The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and defining instances – not its most significant, nor cruelest, nor most dangerous, nor most senseless, but perhaps its most illuminating – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of several weeks, the US president commenced revealing the public his plans for a gilded ballroom twice the size of the White House and then began solo dismantling the eastern section to construct it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe – the current estimate of casualties resulting from his reductions to foreign assistance is 600,000 and increasing, and this week an analysis projected his energy policies would kill an additional 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No former leader would have risked – really, no previous leader would have contemplated – solo demolishing significant portions of the White House in order to erect a royal-themed celebration hall, with the direct cooperation of numerous the nation's most affluent, the majority of whom conduct transactions with public institutions.
We went from 'the humble will receive the world' toward 'the meek shall die to cholera'
As bewildering as it is to watch the leader try to upend the established notion about democracy and replace it with its complete opposite, there is one large group of Americans who wouldn't consider it entirely new. This includes individuals like us – within elder demographics close to half – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have witnessed throughout the years as politically conservative religious groups transformed the Christ we were raised with into the total contrary of our perception of his character. At its most basic, they turned a figure of compassion into an icon of animosity who endorses specifically the brutality that he denounced in scripture; this change developed more slowly, through multiple decades instead of months, yet it remains disconcerting through similar means, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Toxic Christianity Establishes Itself
So let me first describe the Savior from my childhood, since in theory the Savior is the core of any Christian faith, and given that the rapidly expanding group within America could have minimal awareness regarding him because they identify as non-believers or agnostics or nones. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with different religions; but I do think that there are pearls of great price in biblical accounts.
It is emphatically absolutely not the story of an authoritative monarch emerging; instead, a child comes into the world to displaced parents in a storage space, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to evade secret police. The child matures in simple surroundings, a working carpenter; his doctrine focuses on affection for other people, especially for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but practical compassion, demonstrated through nourishing and housing. The Savior's reaction to violence is to present the other cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a method to instruct the assailant; his approach to wrongdoing states that when a person pilfers your jacket you should give the person your additional clothing as well.
The apparent and direct truth that Christ in biblical accounts requests a form of radical love focused on the poor has perpetually caused Christian religion somewhat of a scandalous religion: attractive to the masses, but due to its intrinsic extremism demanding to be restrained. During the 1950s it was contained via weakening – Protestant Christianity was so widespread that it essentially sanctified existing conditions.
A Battle for the Highest of Us
So I have been encouraged to observe the steadfast resistance against Trump develop during the previous year. It has served as significant comfort to assist in constructing the initiative that has protested openly via continuous gatherings, and appears to have motivated citizens to turn out in large quantities in the off-year elections. We must have to maintain it, and through comparable resolve, displaying national flags throughout each rally and calls to the best parts of American history.
We're going to be asked ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you receive him and welcome him or not?
America is best defended, essentially, through connection to the finest within national tradition, exactly as the Christian faith is optimally secured through connection to that which renders it distinctive and beautiful, which is the example of the Savior. In all circumstances does it mean feigning the most negative regarding America and Christian faith was nonexistent; it means both modesty and belief, a mixture that serious American Christians should be comfortable with.
