The Trump phenomenon's most telling and defining moments – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most hazardous, nor most senseless, but potentially its most enlightening – came earlier this autumn. Over the span of a few weeks, the US president began displaying everyone his designs for a lavish reception room twice the size of the White House and then commenced solo dismantling the East Wing portion to erect it.
He has committed acts countless times more severe – the current estimate of fatalities due to his slashing to international aid is 600,000 and growing, and presently research predicted his petroleum strategies would cause deaths an additional 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No previous president would have attempted – genuinely, no previous leader would have contemplated – independently wrecking significant portions of the White House to build a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the active collaboration of multiple the richest Americans, almost all of whom maintain dealings with the government.
We transitioned from 'the humble will receive the planet' into 'the gentle will succumb to cholera'
As bewildering as it is to witness the president try to upend the old idea of democracy and replace it with its complete opposite, there exists a significant segment among Americans who wouldn't consider it entirely new. That is those of us – within elder demographics almost a majority – who were brought up within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have watched throughout the years as rightwing evangelical churches converted the Savior we learned about into the complete reverse of our understanding of him. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of compassion into an icon of animosity who blesses precisely the cruelties that he criticized in the Gospel; this transformation occurred more slowly, over decades instead of months, yet it remains disconcerting in the same ways, a confusing personal impact for numerous individuals.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
Hence I shall explain the Jesus from my upbringing, since in theory Christ is the focus within Christian belief, and because the quickly increasing segment within America could have minimal awareness of him because they identify as atheists or agnostics or spiritual independents. I have no problem with any of these traditions, nor with alternative spiritual paths; yet I maintain that there are pearls of great price in biblical accounts.
It is emphatically absolutely not the account of an authoritative monarch appearing; conversely, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in a storage space, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to escape secret police. The infant develops in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his teaching is about love for others, specifically for the poor – not merely emotional affection, but practical compassion, shown by providing food and sheltering. Jesus' answer to aggression is to offer the other cheek – not as an act of passive acceptance, but as a means to educate the aggressor; his crime policy is that if an individual takes your coat you must offer him your sweater also.
The apparent and clear reality that the Jesus from scripture requests a type of profound affection focused on the impoverished has consistently rendered Christianity somewhat of a provocative belief system: attractive to the general public, but due to its intrinsic extremism requiring to be contained. In the 1950s it was contained via weakening – Protestantism was so widespread that it essentially baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Highest of Us
So I have been heartened to observe the determined opposition regarding Trump emerge during the previous year. It has been substantial consolation to help build the initiative that has demonstrated publicly in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated electorate to show up in large quantities during minor elections. We shall require to maintain it, and with identical determination, with American flags during all protests and requests to the finest aspects within national heritage.
We shall be interrogated ... how did you receive the immigrant? Did you receive him and welcome him or refuse?
The nation is most protected, to put it differently, through connection to the highest within national tradition, similar to Christianity is best defended by reference to what makes it unique and beautiful, particularly the pattern of the Savior. In neither case does it mean feigning the worst regarding America and religious tradition never occurred; it represents both meekness and faith, a mixture that genuine US believers should be comfortable with.
