The Trump phenomenon's most telling and characteristic instances – not its most crucial, nor most brutal, nor most hazardous, nor stupidest, but possibly its most revealing – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of multiple weeks, the nation's leader commenced revealing the public his intentions for a gilded ballroom two times larger of the White House and subsequently started solo dismantling the eastern section to build it.
He has performed deeds 10,000 times as bad – the existing assessment of fatalities from his cuts to foreign assistance stands at 600,000 and rising, and this week an analysis forecast his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities 1.3 million more. Yet nothing as characteristic. No other president would have risked – really, no other president would have conceived – independently wrecking significant portions of the White House to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of multiple the richest Americans, nearly all of which conduct transactions with federal agencies.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' into 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to witness the chief executive attempt to overturn the traditional concept about democracy and substitute it with its polar opposite, there exists a significant segment among Americans who might not perceive it totally unfamiliar. That is those of us – among senior generations a near majority – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have watched over the years while conservative evangelical congregations turned the Jesus we were raised with into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they turned a figure of love into an icon of hostility who blesses exactly the harshness that he criticized in biblical teachings; this has happened more slowly, across decades instead of months, yet it remains disconcerting through similar means, a bewildering emotional blow for countless people.
A Toxic Christianity Gains Ground
Hence I shall explain the Jesus from my childhood, since in theory Christ is the focus within Christian belief, and because the rapidly expanding group of Americans could have minimal awareness about him because they identify as atheists or uncertain individuals or religiously unaffiliated. I have no problem with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; yet I maintain that there are pearls of substantial value within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly not the account of a powerful ruler appearing; conversely, a baby is born to parents without shelter in a garage, who must quickly flee to a different country to escape secret police. The child matures in modest conditions, a laboring woodworker; his teaching concerns compassion for other people, particularly for the impoverished – not simply tender feelings, but practical compassion, demonstrated through nourishing and protecting. Christ's response to hostility is to turn the opposite cheek – not as a demonstration of compliant endurance, but as a means to teach the aggressor; his method regarding offenses indicates that whenever someone steals your jacket you ought to provide the person your additional clothing too.
The evident and clear truth that the Jesus of the gospels advocates for a type of extreme compassion focused on the needy has consistently rendered Christian religion something of a scandalous religion: appealing to the populace, but due to its inherent radicalness needing to be restrained. During the 1950s it was restrained through watering down – Protestant Christianity was so prevalent that it basically baptized the status quo.
A Struggle for the Best of Us
Therefore I have felt heartened to witness the determined opposition to Trump arise during the previous year. It has provided great solace to assist in constructing the movement that has protested openly in rally after rally, and likely has encouraged voters to participate in significant amounts in the off-year elections. We shall require to continue it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags during all protests and calls to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We shall be interrogated ... how did you receive the foreigner? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or not?
America is best defended, essentially, by relationship to the highest about American history, just as Christianity is most protected through connection to elements that cause it to be unique and magnificent, particularly the pattern of Christ. In both situations does it mean feigning the most damaging regarding America and Christianity never occurred; it represents both humility and conviction, a combination that serious American Christians should be comfortable with.
