The Trump phenomenon's most illuminating and defining instances – not its most crucial, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor most foolish, but possibly its most revealing – occurred earlier this fall. In the course of multiple weeks, the US president started showing everyone his designs for an ornate dance hall two times larger than the White House and then commenced unilaterally ripping down the East Wing portion to erect it.
He has done things ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of casualties resulting from his reductions to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and recently research forecast his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities another 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No other president would have attempted – really, no other president would have conceived – solo demolishing significant portions of the White House to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of multiple America's wealthiest, almost all of whom conduct transactions with federal agencies.
We transitioned from 'the gentle will obtain the Earth' to 'the meek shall die of cholera'
As bewildering as it is to watch the leader attempt to overturn the old idea about democracy and substitute it with its polar opposite, there is one large group of Americans who wouldn't consider it completely novel. This includes individuals like us – within elder demographics a near majority – who were raised within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have watched across decades while conservative evangelical congregations converted the Savior we grew up with into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of compassion into a symbol of animosity who blesses exactly the harshness that he denounced in the Gospel; this change developed at a slower pace, over decades instead of months, however it is still unsettling via comparable methods, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Toxic Christianity Establishes Itself
So let me first describe the Jesus that I grew up with, since in theory Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and because the fastest-growing cadre among Americans may possess limited understanding of him since they are non-believers or agnostics or religiously unaffiliated. I have no problem with these various perspectives, nor with any other faith; however I believe that exist valuable insights of substantial value in biblical accounts.
It is unquestionably definitely not the story of a mighty king appearing; conversely, an infant arrives to displaced parents in an automotive shelter, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to avoid undercover officers. The infant develops in modest conditions, a working carpenter; his teaching is about love for other people, especially for the poor – not merely emotional affection, but practical compassion, shown by providing food and protecting. Christ's response to hostility is to turn the additional cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a method to educate the assailant; his approach to wrongdoing indicates that whenever a person pilfers your outer garment you should give him your sweater too.
The evident and direct reality that the Savior of the gospels requests a type of profound affection centered on the poor is what has always made the Christian faith something of a provocative belief system: attractive to the masses, but because of its natural unconventionality requiring to be restrained. During the 1950s it was controlled by dilution – Protestant Christianity was so widespread that it practically sanctified existing conditions.
A Battle for the Finest of Us
So I have been heartened to see the persistent defiance regarding Trump develop during the previous year. It has provided substantial consolation to help build the initiative that has taken to the streets in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated electorate to show up in significant amounts in the off-year elections. We must have to continue it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags throughout each rally and appeals to the highest qualities of American history.
We're going to be asked ... how did you receive the foreigner? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or reject?
America is best defended, to put it differently, through connection to the best about American history, similar to Christianity is most protected through connection to what makes it distinctive and beautiful, which is the example of Christ. In neither case does it suggest pretending the most damaging about the nation and Christian faith never occurred; it means both modesty and belief, a combination that committed national faithful should be comfortable with.
