The Trump phenomenon's most illuminating and distinctive moments – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most hazardous, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. In the course of a few weeks, the US president began displaying all observers his intentions for a gilded ballroom two times larger than the White House and subsequently started solo dismantling the eastern section to construct it.
He has performed deeds ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of deaths from his cuts to foreign assistance is 600,000 and rising, and presently a study forecast his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities 1.3 million more. But nothing as definitional. No former leader would have risked – genuinely, no former commander would have conceived – unilaterally destroying large sections of the presidential residence to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of multiple America's wealthiest, almost all of whom have business with federal agencies.
We transitioned from 'the gentle will obtain the Earth' into 'the gentle will succumb from cholera'
As disorienting as it is to witness the president attempt to overturn the traditional concept about democracy and substitute it with its complete opposite, there remains a substantial portion of Americans who might not perceive it totally unfamiliar. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations close to half – who were educated as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have observed across decades as politically conservative religious groups transformed the Christ we learned about into the complete reverse of our understanding of him. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of compassion into a symbol of animosity who blesses specifically the brutality that he criticized in the Gospel; this transformation occurred at a slower pace, over decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless unsettling in the same ways, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Takes Hold
Therefore allow me to outline the Jesus that I grew up with, since in theory Christ is the focus of Christian religion, and given that the fastest-growing cadre among Americans might have little sense about him because they identify as non-believers or uncertain individuals or nones. I take no issue with these different approaches, nor with alternative spiritual paths; but I do think that there are pearls of significant worth in the Christian story.
It is unquestionably not the account of a powerful ruler emerging; conversely, a child comes into the world to displaced parents in an automotive shelter, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to avoid secret police. The baby grows up in modest conditions, a laboring woodworker; his message is about love for fellow humans, especially for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but practical compassion, demonstrated through nourishing and housing. The Savior's reaction to violence is to present the opposite cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a means to teach the attacker; his approach to wrongdoing indicates that whenever someone steals your outer garment you should give him your sweater also.
The evident and clear reality that the Jesus in biblical accounts advocates for a kind of extreme compassion centered on the needy has consistently rendered Christianity something of a controversial faith: attractive to the masses, but due to its inherent radicalness requiring to be controlled. During the 1950s it was restrained through watering down – Protestant Christianity was so prevalent that it practically blessed current circumstances.
A Battle for the Best Among Us
Hence I have become heartened to observe the determined opposition regarding Trump develop over the last twelve months. It has been significant comfort to participate in developing the campaign that has taken to the streets through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated electorate to participate in significant amounts in the off-year elections. We shall require to maintain it, and with identical determination, with American flags throughout each rally and calls to the finest aspects in US history.
We will be questioned ... about how you treated the stranger? Did you welcome them and embrace them or refuse?
The nation is most protected, in other words, by reference to the best about American history, similar to Christianity is optimally secured through connection to what makes it unique and wonderful, which is the example of Christ. In neither case does it imply acting as if the most damaging about the nation and Christian faith never occurred; it means both modesty and faith, a combination that serious national faithful should be comfortable with.
