The Trump phenomenon's most telling and characteristic instances – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most threatening, nor stupidest, but perhaps its most illuminating – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of a few weeks, the US president began displaying everyone his plans for a gilded ballroom two times larger than the White House and subsequently started independently demolishing the East Wing portion to build it.
He has performed deeds ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of fatalities from his cuts to international aid amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and presently a study predicted his energy policies would cause deaths an additional 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No previous president would have attempted – really, no previous leader would have imagined – solo demolishing significant portions of the executive mansion in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of some of America's wealthiest, nearly all of which have business with public institutions.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the planet' to 'the humble will perish to cholera'
As disorienting as it is to witness the president attempt to overturn the old idea regarding democracy and substitute it with its polar opposite, there is one large group of Americans who might not perceive it entirely new. That is those of us – in older age cohorts close to half – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have observed across decades as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we learned about into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they converted a persona of affection into a figure of hostility who approves precisely the cruelties that he denounced in scripture; this transformation occurred more gradually, over decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless disconcerting in the same ways, a bewildering emotional blow for numerous individuals.
A Toxic Christianity Gains Ground
Therefore allow me to outline the Christ from my childhood, because theoretically the Savior is the core of any Christian faith, and since the fastest-growing cadre among Americans could have minimal awareness of him because they identify as skeptics or uncertain individuals or spiritual independents. I have no problem with any of these traditions, nor with alternative spiritual paths; but I do think that contain precious wisdom of significant worth in the Christian story.
It is emphatically definitely not the story of an authoritative monarch appearing; rather, a baby is born to displaced parents in a garage, who need to rapidly escape to a different country to avoid covert authorities. The baby grows up in simple surroundings, a working carpenter; his message is about love for others, especially for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but a concrete one, shown by providing food and housing. The Savior's reaction to aggression is to turn the additional cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a way to instruct the assailant; his crime policy indicates that whenever someone steals your coat you should give them your pullover also.
The apparent and straightforward fact that the Jesus from scripture advocates for a form of radical love concentrated on the poor has perpetually caused Christianity something of a provocative belief system: appealing to the general public, but because of its intrinsic extremism needing to be contained. During the 1950s it was contained via weakening – Protestantism was so prevalent that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Struggle for the Best of Us
Hence I have become encouraged to see the persistent defiance regarding Trump develop over the last twelve months. It has served as substantial consolation to help build the movement that has protested openly via continuous gatherings, and likely has encouraged citizens to participate in significant amounts during minor elections. We must have to continue it, and through comparable resolve, displaying national flags throughout each rally and appeals to the finest aspects within national heritage.
We're going to be asked ... regarding how you welcomed the stranger? Did you accept these individuals and receive them or not?
The country is optimally secured, in other words, through connection to the finest within national tradition, exactly as the Christian faith is optimally secured by reference to what makes it special and magnificent, particularly the pattern of Jesus. In neither case does it mean pretending the most damaging of both America and Christian faith did not happen; it means both modesty and conviction, a combination that committed US believers should be comfortable with.
