The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and distinctive instances – not its most significant, nor cruelest, nor most dangerous, nor most foolish, but possibly its most revealing – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of multiple weeks, the US president started showing all observers his plans for an ornate dance hall two times larger compared to the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the East Wing portion to erect it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of fatalities from his cuts to USAID is 600,000 and increasing, and this week an analysis forecast his fossil fuel policies would kill an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have attempted – genuinely, no other president would have contemplated – independently wrecking major areas of the presidential residence to build a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of some of America's wealthiest, nearly all of which maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the world' into 'the meek shall die from cholera'
As disorienting as it is to witness the chief executive attempt to overturn the established notion regarding democracy and substitute it with its complete opposite, there is one large group within America who wouldn't consider it totally unfamiliar. That is those of us – among senior generations a near majority – who were brought up within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have observed over the years as rightwing evangelical churches transformed the Christ we were raised with into the total contrary of our perception of his character. Essentially, they converted a persona of compassion into a symbol of hate who endorses exactly the harshness that he denounced in scripture; this change developed at a slower pace, through multiple decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless disconcerting through similar means, a confusing personal impact for numerous individuals.
A Toxic Christianity Gains Ground
Hence I shall explain the Jesus from my upbringing, since in theory Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and because the quickly increasing segment within America could have minimal awareness regarding him because they identify as atheists or agnostics or nones. I have no problem with these different approaches, nor with any other faith; but I do think that exist valuable insights of substantial value within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly not the story of an authoritative monarch arising; instead, a child comes into the world to displaced parents in a storage space, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to avoid covert authorities. The child matures in humble circumstances, a laboring woodworker; his message focuses on affection for other people, especially for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, expressed by feeding and housing. Jesus' answer to hostility is to turn the other cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a method to instruct the aggressor; his method regarding offenses is that if someone steals your jacket you ought to provide them your pullover too.
The evident and clear truth that the Savior of the gospels requests a form of radical love centered on the needy has perpetually caused Christianity rather a provocative belief system: attractive to the general public, but due to its natural unconventionality needing to be contained. In the fifties it was restrained via weakening – The Protestant faith was so dominant that it basically baptized the status quo.
A Conflict for the Highest Among Us
Hence I have become heartened to see the determined opposition against Trump arise during the previous year. It has served as significant comfort to participate in developing the initiative that has demonstrated publicly through repeated demonstrations, and likely has encouraged citizens to turn out in significant amounts in the off-year elections. We shall require to persist with it, and through comparable resolve, displaying national flags during all protests and calls to the finest aspects of American history.
We're going to be asked ... about how you treated the stranger? Did you receive him and welcome him or refuse?
America is best defended, in other words, by reference to the best in US heritage, exactly as the Christian faith is best defended through connection to elements that cause it to be unique and beautiful, which is the example of Jesus. In neither case does it suggest pretending the most damaging regarding America and religious tradition did not happen; it means both meekness and conviction, a mixture that genuine American Christians should be comfortable with.
