Will Joe Biden Once Again Distort the Meaning of Easter?

AMAC Exclusive – By Seamus Brennan

As Christians observe Good Friday and memorialize Christ’s Passion on the Cross in anticipation of Easter Sunday—the celebration of Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead and humanity’s liberation from sin—people of faith can surely expect that the left will once again exploit the occasion to engage in secular virtue-signaling that whitewashes the true meaning of the holy day.

For years, the progressive movement has steadily escalated its campaign to strip all major religious holidays, including Easter, Christmas, Passover, Hannukah, and others, of their religious meaning. In his 2021 Easter message, for instance, President Joe Biden (a self-proclaimed devout Catholic) twisted Christian terms like “resurrection” and “renewal” to justify his administration’s draconian COVID-19 policies and insist that “the virus is not gone”—all alongside a masked Easter bunny.

Likewise, Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA), who campaigned on his status as a Christian pastor (even as he supports unfettered access to abortion) infamously tweeted last Easter that the real “meaning” of the day is “more transcendent than the resurrection of Christ.” Easter’s true meaning, he suggested, derives not from Christ’s sacrifice and the miracle of the resurrection, but instead from “a commitment to helping others,” by which we can ultimately “save ourselves.”

As Isaac Shorr wrote for National Review in response to the tweet (which was quickly deleted), “nothing, nothing, is more transcendent than God’s only begotten son becoming man, dying to absolve humanity of its sin, rising again, and consigning Satan, sin, and death to a final, eternal defeat.” He continued: “Easter is about man’s rescue by God Almighty, not ‘sav[ing] ourselves’ through some kind of secular self-improvement scheme. For all intents and purposes, Easter is Christianity.”

Progressives’ reduction of momentous religious occasions to vague secular celebrations centered on social justice and leftist political priorities is not limited to Easter—and it is nothing new. In Biden’s first Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony as president last year, he failed to mention or make any reference whatsoever to the birth of Christ or the true meaning of Christmas. Rather, he opted to diminish the holiday to a mere secular “beacon of hope” and a season to “find light.” Even when Biden did give a subtle nod to his purported Catholic faith by quoting several lines of the Peace Prayer of St. Francis, he still managed to omit portions of the prayer that made explicit reference to God.

Additionally, at a 2021 Menorah lighting ceremony to commemorate Hannukah, Biden awkwardly incorporated his “Build Back Better” political slogan into his remarks. “That little bit of light,” he said, can “dispel the darkness” from our “democracy” and encourage us to “build back better or perhaps build back brighter.” Biden’s presidential proclamation on the 2021 National Day of Prayer made similarly cringeworthy references to a “reckoning on racial justice” and the “existential threat of climate change.”

Given Biden’s propensity to invoke his faith only when it is politically convenient for him, it’s of little surprise that Catholic bishops and other leaders in the Church have repeatedly criticized him for diverging from the dogmas and teachings of the Catholic Church—most notably on abortion.

The left’s trend of omitting references to religion on major religious holidays can be traced back to the Obama years. On Easter Sunday in 2010, for instance, former President Barack Obama spoke of “the shared spirit of humanity that inhabits us all, Jews and Christians, Muslims and Hindus, believers and nonbelievers alike”—seemingly diminishing the day’s special importance to Christians. In Obama’s 2014 Easter message, after briefly acknowledging the Christian origins of the holiday, he went on to describe Easter as being representative of a secular “universal mission” embracing a “common thread of humanity that connects us all.” Obama and other Democrats were also criticized for referring to Christians as “Easter Worshippers” in 2019.

By contrast, former President Donald Trump’s Easter and Christmas messages were defined by a clear sense of reverence for the holy days he was commemorating. “Melania and I join millions of Christians celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the gift of eternal life this Easter,” he said in 2020. “We hope all of you are filled with the joy, love, and hope that marks this holiest of days.” In each of his four years lighting the National Christmas Tree, Trump consistently made explicit reference to “the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ”—marking a significant contrast with the broad-based secular language of Biden and Obama.

The left’s evident desire to craft a loosely defined godless religion based on the so-called “spirit of humanity,” which throws traditional religious language and authentic religious practices by the wayside, represents the progressive movement’s fundamental misunderstanding of who Christians are and what they believe. Therefore, as Christians near the end of Holy Week and enter into the Paschal Triduum, they should not be surprised or discouraged by the inevitable onslaught of watered-down statements, speeches, and social media posts that subtly seek to separate Christianity and the Easter miracle from their ultimate source, meaning, and hope in Jesus Christ. 

After all, the good news that still pours forth in every corner of this amazing land is that despite what progressives desperately want, the true meaning of Easter will not be lost on hundreds of millions of American Christians this Sunday.

In his Easter Vigil homily at the turn of the new century, Pope John Paul II powerfully restated the fundamental and timeless need for an authentic Christian witness in the world:

Yes, Christ is truly risen, and we are witnesses of this. We proclaim this witness to the world, so that the joy which is ours will reach countless other hearts, kindling in them the light of the hope which does not disappoint.

As he prepares his own Easter message this year, Joe Biden would do well to take note.