The Trump phenomenon's most telling and distinctive moments – not its most significant, nor most harsh, nor most hazardous, nor most foolish, but perhaps its most illuminating – came earlier this autumn. Over the span of multiple weeks, the nation's leader commenced revealing all observers his plans for an ornate dance hall twice the size compared to the White House and then commenced solo dismantling the eastern section to construct it.
He has performed deeds 10,000 times as bad – the current estimate of casualties from his cuts to international aid is 600,000 and rising, and presently research predicted his fossil fuel policies would cause deaths another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have risked – really, no former commander would have contemplated – independently wrecking large sections of the presidential residence to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of multiple America's wealthiest, the majority of whom have business with the government.
We moved from 'the meek shall inherit the planet' into 'the gentle will succumb from cholera'
As bewildering as it is to watch the president try to upend the traditional concept of democracy and replace it with its direct contrary, there remains a substantial portion among Americans who should not find it completely novel. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations a near majority – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have watched across decades as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we were raised with into the total contrary of our understanding of him. At its most basic, they transformed an image of love into a figure of animosity who approves exactly the harshness that he denounced in scripture; this transformation occurred more gradually, over decades as opposed to months, however it is still disturbing in the same ways, a bewildering emotional blow for numerous individuals.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
Therefore allow me to outline the Savior from my childhood, since in theory Christ is the focus within Christian belief, and since the fastest-growing cadre within America could have minimal awareness about him since they are atheists or doubters or religiously unaffiliated. I take no issue with these different approaches, nor with different religions; but I do think that exist valuable insights of substantial value in biblical accounts.
It is unquestionably absolutely not the account of a mighty king appearing; conversely, a baby is born to homeless parents in a storage space, who are forced to hastily depart to a different country to escape undercover officers. The baby grows up in modest conditions, a working carpenter; his doctrine concerns compassion for others, particularly for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but a concrete one, demonstrated through nourishing and protecting. Jesus' answer to hostility is to present the opposite cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a method to instruct the aggressor; his approach to wrongdoing states that when an individual takes your coat you should give them your pullover too.
The evident and clear truth that Christ of the gospels advocates for a form of extreme compassion centered on the impoverished has perpetually caused Christian religion somewhat of a scandalous religion: attractive to the populace, but because of its natural unconventionality needing to be restrained. During the 1950s it was contained via weakening – The Protestant faith was so prevalent that it basically baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Best of Us
Therefore I have felt encouraged to see the persistent defiance to Trump emerge in this past year. It has served as substantial consolation to assist in constructing the movement that has protested openly via continuous gatherings, and appears to have motivated citizens to show up in large quantities in interim political contests. We shall require to maintain it, and with identical determination, with American flags throughout each rally and calls to the highest qualities of American history.
We will be questioned ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you welcome them and embrace them or reject?
America is best defended, in other words, through connection to the finest about American history, just as Christianity is best defended by relationship to what makes it special and beautiful, particularly the pattern of Jesus. In neither case does it imply acting as if the most damaging of both America and Christianity did not happen; it means both modesty and conviction, a combination that committed US believers should embrace.
