The Trump phenomenon's most telling and defining moments – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most hazardous, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – came earlier this autumn. Over the span of a few weeks, the American president started showing all observers his intentions for a lavish reception room double the dimensions compared to the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the East Wing portion to build it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the present calculation of deaths from his cuts to USAID is 600,000 and rising, and recently research predicted his petroleum strategies would result in fatalities 1.3 million more. Yet nothing as characteristic. No previous president would have risked – truly, no previous leader would have imagined – independently wrecking large sections of the White House in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of numerous the richest Americans, nearly all of which maintain dealings with the government.
We moved from 'the gentle will obtain the planet' into 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As bewildering as it is to witness the president try to upend the traditional concept about democracy and substitute it with its polar opposite, there remains a substantial portion within America who wouldn't consider it completely novel. This includes individuals like us – in older age cohorts close to half – who were brought up within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have witnessed across decades as rightwing evangelical churches transformed the Christ we learned about into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they turned a figure of affection into a symbol of hostility who endorses exactly the harshness that he criticized in scripture; this transformation occurred more gradually, across decades rather than months, however it is still unsettling through similar means, a confusing personal impact for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground
So let me first describe the Christ that I grew up with, since in theory Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and since the quickly increasing segment among Americans could have minimal awareness of him because they identify as atheists or doubters or nones. I have no problem with any of these traditions, nor with alternative spiritual paths; however I believe that exist valuable insights of great price in the Christian story.
It is decidedly absolutely not the narrative of a powerful ruler emerging; instead, a child comes into the world to parents without shelter in a garage, who must quickly flee to another nation to escape undercover officers. The infant develops in simple surroundings, an employed craftsman; his message focuses on affection for other people, particularly for the poor – not merely emotional affection, but practical compassion, expressed by feeding and protecting. Jesus' answer to aggression is to offer the opposite cheek – not as a demonstration of passive acceptance, but as a method to teach the aggressor; his crime policy states that when an individual takes your jacket you should give him your sweater also.
The obvious and direct reality that the Savior in biblical accounts calls for a form of extreme compassion centered on the poor is what has always made Christianity something of a scandalous religion: engaging for the masses, but because of its intrinsic extremism needing to be restrained. In the 1950s it was controlled through watering down – Protestantism was so dominant that it practically sanctified existing conditions.
A Battle for the Finest Within Us
So I have been inspired to see the steadfast resistance to Trump arise in this past year. It has been substantial consolation to assist in constructing the initiative that has demonstrated publicly via continuous gatherings, and seems to have inspired electorate to turn out in large quantities during minor elections. We will need to continue it, and with identical determination, with American flags at every demonstration and appeals to the finest aspects within national heritage.
We're going to be asked ... regarding how you welcomed the foreigner? Did you welcome them and receive them or not?
America is best defended, essentially, through connection to the best about American history, exactly as the Christian faith is most protected by reference to what makes it special and beautiful, which is the example of the Savior. In all circumstances does it imply acting as if the worst of both America and Christianity did not happen; it represents both meekness and belief, a mixture that genuine national faithful should be comfortable with.
