The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and defining moments – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most hazardous, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. During the period of multiple weeks, the nation's leader commenced revealing all observers his plans for an ornate dance hall twice the size than the White House and then commenced independently demolishing the East Wing portion to build it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe – the current estimate of deaths from his cuts to international aid stands at 600,000 and increasing, and presently research predicted his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No former leader would have risked – truly, no other president would have conceived – unilaterally destroying large sections of the White House to build a royal-themed celebration hall, with the active collaboration of numerous the nation's most affluent, nearly all of which have business with the government.
We transitioned from 'the meek shall inherit the planet' toward 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As confusing as it is to watch the president try to upend the old idea regarding democracy and replace it with its complete opposite, there is one large group of Americans who wouldn't consider it totally unfamiliar. That is those of us – in older age cohorts almost a majority – who were brought up within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have observed over the years while conservative evangelical congregations converted the Savior we were raised with into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. At its most basic, they turned a figure of love into a figure of hostility who approves exactly the harshness that he condemned in scripture; this change developed at a slower pace, across decades rather than months, yet it remains disconcerting through similar means, a bewildering emotional blow for numerous individuals.
A Damaging Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Christ from my childhood, as conceptually Jesus is the center within Christian belief, and given that the rapidly expanding group within America could have minimal awareness regarding him because they identify as skeptics or agnostics or nones. I raise no objection with any of these traditions, nor with any other faith; yet I maintain that exist valuable insights of substantial value within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly not the story of a mighty king arising; conversely, a baby is born to displaced parents in a garage, who are forced to hastily depart to another nation to evade covert authorities. The infant develops in modest conditions, an employed craftsman; his message focuses on affection for others, specifically for the disadvantaged – and not a sentimental love, but tangible care, expressed by feeding and sheltering. Jesus' answer to aggression is to turn the additional cheek – not as an act of passive acceptance, but as a method to teach the aggressor; his crime policy states that when an individual takes your jacket you should give the person your additional clothing also.
The obvious and direct truth that the Jesus from scripture calls for a kind of profound affection concentrated on the needy is what has always made the Christian faith rather a scandalous religion: attractive to the masses, but because of its natural unconventionality demanding to be contained. In the fifties it was controlled via weakening – Protestantism was so widespread that it essentially sanctified existing conditions.
A Struggle for the Best of Us
Therefore I have felt encouraged to see the determined opposition against Trump emerge during the previous year. It has been substantial consolation to help build the movement that has demonstrated publicly in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated voters to participate in large quantities in the off-year elections. We will need to maintain it, and through comparable resolve, displaying national flags throughout each rally and requests to the best parts within national heritage.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the stranger? Did you accept these individuals and welcome him or refuse?
America is best defended, in other words, by reference to the highest in US heritage, exactly as the Christian faith is best defended by reference to what makes it unique and beautiful, specifically the model of the Savior. In neither case does it imply feigning the most damaging of both America and religious tradition was nonexistent; it represents both modesty and faith, a blend that genuine American Christians ought to accept.
