The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and distinctive moments – not its most important, nor most brutal, nor most hazardous, nor stupidest, but possibly its most revealing – came earlier this autumn. In the course of several weeks, the US president started showing the public his plans for a gilded ballroom double the dimensions compared to the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the East Wing portion to construct it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of fatalities resulting from his reductions to international aid is 600,000 and increasing, and recently research predicted his fossil fuel policies would cause deaths another 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No previous president would have attempted – truly, no previous leader would have conceived – unilaterally destroying major areas of the White House to construct a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the enthusiastic participation of some of the nation's most affluent, almost all of whom have business with federal agencies.
We moved from 'the meek shall inherit the planet' into 'the gentle will succumb from cholera'
As confusing as it is to witness the chief executive attempt to overturn the established notion of democracy and replace it with its polar opposite, there is one large group of Americans who wouldn't consider it completely novel. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations almost a majority – who were raised within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have observed across decades as rightwing evangelical churches converted the Savior we were raised with into the total contrary of our perception of his character. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of love into an icon of hate who approves exactly the harshness that he denounced in scripture; this transformation occurred more gradually, through multiple decades as opposed to months, but it is nonetheless unsettling via comparable methods, a confusing personal impact for numerous individuals.
A Damaging Christianity Takes Hold
Therefore allow me to outline the Christ from my upbringing, as conceptually Jesus is the center within Christian belief, and because the quickly increasing segment among Americans might have little sense of him as they consider themselves atheists or agnostics or religiously unaffiliated. I take no issue with these different approaches, nor with alternative spiritual paths; yet I maintain that there are pearls of substantial value in biblical accounts.
It is decidedly absolutely not the story of a mighty king appearing; instead, a child comes into the world to homeless parents in an automotive shelter, who need to rapidly escape to another nation to evade covert authorities. The infant develops in humble circumstances, a laboring woodworker; his message focuses on affection for others, especially for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, shown by providing food and housing. Christ's response to violence is to present the opposite cheek – not as a demonstration of compliant endurance, but as a way to instruct the aggressor; his approach to wrongdoing indicates that whenever a person pilfers your jacket you ought to provide them your pullover also.
The evident and straightforward reality that the Savior from scripture requests a type of profound affection centered on the poor is what has always made Christianity somewhat of a provocative belief system: appealing to the general public, but because of its inherent radicalness demanding to be contained. In the 1950s it was controlled via weakening – Protestant Christianity was so prevalent that it practically blessed current circumstances.
A Battle for the Highest of Us
Hence I have become inspired to witness the determined opposition regarding Trump arise in this past year. It has been significant comfort to assist in constructing the movement that has protested openly via continuous gatherings, and likely has encouraged electorate to turn out in numbers in the off-year elections. We will need to persist with it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags at every demonstration and requests to the finest aspects in US history.
We're going to be asked ... about how you treated the stranger? Did you welcome them and embrace them or reject?
The country is optimally secured, essentially, through connection to the highest in US heritage, just as Christianity is best defended by reference to what makes it special and magnificent, particularly the pattern of Jesus. In both situations does it imply acting as if the most damaging of both America and religious tradition never occurred; it means both meekness and conviction, a mixture that committed American Christians ought to accept.
