Wednesday, November 26, 2025
The Briefing with Albert Mohler
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
4.8 • 8.4K Ratings
🗓️ 26 November 2025
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today’s edition of The Briefing, Dr. Mohler discusses thanksgiving theology in American history, the big problem of Thanksgiving for secularism, sinful humanity’s conspiracy to deny thanks to God, and the truth and hope of the gospel in Thanksgiving.
Part I (00:15 – 06:47)
Thanksgiving Theology in American History: The Theological Foundations of America’s First Thanksgiving
Part II (06:47 – 10:48)
The Big Problem of Thanksgiving for Secularism: Secularists are Genuinely Thankful, But To Whom Are They Thankful?
Part III (10:48 – 16:02)
‘They Did Not Honor Him as God or Give Thanks’: Sinful Humanity’s Massive Sin Conspiracy Not to Give God Thanks
Part IV (16:02 – 24:13)
A Theology and Apologetic of Thanksgiving: Thanksgiving Day and the Truth and Hope of the Gospel
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's Wednesday, November 26, 2025. I'm Albert Moller, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of |
| 0:12.0 | news and events from a Christian worldview. An unprecedented number of Americans are in motion today. |
| 0:18.4 | This is one of the biggest travel days in the United States of America, |
| 0:21.9 | and it's for a distinctively American reason, and that is that Thursday, tomorrow is Thanksgiving |
| 0:26.3 | Day in the United States. It is one of the highest dates of travel. In many years, it is |
| 0:32.9 | the most concentrated day of travel, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving Day. And even if you're not in the air, |
| 0:40.0 | you may well be in a car or in another means of conveyance as you're going to be with family. |
| 0:44.9 | This is a distinctly American observance. Now, other nations, Canada has Thanksgiving at another |
| 0:50.0 | time of the year. But in American history, Thanksgiving has some of the deepest roots because |
| 0:54.5 | it goes back to the origins of our national story. It goes back to the pilgrims. And even though |
| 0:59.9 | some of that is surrounded in mythology and it was reconstructed by later generations, the reality |
| 1:05.1 | is that it is known that those colonists set aside a time for Thanksgiving. and that Thanksgiving has become a part of the |
| 1:13.6 | American tradition. Presidents have called for days of observance and Thanksgiving. |
| 1:19.7 | Presidents like President Lincoln formalized it in a new way, and by the time you get to the |
| 1:25.7 | 20th century, it is set here in November as a national |
| 1:28.6 | holiday with all of the things surrounding Thanksgiving that have gone into the season. Over the |
| 1:36.0 | course of the last several decades, it has often become something of, let's just say, the first |
| 1:42.0 | movement into the concentrated holiday season of the fall and going |
| 1:47.1 | into the winter and, of course, culminating with Christmas and the celebration of the coming new year. |
| 1:52.2 | And, of course, in human experience, that all happens very fast. |
| 1:56.1 | But I want us to ask a fundamental question here, and that is, what are millions and millions of Americans thinking as they're thinking thankful thoughts? |
| 2:05.5 | And you have so many people who are at least in some sense observing Thanksgiving tomorrow. |
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