The Trump movement's most telling and characteristic instances – not its most important, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. In the course of multiple weeks, the American president started showing all observers his designs for a gilded ballroom two times larger of the White House and then commenced independently demolishing the East Wing portion to build it.
He has done things countless times more severe – the present calculation of deaths from his cuts to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and growing, and this week an analysis forecast his energy policies would result in fatalities 1.3 million more. Yet nothing as characteristic. No former leader would have risked – genuinely, no former commander would have conceived – unilaterally destroying significant portions of the presidential residence to construct a royal-themed celebration hall, with the direct cooperation of multiple the nation's most affluent, nearly all of which maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the planet' toward 'the gentle will succumb to cholera'
As confusing as it is to witness the president try to upend the old idea of democracy and replace it with its complete opposite, there is one large group among Americans who might not perceive it totally unfamiliar. This includes individuals like us – in older age cohorts close to half – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have witnessed throughout the years as rightwing evangelical churches transformed the Christ we learned about into exactly the opposite of our understanding of him. Fundamentally, they turned a figure of love into a figure of hostility who approves specifically the brutality that he condemned in scripture; this has happened more slowly, across decades rather than months, however it is still disconcerting through similar means, a confusing personal impact for numerous individuals.
A Damaging Christianity Establishes Itself
So let me first describe the Jesus from my childhood, since in theory Christ is the focus of Christian religion, and given that the rapidly expanding group among Americans may possess limited understanding of him because they identify as atheists or doubters or nones. I have no problem with these various perspectives, nor with different religions; yet I maintain that there are pearls of great price in biblical accounts.
It is decidedly not the narrative of an authoritative monarch appearing; instead, a child comes into the world to parents without shelter in an automotive shelter, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to evade undercover officers. The child matures in simple surroundings, an employed craftsman; his doctrine is about love for fellow humans, especially for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, shown by providing food and protecting. The Savior's reaction to hostility is to offer the additional cheek – not as an act of compliant endurance, but as a method to teach the attacker; his approach to wrongdoing states that when someone steals your outer garment you ought to provide them your pullover as well.
The apparent and direct truth that the Savior in biblical accounts calls for a kind of profound affection focused on the needy is what has always made the Christian faith rather a scandalous religion: appealing to the masses, but because of its natural unconventionality demanding to be contained. In the 1950s it was contained by dilution – Protestant Christianity was so prevalent that it practically sanctified existing conditions.
A Battle for the Best Within Us
Hence I have become inspired to observe the steadfast resistance against Trump arise over the last twelve months. It has been great solace to assist in constructing the campaign that has protested openly via continuous gatherings, and likely has encouraged citizens to show up in significant amounts in interim political contests. We shall require to continue it, and with identical determination, with American flags during all protests and requests to the highest qualities of American history.
We will be questioned ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you accept these individuals and welcome him or reject?
The country is optimally secured, essentially, by reference to the best in US heritage, just as Christianity is optimally secured by relationship to that which renders it unique and magnificent, particularly the pattern of Jesus. In both situations does it mean pretending the most damaging of both America and religious tradition was nonexistent; it represents both modesty and faith, a mixture that genuine American Christians should be comfortable with.
