There’s an old adage, passed down in American families for generations: If you want to keep the peace at Thanksgiving, avoid religion and politics at the table. These are the two topics, we’re told, sure to turn sweet potatoes sour and polite laughter to division. And yet, year after year, something compels us to edge closer—if not to the topics themselves, then to the stories, struggles, and convictions that pulse just underneath.

But what if there’s wisdom—spiritual, civic, and personal—in noticing, if not always embracing, the tension beneath this warning? What if the heart of Thanksgiving is not the avoidance of difference, but the renewal of the experiment: that we might yet find new ways, after the shouting is done, to share bread at the table of a nation forever divided—and forever reuniting?


That’s the question I carried into my recent conversation with Daniel Gray—a man whose headline story would seem at first glance to be pure powder keg. In the shadow of January 6th, Daniel went from radicalization to federal indictment (see DOJ press release), to a jail cell, and ultimately, toward a reckoning with both his choices and the possibility of redemption. What emerged wasn’t easy, or neat. But in the rhythms of his journey, I recognize the very dilemmas that bubble up—and sometimes erupt—around our holiday tables, our neighborhoods, and our country at large.

Here are five takeaways, offered in the spirit of a Thanksgiving that is honest about division—and hopeful for healing.

1. The Cost and Calling of Bearing Witness

Why do we avoid religion and politics at communal meals? At bottom, because they matter so much, and cut so deep. To name what you believe—publicly, especially when it runs counter to the crowd—has always been risky business.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus offers no sweetener: “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven… Do not suppose I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword... a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.” (Matthew 10:32-39)

For Daniel, and for so many swept up in recent political storms, there was a certain courage—in some ways, even nobility—in standing up for convictions, telling uncomfortable truths, or even simply being “all in” for a cause you believe is just. America, after all, was founded on the premise of staking your life on principles—often at the expense of peace, sometimes even at the expense of family.

But Christ’s saying does not end with a mandate to perpetual conflict. It is a warning: truth-telling costs. Confession divides. Anyone who has lived a while knows: If you carry new wine, the old wineskins will eventually burst. And when everything is spilled out onto the floor, you are left, for a season, with only the aching emptiness between what was and what could be.

2. Radicalization is Closer Than We Think

Daniel’s story is a reminder that the slide into extremism and suspicion is closer than we might want to admit. Loneliness, loss, grievance, and the lure of certainty are not rare; they’re human. The pandemic, the echo chambers of social media, and our growing hunger for mission or meaning can make zeal-haunted tribes of us all.

But the dignity—and peril—of standing up for what you believe is that it does not guarantee you’re right. A conviction, untethered from humility or openness, can carry us into dark places: into the mob, into the seat of the accuser, into rigid “sides” where nuance is lost and relationships are collateral damage. At Thanksgiving, we can be grateful for the small, awkward, often unheralded invitations to step outside our bubbles and risk genuine, mutual scrutiny.

3. After Truth-Telling: The Necessity of Accountability

Principled courage does not end at protest. It matures in ownership, in the willingness to face consequences. Daniel’s most redemptive move was not just standing by his views, but standing before the law and saying, “I am responsible. I deserve the penalty.” This is the essential movement of gospel repentance, of national healing, of genuine adulthood.

Thanksgiving gains its power not from cheap grace, but from costly confession. Whether it’s a country facing its past, a family facing its secrets, or an individual owning up to their failings, gratitude born of honesty—painful, public, unvarnished—sets the table for everything that follows.

4. Enemies Become Instruments of Mercy

Perhaps the most surprising revelation is that grace comes, again and again, from the “wrong” quarter. Daniel’s judge, public defender, and even his romantic partner—all were “enemies” in the political, cultural, or ideological sense, yet each offered him crucial acts of mercy, patience, and restoration.

Matthew’s gospel doesn’t end at the sword. The Christ whose truth divides is also the one who commands us to love enemies, to break bread with tax collectors and zealots, to dare reunion after rupture. Thanksgiving is not consensus. It is the hard work of coming back after the break, of finding ways to see the divine in the face of the one who opposed you. As a nation, and as individuals, our greatest test is not how loudly we divide—but how humbly we return.

5. The Next Harvest: United in Difference

In Scripture, when the old wineskins burst, there is promise that a harvest comes after. As Daniel’s story continues, the work ahead is not about forgetting differences, but about cultivating a new field, together. America’s genius—its spiritual project—has always been a radical willingness to gather difference: people from every land, tongue, and experience, learning (with difficulty) to make a common life.

At Thanksgiving, this promise is renewed. Not in sentimental avoidance, but in honest reckoning, enduring gratitude, and shared resolve. We acknowledge our failures—both public and private. We mourn the costs of “the sword.” And then, mindful that “whoever loses their life for my sake will find it,” we prepare the ground for reconciliation, humility, and the possibility—however fragile—of a new feast.

A Promise to Continue the Conversation

Daniel Gray’s story, like America’s, is still being written. As we break bread this Thanksgiving, may we hold space for the courage of conviction, the necessity of accountability, and the harder work of reconciliation.

We will have Daniel back to continue unpacking what it means to live between old wounds and new hope—and to ask, together, what it can mean to heal as individuals, families, and one conflicted, diverse, extraordinary nation.

From my table to yours: Peace, after the sword. Gratitude, after confession. Thanksgiving, not as an escape from our tensions, but as the ground where we learn—again and again—to be made new, together.

Sources:

Watch for our next conversation with Daniel Gray, as we journey further into the challenges—and possibilities—of American unity and personal redemption.

Share this post