, we’re, we may be tired towards the end. And so we wake up with the chance for renewal with each new day. So I think, you know, once a day is certainly a good practice because the challenges always change with each day. And then I would say, you know, challenge yourself to thank somebody, you know, new, like maybe it’s a neighbor one day, or maybe it’s, you know, maybe it’s the person behind the cash register, you know, at the store the next day. Maybe it’s somebody at work on the third day. And just challenge yourself to, you know, sort of hit all the domains of your life And that has the benefit of keeping the practice of gratitude or the practice of thinking fresh. Right. Because, you know, like anything, you don’t want to just do it performatively. You want to get your heart into it.
SPEAKER 11 :
That’s right. That’s right. And over time. You know, like, I don’t know, 18 days, something becomes more of a second nature, becomes kind of a habit. And that’s what we want to get into. We want to get into that habit of gratitude. Dr. Bono, I want to thank you for joining us. Always great to see you, my friend. Thanks for joining us on this Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yes, thank you. Thank you so much. Have a joyous Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER 11 :
You as well. Thank you for joining us. And folks, I want to thank you for joining us as well, but I want to encourage you to take up this practice of gratitude. We’re instructed to do so. In fact, no matter what we’re facing, in Philippians 4, verse 6, it says, “…be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.” “‘Let your requests be made known to God.'” You know, the science proves what the Word of God says. As we foster gratitude in our hearts, and we have a lot to be thankful for to God, to our Creator, for all that He has done for us, we should be thankful for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s given us hope, He’s given us joy, He’s given us peace, He’s given us redemption. And we need to thank Him every day for those things, no matter what we might be facing. We need to foster a heart of gratitude, and we need to build that into our children. The best way to do it? Model it. Thanks for being with us. We’re out of time for today. I want to encourage you to check out the website, TonyPerkins.com, and be sure and download the Stand Firm app as well. Until next time. I leave you with the encouraging words the Apostle Paul found in Ephesians 6, where he says, when you’ve done everything you can do, when you’ve prayed, prepared, and taken your stand, by all means, be thankful and keep standing.
SPEAKER 01 :
Washington Watch with Tony Perkins is brought to you by Family Research Council and is entirely listener supported. Portions of the show discussing candidates are brought to you by Family Research Council Action. For more information on anything you heard today or to find out how you can partner with us in our ongoing efforts to promote faith, family, and freedom, visit TonyPerkins.com.
