This is Lee Habib, and this is our American Stories.

And this show, we celebrate Thanksgiving.

And it's the only American holiday

that's actually remained relatively innocent.

It's not something that we've been able to commercialize.

But there is something going on here

that's more than just feasting, family, and football.

Robert Tracy McKenzie is a professor of history at Wheaton College.

He's also the author of The First Thanksgiving. He's here to tell us the story of this

quintessentially American holiday. Let's take a listen.

The story of the Pilgrims and the First Thanksgiving in many respects is one chapter in a much,

much larger story, a story that

is grounded in an enormous phenomenon that we remember as the Protestant Reformation. In the early

years of 1500s, individuals like Martin Luther, the German theologian and monk, had begun to work toward reforming

the Catholic Church, changing some of its theological teachings, some of its church practices,

some of its governing structure, and Luther found that that was essentially impossible to accomplish within the confines of the Catholic Church,

ultimately leading to a break with the Catholic Church.

In 1517 on Halloween evening, Luther famously put up his 95 Theses, his 95 statements of protest about Catholic teaching. This caused his relationship with

the Pope, with the Catholic hierarchy to deteriorate pretty rapidly, leading ultimately to the

Pope declaring Luther a heretic in 1520 and prompting Luther ultimately to break with the Catholic

Church to establish an independent church,

a protesting church.

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