The Trump phenomenon's most illuminating and defining moments – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor most foolish, but possibly its most revealing – came earlier this autumn. In the course of several weeks, the US president commenced revealing all observers his designs for a gilded ballroom twice the size compared to the White House and then commenced solo dismantling the East Wing to build it.
He has done things 10,000 times as bad – the existing assessment of casualties due to his slashing to foreign assistance is 600,000 and increasing, and presently an analysis predicted his fossil fuel policies would cause deaths 1.3 million more. But nothing as definitional. No former leader would have dared – truly, no other president would have imagined – independently wrecking significant portions of the presidential residence to construct a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the active collaboration of multiple the nation's most affluent, nearly all of which conduct transactions with federal agencies.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the world' toward 'the gentle will succumb of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the president try to upend the traditional concept of democracy and exchange it with its complete opposite, there remains a substantial portion among Americans who should not find it totally unfamiliar. This includes individuals like us – in older age cohorts close to half – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have witnessed throughout the years while conservative evangelical congregations transformed the Christ we grew up with into the complete reverse of our understanding of him. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of compassion into an icon of hate who approves precisely the cruelties that he criticized in the Gospel; this has happened at a slower pace, over decades rather than months, however it is still disconcerting in the same ways, a bewildering emotional blow for countless people.
A Damaging Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Savior from my upbringing, because theoretically Christ is the focus of Christian religion, and given that the fastest-growing cadre of Americans may possess limited understanding about him since they are skeptics or uncertain individuals or spiritual independents. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with any other faith; yet I maintain that exist valuable insights of significant worth within Christian narrative.
It is emphatically definitely not the narrative of a powerful ruler emerging; rather, a baby is born to homeless parents in a garage, who are forced to hastily depart to a different country to escape covert authorities. The child matures in modest conditions, a working carpenter; his teaching concerns compassion for fellow humans, especially for the poor – not simply tender feelings, but tangible care, shown by providing food and protecting. Christ's response to aggression is to turn the other cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a means to teach the attacker; his method regarding offenses indicates that whenever someone steals your jacket you should give the person your additional clothing as well.
The apparent and straightforward fact that the Jesus in biblical accounts calls for a form of radical love focused on the needy has consistently rendered Christianity something of a controversial faith: engaging for the general public, but due to its inherent radicalness demanding to be controlled. In the fifties it was controlled through watering down – The Protestant faith was so widespread that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Struggle for the Highest of Us
Hence I have become encouraged to witness the determined opposition regarding Trump arise in this past year. It has provided great solace to help build the movement that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and seems to have inspired voters to participate in numbers in the off-year elections. We will need to persist with it, and through comparable resolve, displaying national flags during all protests and requests to the highest qualities in US history.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the stranger? Did you receive him and receive them or not?
The nation is most protected, in other words, by relationship to the finest in US heritage, just as Christianity is optimally secured by reference to what makes it unique and magnificent, specifically the model of Jesus. In all circumstances does it mean feigning the most negative of both America and religious tradition never occurred; it signifies both humility and faith, a mixture that serious American Christians ought to accept.
