The Trump phenomenon's most illuminating and distinctive instances – not its most significant, nor most harsh, nor most hazardous, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of multiple weeks, the US president commenced revealing all observers his intentions for a gilded ballroom two times larger compared to the White House and then commenced unilaterally ripping down the East Wing portion to build it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe – the existing assessment of deaths from his cuts to foreign assistance is 600,000 and rising, and recently research forecast his energy policies would cause deaths 1.3 million more. However nothing as distinctive. No other president would have attempted – genuinely, no other president would have imagined – solo demolishing significant portions of the executive mansion in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of multiple America's wealthiest, nearly all of which have business with the government.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the Earth' toward 'the meek shall die of cholera'
As bewildering as it is to witness the president attempt to overturn the established notion regarding democracy and substitute it with its direct contrary, there exists a significant segment within America who might not perceive it completely novel. That is those of us – in older age cohorts close to half – who were educated as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have observed over the years as politically conservative religious groups transformed the Christ we grew up with into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. At its most basic, they turned a figure of compassion into a symbol of animosity who endorses specifically the brutality that he denounced in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred more slowly, through multiple decades instead of months, yet it remains disturbing via comparable methods, a confusing personal impact for countless people.
A Damaging Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Jesus from my childhood, as conceptually the Savior is the core of Christian religion, and since the fastest-growing cadre among Americans may possess limited understanding of him because they identify as skeptics or doubters or spiritual independents. I take no issue with these different approaches, nor with alternative spiritual paths; but I do think that contain precious wisdom of substantial value within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly definitely not the account of a mighty king emerging; rather, a baby is born to homeless parents in a storage space, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to avoid undercover officers. The child matures in modest conditions, an employed craftsman; his teaching is about love for others, specifically for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but practical compassion, demonstrated through nourishing and sheltering. Christ's response to violence is to turn the opposite cheek – not as a demonstration of submissive tolerance, but as a means to educate the aggressor; his method regarding offenses states that when an individual takes your coat you must offer them your pullover too.
The apparent and clear truth that Christ of the gospels requests a kind of extreme compassion concentrated on the needy has perpetually caused Christian religion something of a provocative belief system: appealing to the masses, but due to its inherent radicalness demanding to be contained. During the 1950s it was controlled by dilution – Protestant Christianity was so prevalent that it essentially blessed current circumstances.
A Struggle for the Highest Among Us
Hence I have become heartened to see the determined opposition against Trump arise in this past year. It has provided substantial consolation to participate in developing the initiative that has protested openly in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated citizens to turn out in significant amounts in the off-year elections. We will need to persist with it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags at every demonstration and calls to the finest aspects of American history.
We're going to be asked ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you receive him and embrace them or not?
The country is optimally secured, essentially, by reference to the finest about American history, just as Christianity is optimally secured through connection to elements that cause it to be special and beautiful, particularly the pattern of Christ. In neither case does it suggest acting as if the worst regarding America and Christian faith never occurred; it represents both modesty and faith, a blend that serious American Christians ought to accept.
