The Trump movement's most revealing and defining moments – not its most crucial, nor cruelest, nor most dangerous, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – came earlier this autumn. In the course of a few weeks, the nation's leader commenced revealing the public his designs for a gilded ballroom double the dimensions than the White House and then began independently demolishing the East Wing to erect it.
He has performed deeds 10,000 times as bad – the current estimate of casualties resulting from his reductions to USAID amounts to 600,000 and growing, and this week a study predicted his petroleum strategies would kill another 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No former leader would have attempted – truly, no other president would have contemplated – independently wrecking large sections of the White House to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of multiple the nation's most affluent, nearly all of which conduct transactions with the government.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the Earth' to 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the president attempt to overturn the traditional concept of democracy and substitute it with its complete opposite, there is one large group among Americans who might not perceive it entirely new. This includes individuals like us – within elder demographics a near majority – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have watched over the years while conservative evangelical congregations converted the Savior we grew up with into exactly the opposite of our perception of his character. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of love into a figure of hate who endorses specifically the brutality that he denounced in the Gospel; this change developed at a slower pace, through multiple decades as opposed to months, however it is still disturbing in the same ways, a confusing personal impact for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Establishes Itself
So let me first describe the Christ from my upbringing, since in theory Jesus is the center of Christian religion, and because the fastest-growing cadre of Americans may possess limited understanding of him because they identify as non-believers or uncertain individuals or nones. I have no problem with these different approaches, nor with different religions; however I believe that there are pearls of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is unquestionably not the narrative of a mighty king appearing; instead, an infant arrives to homeless parents in a garage, who are forced to hastily depart to a different country to escape undercover officers. The baby grows up in modest conditions, a laboring woodworker; his teaching concerns compassion for others, specifically for the disadvantaged – and not a sentimental love, but tangible care, demonstrated through nourishing and housing. The Savior's reaction to aggression is to turn the opposite cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a way to instruct the attacker; his crime policy indicates that whenever someone steals your coat you ought to provide the person your additional clothing too.
The evident and straightforward truth that the Jesus in biblical accounts advocates for a form of extreme compassion concentrated on the needy is what has always made Christianity somewhat of a scandalous religion: attractive to the general public, but due to its intrinsic extremism demanding to be controlled. In the 1950s it was restrained via weakening – The Protestant faith was so dominant that it practically sanctified existing conditions.
A Struggle for the Highest of Us
Therefore I have felt inspired to witness the persistent defiance against Trump develop in this past year. It has served as significant comfort to assist in constructing the campaign that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and likely has encouraged citizens to participate in significant amounts in the off-year elections. We must have to continue it, and with identical determination, featuring US banners at every demonstration and requests to the best parts of American history.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you accept these individuals and receive them or refuse?
America is best defended, essentially, through connection to the finest within national tradition, just as Christianity is most protected by relationship to what makes it distinctive and beautiful, which is the example of the Savior. In both situations does it imply feigning the most negative regarding America and Christian faith did not happen; it represents both humility and conviction, a blend that genuine national faithful should be comfortable with.
