The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and characteristic moments – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but perhaps its most illuminating – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of multiple weeks, the American president began displaying all observers his plans for a gilded ballroom double the dimensions of the White House and then commenced unilaterally ripping down the East Wing portion to build it.
He has performed deeds 10,000 times as bad – the present calculation of deaths from his cuts to international aid amounts to 600,000 and rising, and presently research projected his energy policies would result in fatalities an additional 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No previous president would have attempted – really, no previous leader would have imagined – solo demolishing major areas of the presidential residence to build a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of some of the nation's most affluent, almost all of whom maintain dealings with public institutions.
We went from 'the gentle will obtain the planet' toward 'the meek shall die of cholera'
As confusing as it is to watch the president attempt to overturn the old idea of democracy and substitute it with its complete opposite, there is one large group within America who should not find it totally unfamiliar. That encompasses people such as ourselves – in older age cohorts close to half – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have observed throughout the years while conservative evangelical congregations converted the Savior we grew up with into exactly the opposite of our understanding of him. Fundamentally, they transformed an image of compassion into a figure of animosity who endorses exactly the harshness that he condemned in the Gospel; this transformation occurred at a slower pace, over decades as opposed to months, yet it remains disconcerting through similar means, a confusing personal impact for numerous individuals.
A Toxic Christianity Gains Ground
Therefore allow me to outline the Jesus that I grew up with, since in theory Christ is the focus within Christian belief, and given that the quickly increasing segment among Americans may possess limited understanding of him because they identify as non-believers or agnostics or religiously unaffiliated. I take no issue with these different approaches, nor with different religions; but I do think that contain precious wisdom of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is emphatically absolutely not the story of a mighty king emerging; instead, a child comes into the world to parents without shelter in an automotive shelter, who must quickly flee to a different country to escape covert authorities. The infant develops in modest conditions, an employed craftsman; his teaching focuses on affection for others, particularly for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but practical compassion, demonstrated through nourishing and sheltering. The Savior's reaction to violence is to offer the other cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a method to teach the attacker; his approach to wrongdoing indicates that whenever someone steals your jacket you ought to provide him your sweater too.
The evident and direct reality that Christ from scripture advocates for a kind of extreme compassion concentrated on the impoverished has perpetually caused Christian religion something of a provocative belief system: engaging for the general public, but owing to its intrinsic extremism requiring to be contained. During the 1950s it was contained through watering down – Protestantism was so widespread that it practically sanctified existing conditions.
A Battle for the Best Within Us
Therefore I have felt inspired to observe the determined opposition to Trump develop over the last twelve months. It has provided great solace to participate in developing the initiative that has demonstrated publicly through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated voters to show up in large quantities in the off-year elections. We must have to persist with it, and in the same spirit, with American flags throughout each rally and calls to the finest aspects within national heritage.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you welcome them and welcome him or reject?
America is best defended, essentially, by reference to the finest about American history, just as Christianity is best defended by relationship to elements that cause it to be special and beautiful, particularly the pattern of the Savior. In all circumstances does it imply pretending the worst about the nation and religious tradition was nonexistent; it represents both meekness and belief, a combination that genuine US believers should embrace.
