The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and defining moments – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor most senseless, but perhaps its most illuminating – came earlier this autumn. In the course of multiple weeks, the US president commenced revealing everyone his plans for a lavish reception room two times larger compared to the White House and then began independently demolishing the East Wing to construct it.
He has done things countless times more severe – the present calculation of deaths from his cuts to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and growing, and this week research projected his petroleum strategies would result in fatalities 1.3 million more. Yet nothing as characteristic. No other president would have risked – really, no former commander would have contemplated – unilaterally destroying significant portions of the White House in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of numerous the richest Americans, almost all of whom have business with public institutions.
We transitioned from 'the meek shall inherit the world' to 'the humble will perish from cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the president try to upend the traditional concept regarding democracy and exchange it with its direct contrary, there remains a substantial portion within America who should not find it entirely new. That encompasses people such as ourselves – in older age cohorts close to half – who were educated as conventional Protestant believers.
We have watched over the years while conservative evangelical congregations transformed the Christ we were raised with into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they transformed an image of love into a symbol of hate who approves specifically the brutality that he denounced in scripture; this has happened more gradually, over decades as opposed to months, but it is nonetheless unsettling via comparable methods, a bewildering emotional blow for countless people.
A Harmful Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Jesus from my upbringing, since in theory Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and given that the fastest-growing cadre within America may possess limited understanding regarding him as they consider themselves non-believers or doubters or religiously unaffiliated. I raise no objection with these different approaches, nor with any other faith; but I do think that contain precious wisdom of substantial value within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly definitely not the narrative of a mighty king appearing; conversely, a child comes into the world to parents without shelter in a storage space, who must quickly flee to a foreign land to avoid undercover officers. The baby grows up in modest conditions, a working carpenter; his doctrine is about love for fellow humans, specifically for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but tangible care, expressed by feeding and sheltering. The Savior's reaction to violence is to present the other cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a way to teach the attacker; his crime policy is that if an individual takes your jacket you ought to provide them your pullover as well.
The evident and direct reality that the Savior from scripture requests a form of extreme compassion focused on the impoverished has consistently rendered Christian religion something of a controversial faith: engaging for the populace, but owing to its natural unconventionality requiring to be controlled. In the 1950s it was controlled via weakening – Protestantism was so prevalent that it essentially baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Finest Within Us
Hence I have become encouraged to see the determined opposition regarding Trump arise during the previous year. It has been great solace to help build the campaign that has taken to the streets through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated voters to show up in large quantities during minor elections. We shall require to maintain it, and with identical determination, displaying national flags during all protests and requests to the finest aspects in US history.
We shall be interrogated ... regarding how you welcomed the immigrant? Did you receive him and embrace them or reject?
The nation is most protected, to put it differently, through connection to the best about American history, exactly as the Christian faith is optimally secured by reference to what makes it special and beautiful, specifically the model of Christ. In neither case does it suggest pretending the most damaging about the nation and Christian faith never occurred; it signifies both humility and conviction, a mixture that serious US believers should be comfortable with.
