The Trump phenomenon's most telling and defining moments – not its most significant, nor most harsh, nor most hazardous, nor stupidest, but possibly its most revealing – occurred earlier this fall. In the course of several weeks, the nation's leader started showing the public his intentions for a gilded ballroom double the dimensions than the White House and then began unilaterally ripping down the East Wing portion to erect it.
He has performed deeds 10,000 times as bad – the current estimate of casualties from his cuts to international aid amounts to 600,000 and rising, and presently research projected his energy policies would cause deaths 1.3 million more. However nothing as distinctive. No former leader would have attempted – really, no former commander would have contemplated – solo demolishing major areas of the executive mansion to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of some of the richest Americans, the majority of whom conduct transactions with the government.
We moved from 'the gentle will obtain the planet' to 'the humble will perish to cholera'
As bewildering as it is to observe the chief executive try to upend the old idea about democracy and substitute it with its direct contrary, there exists a significant segment of Americans who should not find it completely novel. That encompasses people such as ourselves – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were raised as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have observed across decades as politically conservative religious groups turned the Jesus we were raised with into exactly the opposite of our perception of his character. At its most basic, they turned a figure of compassion into a symbol of hate who endorses exactly the harshness that he condemned in the Gospel; this transformation occurred at a slower pace, through multiple decades as opposed to months, but it is nonetheless unsettling via comparable methods, a bewildering emotional blow for countless people.
A Toxic Christianity Establishes Itself
So let me first describe the Jesus from my childhood, because theoretically the Savior is the core of Christian religion, and because the quickly increasing segment of Americans could have minimal awareness regarding him since they are non-believers or agnostics or religiously unaffiliated. I have no problem with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; yet I maintain that exist valuable insights of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is unquestionably not the narrative of a mighty king emerging; conversely, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in a storage space, who need to rapidly escape to another nation to evade undercover officers. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his message focuses on affection for other people, particularly for the poor – not simply tender feelings, but tangible care, shown by providing food and protecting. Christ's response to aggression is to offer the opposite cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a means to educate the aggressor; his crime policy states that when an individual takes your coat you ought to provide them your pullover too.
The evident and clear reality that the Savior of the gospels advocates for a type of extreme compassion concentrated on the needy is what has always made the Christian faith somewhat of a controversial faith: attractive to the populace, but because of its inherent radicalness requiring to be restrained. During the 1950s it was controlled through watering down – The Protestant faith was so prevalent that it basically sanctified existing conditions.
A Battle for the Best of Us
So I have been heartened to observe the persistent defiance against Trump arise during the previous year. It has been great solace to assist in constructing the movement that has protested openly in rally after rally, and likely has encouraged electorate to participate in large quantities in interim political contests. We shall require to persist with it, and in the same spirit, with American flags throughout each rally and calls to the finest aspects within national heritage.
We shall be interrogated ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you welcome them and welcome him or not?
The country is optimally secured, essentially, by relationship to the best in US heritage, just as Christianity is best defended through connection to that which renders it distinctive and wonderful, particularly the pattern of Christ. In both situations does it suggest feigning the most damaging of both America and Christianity did not happen; it signifies both modesty and faith, a combination that genuine national faithful should embrace.
