The Trump phenomenon's most illuminating and defining instances – not its most significant, nor most harsh, nor most dangerous, nor most foolish, but possibly its most revealing – emerged earlier this harvest season. During the period of a few weeks, the US president started showing the public his intentions for a lavish reception room twice the size than the White House and then commenced independently demolishing the eastern section to erect it.
He has committed acts countless times more severe – the current estimate of fatalities from his cuts to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and this week an analysis predicted his fossil fuel policies would kill an additional 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No previous president would have risked – really, no other president would have conceived – unilaterally destroying large sections of the presidential residence to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of multiple America's wealthiest, nearly all of which conduct transactions with public institutions.
We went from 'the humble will receive the world' to 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As confusing as it is to witness the president try to upend the old idea regarding democracy and exchange it with its complete opposite, there is one large group among Americans who should not find it totally unfamiliar. That encompasses people such as ourselves – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were educated as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have observed across decades as rightwing evangelical churches transformed the Christ we learned about into the total contrary of our perception of his character. Essentially, they converted a persona of love into a symbol of hate who blesses specifically the brutality that he denounced in the Gospel; this change developed more gradually, over decades instead of months, yet it remains disconcerting through similar means, a confusing personal impact for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Takes Hold
Therefore allow me to outline the Savior from my upbringing, since in theory Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and given that the quickly increasing segment among Americans could have minimal awareness of him as they consider themselves non-believers or uncertain individuals or religiously unaffiliated. I have no problem with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; yet I maintain that exist valuable insights of significant worth in biblical accounts.
It is emphatically absolutely not the account of an authoritative monarch emerging; conversely, a child comes into the world to homeless parents in an automotive shelter, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to evade covert authorities. The infant develops in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his message is about love for fellow humans, specifically for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but practical compassion, demonstrated through nourishing and protecting. Jesus' answer to hostility is to offer the opposite cheek – not as a demonstration of submissive tolerance, but as a method to teach the aggressor; his method regarding offenses is that if someone steals your jacket you ought to provide him your sweater as well.
The obvious and clear reality that the Savior in biblical accounts advocates for a type of radical love focused on the poor has consistently rendered Christianity something of a scandalous religion: attractive to the general public, but owing to its intrinsic extremism needing to be contained. In the fifties it was controlled by dilution – Protestantism was so widespread that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Conflict for the Best of Us
So I have been heartened to observe the steadfast resistance against Trump develop in this past year. It has been significant comfort to participate in developing the initiative that has demonstrated publicly in rally after rally, and likely has encouraged citizens to show up in numbers during minor elections. We will need to maintain it, and through comparable resolve, displaying national flags throughout each rally and requests to the highest qualities of American history.
We're going to be asked ... how did you receive the foreigner? Did you receive him and embrace them or refuse?
America is best defended, to put it differently, by relationship to the highest about American history, just as Christianity is best defended by relationship to what makes it unique and wonderful, which is the example of Jesus. In neither case does it mean acting as if the most negative about the nation and religious tradition did not happen; it signifies both meekness and faith, a blend that genuine national faithful ought to accept.
