The Trump movement's most illuminating and characteristic instances – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most hazardous, nor most foolish, but possibly its most revealing – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of multiple weeks, the American president commenced revealing everyone his designs for an ornate dance hall twice the size than the White House and subsequently started solo dismantling the East Wing to erect it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of deaths resulting from his reductions to USAID is 600,000 and increasing, and presently a study predicted his fossil fuel policies would kill 1.3 million more. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have attempted – genuinely, no previous leader would have contemplated – independently wrecking large sections of the White House in order to erect a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the direct cooperation of multiple the nation's most affluent, nearly all of which conduct transactions with federal agencies.
We transitioned from 'the humble will receive the planet' to 'the gentle will succumb from cholera'
As disorienting as it is to witness the leader attempt to overturn the old idea about democracy and replace it with its direct contrary, there remains a substantial portion among Americans who might not perceive it totally unfamiliar. That encompasses people such as ourselves – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were raised as conventional Protestant believers.
We have witnessed across decades while conservative evangelical congregations turned the Jesus we grew up with into exactly the opposite of our perception of his character. Fundamentally, they turned a figure of love into an icon of animosity who approves exactly the harshness that he denounced in biblical teachings; this has happened more gradually, through multiple decades rather than months, yet it remains disconcerting via comparable methods, a confusing personal impact for many of us.
A Toxic Christianity Establishes Itself
So let me first describe the Savior from my upbringing, because theoretically Christ is the focus within Christian belief, and since the rapidly expanding group of Americans may possess limited understanding regarding him because they identify as non-believers or uncertain individuals or religiously unaffiliated. I take no issue with any of these traditions, nor with different religions; but I do think that exist valuable insights of significant worth in biblical accounts.
It is emphatically definitely not the story of a mighty king appearing; instead, an infant arrives to homeless parents in an automotive shelter, who must quickly flee to a foreign land to avoid secret police. The baby grows up in modest conditions, a laboring woodworker; his doctrine is about love for fellow humans, specifically for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but practical compassion, demonstrated through nourishing and sheltering. Christ's response to violence is to offer the additional cheek – not as a gesture of submissive tolerance, but as a method to teach the assailant; his method regarding offenses is that if someone steals your coat you must offer him your sweater too.
The apparent and straightforward fact that the Jesus of the gospels calls for a type of extreme compassion focused on the needy is what has always made Christianity something of a controversial faith: appealing to the general public, but owing to its intrinsic extremism demanding to be controlled. In the fifties it was controlled by dilution – Protestant Christianity was so prevalent that it essentially blessed current circumstances.
A Conflict for the Best of Us
So I have been inspired to see the persistent defiance against Trump arise during the previous year. It has served as significant comfort to help build the movement that has taken to the streets through repeated demonstrations, and seems to have inspired electorate to participate in large quantities during minor elections. We will need to continue it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags at every demonstration and calls to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We will be questioned ... how did you receive the foreigner? Did you receive him and embrace them or reject?
America is best defended, essentially, through connection to the finest about American history, just as Christianity is optimally secured by reference to what makes it unique and beautiful, which is the example of Christ. In both situations does it imply acting as if the worst regarding America and religious tradition was nonexistent; it represents both meekness and belief, a mixture that committed national faithful should be comfortable with.
