The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and defining moments – not its most important, nor most harsh, nor most dangerous, nor most foolish, but perhaps its most illuminating – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of several weeks, the US president commenced revealing everyone his intentions for a gilded ballroom two times larger than the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the East Wing to erect it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe – the present calculation of casualties from his cuts to international aid is 600,000 and growing, and recently research projected his energy policies would result in fatalities 1.3 million more. Yet nothing as characteristic. No former leader would have attempted – genuinely, no previous leader would have conceived – unilaterally destroying significant portions of the White House to build a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the active collaboration of some of America's wealthiest, nearly all of which conduct transactions with public institutions.
We transitioned from 'the gentle will obtain the world' into 'the humble will perish to cholera'
As confusing as it is to watch the president try to upend the established notion regarding democracy and replace it with its direct contrary, there is one large group of Americans who should not find it completely novel. That is those of us – within elder demographics close to half – who were educated within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have observed across decades while conservative evangelical congregations turned the Jesus we grew up with into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they turned a figure of love into a figure of hostility who blesses specifically the brutality that he condemned in biblical teachings; this change developed at a slower pace, across decades instead of months, but it is nonetheless disturbing in the same ways, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
Hence I shall explain the Savior from my upbringing, because theoretically Jesus is the center within Christian belief, and because the rapidly expanding group within America may possess limited understanding regarding him since they are skeptics or uncertain individuals or religiously unaffiliated. I raise no objection with these different approaches, nor with different religions; however I believe that there are pearls of substantial value within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly not the account of a mighty king appearing; conversely, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in a garage, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to escape secret police. The child matures in simple surroundings, a laboring woodworker; his message concerns compassion for others, specifically for the disadvantaged – not simply tender feelings, but tangible care, expressed by feeding and protecting. Jesus' answer to aggression is to offer the opposite cheek – not as a demonstration of passive acceptance, but as a way to instruct the aggressor; his crime policy indicates that whenever a person pilfers your outer garment you should give the person your additional clothing too.
The evident and clear fact that the Savior in biblical accounts advocates for a type of radical love concentrated on the poor has perpetually caused the Christian faith rather a scandalous religion: attractive to the general public, but owing to its inherent radicalness requiring to be contained. In the fifties it was contained by dilution – The Protestant faith was so widespread that it essentially sanctified existing conditions.
A Battle for the Best of Us
So I have been heartened to observe the persistent defiance to Trump emerge during the previous year. It has provided great solace to assist in constructing the movement that has taken to the streets in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated voters to turn out in numbers during minor elections. We will need to continue it, and through comparable resolve, featuring US banners at every demonstration and appeals to the best parts in US history.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you receive him and welcome him or refuse?
The nation is most protected, in other words, by reference to the highest about American history, similar to Christianity is most protected through connection to elements that cause it to be unique and magnificent, specifically the model of Christ. In neither case does it suggest feigning the most damaging of both America and Christianity never occurred; it means both modesty and belief, a combination that committed national faithful ought to accept.
