The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and distinctive instances – not its most significant, nor most harsh, nor most threatening, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. During the period of multiple weeks, the US president started showing everyone his plans for a gilded ballroom two times larger than the White House and then commenced unilaterally ripping down the eastern section to erect it.
He has performed deeds 10,000 times as bad – the current estimate of casualties from his cuts to USAID stands at 600,000 and growing, and this week research projected his petroleum strategies would kill another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have risked – genuinely, no previous leader would have contemplated – unilaterally destroying major areas of the presidential residence to construct a royal-themed celebration hall, with the active collaboration of multiple the richest Americans, the majority of whom conduct transactions with public institutions.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' into 'the meek shall die to cholera'
As confusing as it is to observe the chief executive attempt to overturn the established notion regarding democracy and replace it with its polar opposite, there remains a substantial portion of Americans who should not find it completely novel. That is those of us – in older age cohorts almost a majority – who were raised as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have witnessed throughout the years while conservative evangelical congregations turned the Jesus we learned about into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. At its most basic, they converted a persona of love into a figure of hate who endorses specifically the brutality that he criticized in biblical teachings; this has happened at a slower pace, through multiple decades instead of months, however it is still unsettling through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for countless people.
A Toxic Christianity Establishes Itself
Therefore allow me to outline the Jesus from my upbringing, since in theory Jesus is the center of any Christian faith, and given that the fastest-growing cadre within America might have little sense of him since they are skeptics or agnostics or religiously unaffiliated. I raise no objection with any of these traditions, nor with any other faith; however I believe that there are pearls of substantial value within Christian narrative.
It is emphatically definitely not the account of an authoritative monarch emerging; instead, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in an automotive shelter, who must quickly flee to a different country to evade undercover officers. The child matures in modest conditions, an employed craftsman; his message concerns compassion for other people, specifically for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but practical compassion, expressed by feeding and protecting. Christ's response to violence is to turn the additional cheek – not as a demonstration of submissive tolerance, but as a method to teach the attacker; his method regarding offenses states that when an individual takes your outer garment you must offer the person your additional clothing also.
The obvious and clear truth that the Jesus of the gospels advocates for a form of profound affection concentrated on the needy has consistently rendered Christianity somewhat of a controversial faith: attractive to the general public, but owing to its intrinsic extremism demanding to be restrained. In the 1950s it was restrained via weakening – Protestant Christianity was so dominant that it basically blessed current circumstances.
A Conflict for the Finest of Us
Hence I have become inspired to see the steadfast resistance against Trump emerge in this past year. It has served as substantial consolation to participate in developing the movement that has taken to the streets through repeated demonstrations, and seems to have inspired electorate to show up in numbers in the off-year elections. We will need to persist with it, and through comparable resolve, featuring US banners throughout each rally and requests to the best parts within national heritage.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you welcome them and receive them or reject?
The nation is most protected, in other words, by relationship to the best about American history, just as Christianity is best defended through connection to that which renders it unique and wonderful, specifically the model of the Savior. In both situations does it suggest pretending the worst regarding America and religious tradition did not happen; it signifies both meekness and belief, a mixture that committed US believers should be comfortable with.
