The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and defining instances – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most threatening, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. In the course of several weeks, the American president began displaying everyone his designs for a lavish reception room double the dimensions compared to the White House and then commenced solo dismantling the East Wing to construct it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe – the existing assessment of fatalities from his cuts to USAID stands at 600,000 and growing, and presently a study forecast his energy policies would result in fatalities 1.3 million more. Yet nothing as characteristic. No other president would have risked – truly, no other president would have imagined – solo demolishing major areas of the White House to build a royal-themed celebration hall, with the active collaboration of some of the nation's most affluent, almost all of whom conduct transactions with federal agencies.
We transitioned from 'the gentle will obtain the Earth' into 'the gentle will succumb to cholera'
As bewildering as it is to witness the president try to upend the traditional concept about democracy and replace it with its polar opposite, there remains a substantial portion within America who wouldn't consider it completely novel. This includes individuals like us – among senior generations close to half – who were raised as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have watched over the years as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we learned about into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they turned a figure of love into an icon of hate who approves precisely the cruelties that he condemned in biblical teachings; this change developed more gradually, across decades rather than months, yet it remains unsettling through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for numerous individuals.
A Harmful Christianity Gains Ground
So let me first describe the Savior from my childhood, because theoretically Jesus is the center within Christian belief, and given that the rapidly expanding group within America might have little sense regarding him since they are non-believers or agnostics or spiritual independents. 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 unquestionably not the narrative of a powerful ruler arising; instead, a child comes into the world to parents without shelter in an automotive shelter, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to avoid undercover officers. The infant develops in modest conditions, a working carpenter; his teaching is about love for fellow humans, especially for the disadvantaged – not simply tender feelings, but a concrete one, expressed by feeding and sheltering. Christ's response to hostility is to turn the other cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a method to teach the aggressor; his approach to wrongdoing indicates that whenever someone steals your jacket you ought to provide them your pullover as well.
The evident and direct fact that the Jesus of the gospels calls for a form of extreme compassion focused on the impoverished is what has always made Christian religion rather a provocative belief system: engaging for the general public, but because of its intrinsic extremism needing to be controlled. During the 1950s it was controlled through watering down – Protestant Christianity was so prevalent that it practically blessed current circumstances.
A Conflict for the Highest of Us
Hence I have become heartened to observe the steadfast resistance regarding Trump develop over the last twelve months. It has been substantial consolation to assist in constructing the campaign that has protested openly via continuous gatherings, and appears to have motivated voters to turn out in significant amounts in interim political contests. We shall require to maintain it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags at every demonstration and appeals to the finest aspects in US history.
We will be questioned ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you welcome them and receive them or reject?
The nation is most protected, essentially, by reference to the best within national tradition, similar to Christianity is best defended through connection to that which renders it distinctive and beautiful, specifically the model of the Savior. In both situations does it mean pretending the worst regarding America and Christian faith never occurred; it represents both modesty and conviction, a mixture that serious national faithful should embrace.
