The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and characteristic moments – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor most senseless, but potentially its most enlightening – came earlier this autumn. Over the span of a few weeks, the US president commenced revealing everyone his plans for a gilded ballroom double the dimensions of the White House and then began solo dismantling the East Wing portion to erect it.
He has done things ten thousand times worse – the present calculation of casualties due to his slashing to USAID amounts to 600,000 and growing, and presently research predicted his fossil fuel policies would kill another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have dared – truly, no other president would have conceived – unilaterally destroying large sections of the White House to construct a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the active collaboration of some of the richest Americans, nearly all of which conduct transactions with public institutions.
We went from 'the humble will receive the Earth' into 'the humble will perish to cholera'
As confusing as it is to observe the chief executive attempt to overturn the traditional concept regarding democracy and replace it with its complete opposite, there is one large group among Americans who should not find it entirely new. That is those of us – within elder demographics almost a majority – who were educated as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have witnessed across decades as politically conservative religious groups converted the Savior we grew up with into the total contrary of who we understood him to be. At its most basic, they turned a figure of compassion into an icon of hostility who blesses precisely the cruelties that he condemned in the Gospel; this transformation occurred more slowly, over decades rather than months, yet it remains disturbing via comparable methods, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Establishes Itself
So let me first describe the Jesus from my childhood, because theoretically the Savior is the core within Christian belief, and given that the quickly increasing segment among Americans might have little sense about him as they consider themselves atheists or agnostics or spiritual independents. I have no problem with these different approaches, nor with alternative spiritual paths; however I believe that exist valuable insights of significant worth in the Christian story.
It is decidedly not the account of an authoritative monarch arising; rather, an infant arrives to displaced parents in a storage space, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to escape secret police. The infant develops in simple surroundings, a laboring woodworker; his teaching focuses on affection for other people, particularly for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, demonstrated through nourishing and protecting. The Savior's reaction to violence is to turn the opposite cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a means to educate the attacker; his approach to wrongdoing states that when an individual takes your outer garment you ought to provide him your sweater as well.
The obvious and straightforward truth that Christ of the gospels advocates for a type of radical love concentrated on the poor is what has always made Christian religion rather a scandalous religion: engaging for the general public, but owing to its natural unconventionality needing to be controlled. In the fifties it was restrained through watering down – Protestantism was so widespread that it practically blessed current circumstances.
A Conflict for the Highest of Us
Therefore I have felt inspired to witness the persistent defiance against Trump arise during the previous year. It has served as significant comfort to help build the movement that has demonstrated publicly via continuous gatherings, and seems to have inspired voters to participate in significant amounts in the off-year elections. We must have to maintain it, and through comparable resolve, featuring US banners during all protests and calls to the highest qualities in US history.
We will be questioned ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or refuse?
The nation is most protected, in other words, through connection to the highest within national tradition, just as Christianity is most protected by relationship to that which renders it unique and beautiful, specifically the model of the Savior. In all circumstances does it suggest pretending the most negative about the nation and Christian faith never occurred; it means both humility and faith, a combination that committed American Christians should be comfortable with.
