The Trump movement's most telling and characteristic occasions – not its most crucial, nor most harsh, nor most dangerous, nor most senseless, but perhaps its most illuminating – came earlier this autumn. In the course of multiple weeks, the nation's leader started showing the public his designs for a lavish reception room double the dimensions of the White House and then began independently demolishing the East Wing portion to erect it.
He has done things countless times more severe – the present calculation of fatalities resulting from his reductions to USAID stands at 600,000 and growing, and presently research projected his energy policies would kill another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have attempted – genuinely, no previous leader would have imagined – unilaterally destroying significant portions of the presidential residence to build a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of multiple the nation's most affluent, the majority of whom have business with public institutions.
We went from 'the humble will receive the planet' into 'the meek shall die of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the leader try to upend the old idea of democracy and substitute it with its polar opposite, there is one large group among Americans who wouldn't consider it completely novel. That is those of us – in older age cohorts almost a majority – who were brought up within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have observed throughout the years as rightwing evangelical churches transformed the Christ we learned about into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they turned a figure of love into a symbol of hate who approves exactly the harshness that he criticized in the Gospel; this has happened more gradually, through multiple decades rather than months, however it is still disconcerting through similar means, a confusing personal impact for countless people.
A Harmful Christianity Establishes Itself
So let me first describe the Savior from my upbringing, because theoretically Jesus is the center of Christian religion, and because the fastest-growing cadre of Americans could have minimal awareness about him because they identify as atheists or doubters or nones. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; however I believe that contain precious wisdom of significant worth within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly absolutely not the account of an authoritative monarch emerging; rather, a child comes into the world to displaced parents in a storage space, who are forced to hastily depart to another nation to escape undercover officers. The child matures in modest conditions, a laboring woodworker; his message focuses on affection for others, specifically for the poor – not simply tender feelings, but a concrete one, expressed by feeding and protecting. Jesus' answer to aggression is to present the opposite cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a method to teach the aggressor; his method regarding offenses states that when an individual takes your coat you must offer them your pullover as well.
The obvious and straightforward reality that the Jesus from scripture calls for a type of extreme compassion concentrated on the poor has perpetually caused Christianity somewhat of a scandalous religion: appealing to the masses, but because of its natural unconventionality requiring to be restrained. In the 1950s it was contained through watering down – Protestantism was so dominant that it practically blessed current circumstances.
A Struggle for the Best Within Us
So I have been encouraged to see the persistent defiance against Trump emerge in this past year. It has provided great solace to assist in constructing the campaign that has taken to the streets via continuous gatherings, and likely has encouraged electorate to participate in large quantities in the off-year elections. We will need to maintain it, and with identical determination, with American flags at every demonstration and calls to the best parts in US history.
We will be questioned ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you welcome them and embrace them or reject?
America is best defended, essentially, by relationship to the highest about American history, similar to Christianity is most protected by relationship to elements that cause it to be unique and beautiful, particularly the pattern of Christ. In neither case does it suggest pretending the most negative of both America and Christianity did not happen; it means both meekness and faith, a combination that committed national faithful should be comfortable with.
