The Trump phenomenon's most telling and defining moments – not its most significant, nor most harsh, nor most threatening, nor most senseless, but perhaps its most illuminating – occurred earlier this fall. During the period of multiple weeks, the American president started showing all observers his intentions for an ornate dance hall twice the size compared to the White House and subsequently started solo dismantling the East Wing to construct it.
He has done things countless times more severe – the present calculation of deaths from his cuts to USAID amounts to 600,000 and growing, and recently research predicted his petroleum strategies would kill an additional 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No other president would have dared – genuinely, no other president would have imagined – independently wrecking significant portions of the White House in order to erect a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the active collaboration of multiple the nation's most affluent, almost all of whom maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We transitioned from 'the humble will receive the world' toward 'the meek shall die to cholera'
As confusing as it is to watch the president attempt to overturn the traditional concept about democracy and replace it with its polar opposite, there remains a substantial portion within America who should not find it totally unfamiliar. This includes individuals like us – in older age cohorts close to half – who were raised as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have watched across decades as politically conservative religious groups transformed the Christ we were raised with into the complete reverse of our perception of his character. Essentially, they converted a persona of love into an icon of hostility who blesses specifically the brutality that he criticized in scripture; this change developed more slowly, over decades as opposed to months, yet it remains disconcerting through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Savior from my upbringing, since in theory Jesus is the center of any Christian faith, and since the fastest-growing cadre among Americans may possess limited understanding regarding him as they consider themselves atheists or uncertain individuals or nones. I take no issue with these various perspectives, nor with different religions; however I believe that there are pearls of great price within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly absolutely not the narrative of an authoritative monarch appearing; instead, a child comes into the world to parents without shelter in a storage space, who are forced to hastily depart to another nation to escape secret police. The infant develops in modest conditions, an employed craftsman; his teaching focuses on affection for fellow humans, particularly for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but a concrete one, expressed by feeding and sheltering. Christ's response to aggression is to present the additional cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a method to instruct the assailant; his crime policy is that if an individual takes your jacket you ought to provide him your sweater too.
The evident and clear reality that the Jesus in biblical accounts advocates for a form of extreme compassion concentrated on the impoverished is what has always made Christianity somewhat of a scandalous religion: engaging for the general public, but due to its inherent radicalness demanding to be contained. In the fifties it was contained by dilution – Protestantism was so dominant that it basically blessed current circumstances.
A Conflict for the Finest of Us
So I have been heartened to observe the determined opposition regarding Trump develop during the previous year. It has been substantial consolation to assist in constructing the campaign that has taken to the streets in rally after rally, and seems to have inspired voters to turn out in significant amounts in interim political contests. We must have to continue it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags during all protests and requests to the highest qualities in US history.
We're going to be asked ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you welcome them and welcome him or reject?
America is best defended, to put it differently, by reference to the highest about American history, similar to Christianity is optimally secured by relationship to that which renders it unique and wonderful, which is the example of the Savior. In both situations does it imply feigning the most damaging regarding America and religious tradition never occurred; it signifies both meekness and belief, a combination that committed US believers should be comfortable with.
