This is an IHeart podcast.

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 is the Protestant Reformation. In the early years of the 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 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.

And so Protestantism was born.

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