Thought for the Day, 10 October 2007

Madeleine Bunting

So Gordon Brown has had a difficult decision to make. In all the flood of advice offered him, a phrase jumped out at me - an election would be 'an act of faith not of reason' It jarred because over the last few weeks, like thousands of other parents, I've been going through the process of making a difficult decision myself - choosing a secondary school for my ten year old, and I've been acutely aware of how much that decision is an act of faith as well as of reason.

To place faith and reason in opposition is false. For example in choosing a school, we are being asked to have faith - do we trust that the school does what it says it does; do we have faith in the inspection regime which produces the reports - are they assessing the school on the criteria we consider valuable. And my child: do I have faith in him or her to flourish in a particular environment. Any difficult decision - having a baby, making a long term commitment to a partner - is about faith, our trust and confidence both in ourselves, and in others. Even in the most mundane parts of our lives, faith is vital: whenever we get in a car, a train or an airplane, we are expressing our faith in the responsibility and expertise of other people. Faith is a vital part of how we take risks calmly and without fear.

But our culture is strangely dismissive; 'faithful' is a term we reserve for a dog or loyal members of a political party - there's more than a hint of reproach for their unquestioning constancy. Other cultures understand how human beings need faith and how to strengthen it, but our culture I believe, having lost much of its religious faith, has lost its insight into the nature of faith altogether, referring to it as irrational or, as in my dictionary, 'lacking logical proof.'

We need, I think, to re-examine our prejudices and resurrect the idea of faithfulness. There are important values embedded in this word: 'a faithful account' is accurate and true; 'in good faith' is about a promise; 'to keep faith' is to keep that promise. These principles of constancy, integrity and commitment are how we build the faith of others- our children, partners, colleagues, friends - in ourselves just as, in turn, they build our faith in them. Faith is how we accept what is beyond our control, and recognise each other's freedom. How we relate to each other must be full of faithfulness if we are to create communities, a society. Faithfulness is about living with trust and confidence instead of anxiety, fearfulness, suspicion and cynicism.