The Trump phenomenon's most illuminating and distinctive moments – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor most foolish, but perhaps its most illuminating – came earlier this autumn. In the course of a few weeks, the American president began displaying all observers his intentions for a lavish reception room twice the size than the White House and then commenced unilaterally ripping down the eastern section to construct it.
He has performed deeds 10,000 times as bad – the present calculation of deaths resulting from his reductions to USAID is 600,000 and growing, and this week a study projected his energy policies would cause deaths another 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No previous president would have risked – really, no former commander would have contemplated – solo demolishing major areas of the White House to build a royal-themed celebration hall, with the enthusiastic participation of numerous the nation's most affluent, almost all of whom have business with public institutions.
We transitioned from 'the meek shall inherit the planet' to 'the gentle will succumb from cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the president try to upend the established notion regarding democracy and substitute it with its direct contrary, there remains a substantial portion among Americans who should not find it totally unfamiliar. That is those of us – among senior generations a near majority – who were raised as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have watched over the years as politically conservative religious groups turned the Jesus we learned about into the total contrary of our understanding of him. At its most basic, they turned a figure of love into an icon of animosity who approves specifically the brutality that he criticized in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred at a slower pace, over decades as opposed to months, but it is nonetheless disconcerting via comparable methods, a bewildering emotional blow for countless people.
A Damaging Christianity Takes Hold
Therefore allow me to outline the Savior that I grew up with, as conceptually Christ is the focus of Christian religion, and because the rapidly expanding group among Americans could have minimal awareness regarding him since they are skeptics or uncertain individuals or nones. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with different religions; but I do think that exist valuable insights of significant worth within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly not the narrative of a powerful ruler appearing; instead, a child comes into the world to parents without shelter in a storage space, who need to rapidly escape to another nation to evade secret police. The baby grows up in modest conditions, a laboring woodworker; his doctrine concerns compassion for others, especially for the impoverished – not simply tender feelings, but a concrete one, demonstrated through nourishing and protecting. Christ's response to violence is to turn the additional cheek – not as a gesture of submissive tolerance, but as a means to teach the assailant; his approach to wrongdoing is that if an individual takes your coat you should give them your pullover as well.
The obvious and direct fact that Christ from scripture requests a form of radical love focused on the poor has consistently rendered the Christian faith somewhat of a scandalous religion: appealing to the masses, but because of its natural unconventionality requiring to be restrained. During the 1950s it was contained via weakening – Protestant Christianity was so widespread that it essentially blessed current circumstances.
A Struggle for the Best Within Us
So I have been heartened to see the determined opposition against Trump arise in this past year. It has been substantial consolation to help build the campaign that has protested openly in rally after rally, and seems to have inspired citizens to show up in numbers during minor elections. We shall require to continue it, and in the same spirit, with American flags throughout each rally and appeals to the highest qualities in US history.
We're going to be asked ... regarding how you welcomed the foreigner? Did you receive him and receive them or refuse?
The country is optimally secured, to put it differently, through connection to the finest about American history, just as Christianity is best defended through connection to elements that cause it to be unique and wonderful, particularly the pattern of Jesus. In all circumstances does it mean feigning the worst regarding America and Christian faith did not happen; it represents both meekness and faith, a blend that serious American Christians should embrace.
