The Trump phenomenon's most telling and distinctive moments – not its most significant, nor most harsh, nor most hazardous, nor most senseless, but possibly its most revealing – came earlier this autumn. Over the span of several weeks, the US president started showing everyone his plans for a gilded ballroom double the dimensions than the White House and then began solo dismantling the eastern section to build it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of deaths resulting from his reductions to international aid stands at 600,000 and increasing, and this week an analysis predicted his petroleum strategies would result in fatalities another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have attempted – truly, no other president would have imagined – solo demolishing major areas of the White House to construct a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the direct cooperation of multiple America's wealthiest, almost all of whom have business with public institutions.
We moved from 'the gentle will obtain the world' to 'the meek shall die of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the leader attempt to overturn the traditional concept about democracy and substitute it with its polar opposite, there remains a substantial portion of Americans who wouldn't consider it totally unfamiliar. This includes individuals like us – among senior generations close to half – who were brought up as conventional Protestant believers.
We have watched across decades while conservative evangelical congregations transformed the Christ we learned about into the complete reverse of our understanding of him. At its most basic, they transformed an image of love into a figure of hostility who blesses precisely the cruelties that he criticized in scripture; this change developed more gradually, through multiple decades as opposed to months, yet it remains disconcerting in the same ways, a confusing personal impact for numerous individuals.
A Damaging Christianity Establishes Itself
So let me first describe the Jesus that I grew up with, since in theory the Savior is the core within Christian belief, and because the quickly increasing segment of Americans may possess limited understanding of him because they identify as non-believers or agnostics or nones. I raise no objection with these different approaches, nor with alternative spiritual paths; yet I maintain that exist valuable insights of great price in the Christian story.
It is emphatically absolutely not the story of an authoritative monarch arising; instead, a child comes into the world to displaced parents in a garage, who must quickly flee to another nation to avoid secret police. The infant develops in simple surroundings, a working carpenter; his teaching concerns compassion for other people, especially for the disadvantaged – not merely emotional affection, but a concrete one, shown by providing food and protecting. The Savior's reaction to aggression is to present the additional cheek – not as a gesture of submissive tolerance, but as a way to educate the aggressor; his method regarding offenses states that when a person pilfers your outer garment you should give them your pullover too.
The evident and direct truth that the Savior in biblical accounts calls for a kind of extreme compassion centered on the needy is what has always made the Christian faith rather a scandalous religion: appealing to the general public, but due to its intrinsic extremism needing to be restrained. During the 1950s it was restrained by dilution – Protestant Christianity was so dominant that it essentially blessed current circumstances.
A Battle for the Best of Us
So I have been heartened to see the persistent defiance regarding Trump develop in this past year. It has provided significant comfort to assist in constructing the movement that has demonstrated publicly via continuous gatherings, and appears to have motivated citizens to show up in large quantities during minor elections. We shall require to continue it, and with identical determination, displaying national flags during all protests and requests to the finest aspects of American history.
We will be questioned ... about how you treated the stranger? Did you accept these individuals and receive them or not?
The nation is most protected, in other words, through connection to the finest in US heritage, just as Christianity is best defended through connection to that which renders it distinctive and magnificent, which is the example of Jesus. In neither case does it suggest pretending the most damaging of both America and Christianity did not happen; it represents both meekness and conviction, a blend that genuine US believers should be comfortable with.
