#Friendsgiving Was an Assault on Family and Faith

Red Starbucks cups, step aside!

There was a new scandal in town over the weekend involving #Friendsgiving.

The term gained popularity in America in the lead-up to the long holiday weekend. It means that instead of gathering 'round the Thanksgiving table with family, one would get together with "friends" to celebrate instead.

Friendsgiving is trending on social media this Thanksgiving. (BuzzFeedFood.tumblr.com )

While we all understand that modern times, modern transportation and careers have moved us further and further away from our roots, research shows that when family structure breaks down, society as a whole suffers.

The "Friendsgiving" movement was nothing but a commercialized continuation of the creeping attack on families in this country, suggesting that we can simply substitute friends and replace traditional family systems in our society.

To be sure, friends are wonderful. They are there for us when we need them. But they do not have the blood ties that bind us to family. In a Darwinian, survival-of-the-fittest, take-care-of-your-own way, friends will never quite be there as our families are there for us.

When friends change jobs, or move away, and the family structure has been removed from your life, you may realize that the only other source you can turn to for help is government. Perhaps that is the way socialists want it.

Second, the "Friendsgiving" phrase itself removed the most important word from Thanksgiving, and that was the word "thanks" itself.

In a society that focuses all too often on the self, do we really want to eliminate the one day out of the year that we pause to give thanks? I do not believe we do.

Lastly, I believe there is something even larger at play here.

Removing the "thanks" from Thanksgiving removes God from the holiday entirely. The word "thanks" itself is based in Christianity.

In the Catholic Church, the word "Eucharist" literally means Thanksgiving. Each week, Catholics participate in the Eucharist, which includes a communion with bread and wine to give thanks to God for all that he has given them (sound familiar?)

The equation seems simple enough: remove the "thanks," and you can remove the God to whom you give it.

We are already a society that suspends a high school football coach for taking a knee and offering thanks after a big game. Do we really want to remove the "thanks," (i.e., the prayer) from Thanksgiving, too?

Our forefathers wanted God to be engrained in our society - that is why they placed, "In God We Trust" on our money. That is why the phrase "under God" is in our Pledge of Allegiance. Even President Abraham Lincoln declared in 1863 that the country would celebrate Thanksgiving to recognize "general blessings."

The name of the annual holiday itself is a representation of the thanks we give to God for our sweet land of liberty and all of her bountiful fruit. We ought not corrupt the sacred term and replace it with one that can come and go with the whimsy of time.

So next year on this sacred day, remember the reason for the season. Tear up your invitation to your BFF's "Friendsgiving," and buy a plane ticket home to see your mom instead.

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