The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and characteristic instances – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor most senseless, but possibly its most revealing – came earlier this autumn. In the course of a few weeks, the US president began displaying all observers his intentions for a lavish reception room twice the size compared to the White House and subsequently started solo dismantling the East Wing to build it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe – the existing assessment of deaths resulting from his reductions to international aid is 600,000 and increasing, and this week an analysis projected his energy policies would result in fatalities an additional 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No former leader would have risked – really, no previous leader would have imagined – solo demolishing large sections of the White House to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of some of the richest Americans, nearly all of which have business with public institutions.
We went from 'the humble will receive the Earth' into 'the gentle will succumb of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to observe the president attempt to overturn the established notion of democracy and exchange it with its polar opposite, there exists a significant segment of Americans who should not find it entirely new. That encompasses people such as ourselves – within elder demographics a near majority – who were educated as conventional Protestant believers.
We have observed across decades while conservative evangelical congregations converted the Savior we grew up with into the complete reverse of our perception of his character. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of affection into a figure of hate who blesses precisely the cruelties that he criticized in scripture; this change developed at a slower pace, through multiple decades instead of months, however it is still disturbing in the same ways, a bewildering emotional blow for countless people.
A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground
So let me first describe the Jesus that I grew up with, because theoretically the Savior is the core of Christian religion, and because the rapidly expanding group of Americans might have little sense of him as they consider themselves non-believers or agnostics or spiritual independents. I take no issue with any of these traditions, nor with alternative spiritual paths; yet I maintain that exist valuable insights of significant worth within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly not the story of an authoritative monarch arising; rather, a baby is born to homeless parents in a storage space, who need to rapidly escape to a different country to escape secret police. The baby grows up in simple surroundings, a working carpenter; his teaching is about love for fellow humans, particularly for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but practical compassion, demonstrated through nourishing and protecting. Christ's response to aggression is to offer the additional cheek – not as a demonstration of submissive tolerance, but as a way to teach the attacker; his crime policy is that if an individual takes your jacket you should give them your pullover too.
The apparent and direct fact that the Savior in biblical accounts advocates for a type of extreme compassion concentrated on the poor is what has always made the Christian faith somewhat of a controversial faith: engaging for the general public, but owing to its inherent radicalness needing to be controlled. In the 1950s it was contained via weakening – The Protestant faith was so dominant that it basically baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Best Among Us
Hence I have become heartened to see the steadfast resistance against Trump arise during the previous year. It has served as significant comfort to help build the campaign that has demonstrated publicly in rally after rally, and seems to have inspired electorate to show up in significant amounts during minor elections. We shall require to maintain it, and with identical determination, displaying national flags during all protests and calls to the highest qualities of American history.
We will be questioned ... regarding how you welcomed the stranger? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or reject?
America is best defended, in other words, by reference to the highest within national tradition, similar to Christianity is optimally secured through connection to what makes it unique and beautiful, specifically the model of Christ. In neither case does it suggest feigning the most negative about the nation and Christian faith did not happen; it signifies both humility and belief, a blend that genuine American Christians ought to accept.
