The Trump phenomenon's most telling and distinctive occasions – not its most crucial, nor most brutal, nor most hazardous, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. During the period of multiple weeks, the nation's leader began displaying all observers his intentions for a lavish reception room double the dimensions compared to the White House and subsequently started solo dismantling the eastern section to erect it.
He has performed deeds ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of casualties due to his slashing to USAID stands at 600,000 and increasing, and recently research predicted his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have dared – truly, no previous leader would have contemplated – independently wrecking large sections of the executive mansion in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of numerous the richest Americans, nearly all of which have business with the government.
We transitioned from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' toward 'the gentle will succumb of cholera'
As confusing as it is to watch the leader attempt to overturn the traditional concept of democracy and exchange it with its polar opposite, there remains a substantial portion within America who wouldn't consider it totally unfamiliar. That encompasses people such as ourselves – in older age cohorts almost a majority – who were raised as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have observed throughout the years as rightwing evangelical churches converted the Savior we grew up with into the total contrary of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they transformed an image of love into an icon of hate who endorses precisely the cruelties that he condemned in biblical teachings; this has happened at a slower pace, across decades instead of months, yet it remains disconcerting in the same ways, a disorienting gut punch for countless people.
A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground
Hence I shall explain the Savior that I grew up with, since in theory the Savior is the core of any Christian faith, and because the fastest-growing cadre of Americans could have minimal awareness regarding him because they identify as atheists or uncertain individuals or spiritual independents. I take no issue with these various perspectives, nor with any other faith; yet I maintain that contain precious wisdom of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is decidedly not the narrative of a powerful ruler emerging; instead, a child comes into the world to displaced parents in a garage, who need to rapidly escape to another nation to evade secret police. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, a laboring woodworker; his teaching focuses on affection for others, specifically for the impoverished – not simply tender feelings, but practical compassion, demonstrated through nourishing and sheltering. Christ's response to aggression is to turn the additional cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a means to teach the assailant; his approach to wrongdoing indicates that whenever an individual takes your outer garment you should give him your sweater as well.
The evident and clear reality that the Savior from scripture requests a form of extreme compassion centered on the impoverished is what has always made Christianity something of a scandalous religion: appealing to the populace, but due to its natural unconventionality demanding to be controlled. During the 1950s it was restrained through watering down – Protestantism was so widespread that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Struggle for the Best of Us
Therefore I have felt heartened to see the persistent defiance regarding Trump develop in this past year. It has served as significant comfort to assist in constructing the campaign that has protested openly in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated electorate to show up in significant amounts in the off-year elections. We will need to maintain it, and through comparable resolve, featuring US banners at every demonstration and calls to the highest qualities in US history.
We shall be interrogated ... how did you receive the immigrant? Did you welcome them and welcome him or not?
The nation is most protected, essentially, through connection to the best within national tradition, exactly as the Christian faith is best defended by reference to elements that cause it to be special and wonderful, specifically the model of Christ. In both situations does it imply acting as if the most damaging of both America and Christian faith did not happen; it represents both humility and conviction, a combination that serious national faithful should embrace.
