The Trump phenomenon's most telling and characteristic moments – not its most important, nor most harsh, nor most hazardous, nor most foolish, but perhaps its most illuminating – emerged earlier this harvest season. In the course of a few weeks, the nation's leader started showing all observers his plans for an ornate dance hall twice the size compared to the White House and then commenced unilaterally ripping down the East Wing to build it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe – the current estimate of casualties resulting from his reductions to USAID stands at 600,000 and growing, and recently an analysis predicted his fossil fuel policies would kill another 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No previous president would have risked – genuinely, no other president would have imagined – independently wrecking major areas of the presidential residence in order to erect a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the enthusiastic participation of multiple America's wealthiest, nearly all of which maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the planet' toward 'the meek shall die to cholera'
As bewildering as it is to witness the president attempt to overturn the old idea about democracy and substitute it with its direct contrary, there exists a significant segment within America who should not find it completely novel. That is those of us – within elder demographics almost a majority – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have watched throughout the years while conservative evangelical congregations turned the Jesus we grew up with into the complete reverse of our perception of his character. At its most basic, they transformed an image of affection into an icon of animosity who endorses precisely the cruelties that he criticized in the Gospel; this change developed at a slower pace, through multiple decades rather than months, yet it remains unsettling through similar means, a confusing personal impact for numerous individuals.
A Harmful Christianity Gains Ground
So let me first describe the Jesus from my childhood, because theoretically Christ is the focus within Christian belief, and because the rapidly expanding group of Americans may possess limited understanding regarding him as they consider themselves skeptics or uncertain individuals or religiously unaffiliated. I take no issue with any of these traditions, nor with alternative spiritual paths; but I do think that exist valuable insights of substantial value within Christian narrative.
It is emphatically not the story of an authoritative monarch appearing; instead, a child comes into the world to parents without shelter in a storage space, who need to rapidly escape to a different country to escape secret police. The child matures in modest conditions, an employed craftsman; his message focuses on affection for other people, particularly for the poor – not merely emotional affection, but tangible care, shown by providing food and sheltering. The Savior's reaction to violence is to turn the additional cheek – not as a demonstration of compliant endurance, but as a way to instruct the aggressor; his method regarding offenses states that when a person pilfers your coat you ought to provide them your pullover too.
The obvious and straightforward truth that the Jesus in biblical accounts requests a type of extreme compassion centered on the needy has perpetually caused the Christian faith rather a scandalous religion: engaging for the populace, but due to its intrinsic extremism demanding to be contained. During the 1950s it was contained via weakening – The Protestant faith was so prevalent that it basically sanctified existing conditions.
A Conflict for the Highest Within Us
Hence I have become heartened to see the persistent defiance against Trump develop during the previous year. It has been great solace to participate in developing the movement that has demonstrated publicly in rally after rally, and likely has encouraged electorate to show up in significant amounts in the off-year elections. We shall require to continue it, and with identical determination, displaying national flags during all protests and calls to the best parts within national heritage.
We will be questioned ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you welcome them and embrace them or not?
The nation is most protected, in other words, by relationship to the best in US heritage, exactly as the Christian faith is most protected by relationship to what makes it distinctive and magnificent, particularly the pattern of Christ. In all circumstances does it suggest acting as if the most damaging of both America and Christianity was nonexistent; it signifies both meekness and belief, a combination that committed national faithful ought to accept.
