Biden the perfect example of keeping the faith
DID you notice that after his election success, President Elect, Joe Biden, had a discreet slogan on display as he gave his first speeches to supporters and a divided nation?
It read simply, KEEP THE FAITH. It was a mantra he used frequently during his campaign and stems from the devout and genuine Catholic faith nurtured in him from childhood.
Over a long political career his faith has been tested to what many might regard as breaking point. In 1972 his wife and oneyear old daughter Naomi died in a car crash that also left their two sons, Hunter and Beau with serious injuries. As he coped with this terrible loss, Biden took an hour and half train journey every night from Delaware to Washington to say goodnight to them.
In 2015, Beau died of brain cancer, aged 46.
Another devastating blow but at another level it seems to have given Biden a real empathy with others who suffer. When he says he understands their misfortunes, people believe him because he’s been there and survived.
Keeping the faith in any context means holding on to what you believe most fundamentally. In Biden’s case it means trusting in God whatever happens and believing that out of dark and desperate days, new life and hope can emerge.
Easier said than done of course and sometimes even believers fall by the wayside or give up on God when the wolf blows down the door. On the other hand, over a long ministry, I’ve seen individuals cope with tragedy and emerge the stronger for it.
It strikes me that keeping the faith is an important practice. Whether we embrace religion, sit lightly to it or reject it outright, all of us put our faith in something an ideal or idea, a person or a family, a movement, a passion or a purpose. If you need convincing, just look in the direction of the Kop at Anfield or the Stretford End at Old Trafford.
With or without God, there are very few people who believe in absolutely nothing or lack a guiding star when it comes to making sense of the world, what we can expect from it, and what support might be available to us when there seems no light at the end of the tunnel.
At a time when a large percentage of the UK admits to no religious beliefs, and we are still in the clutches of a terrible virus, there is surely wisdom in taking stock of the adequacy of our deepest commitments and the extent to which they can carry us through turbulence and loss.
I’m not expecting the faith of a new US President to spark a religious revival. I do hope however that it will bring about a cleansing of the White House in terms of moral decency and the corrosive backlog of lies it has generated over the past four years.
What Biden’s religion does provide is a significant moment to press the pause button on our own lives. When this painful and protracted season is over, shall we at a personal level choose to live, behave and believe differently or will it be a case of business as usual?
A pandemic claiming over a million lives, and a President wholly unlike his predecessor in terms of character and relationships, are currently posing a deeply serious question with uncommon clarity.