The Trump phenomenon's most illuminating and characteristic moments – not its most significant, nor most harsh, nor most hazardous, nor most senseless, but potentially its most enlightening – came earlier this autumn. During the period of multiple weeks, the US president started showing the public his intentions for an ornate dance hall twice the size of the White House and then commenced solo dismantling the eastern section to erect it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of deaths from his cuts to USAID amounts to 600,000 and growing, and recently an analysis predicted his fossil fuel policies would cause deaths an additional 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No other president would have attempted – genuinely, no previous leader would have conceived – unilaterally destroying major areas of the White House to build a royal-themed celebration hall, with the active collaboration of multiple the nation's most affluent, almost all of whom have business with federal agencies.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the world' to 'the gentle will succumb of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the president attempt to overturn the old idea regarding democracy and replace it with its polar opposite, there remains a substantial portion within America who wouldn't consider it completely novel. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations almost a majority – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have witnessed throughout the years while conservative evangelical congregations turned the Jesus we were raised with into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they transformed an image of affection into an icon of hostility who endorses precisely the cruelties that he denounced in scripture; this has happened more slowly, through multiple decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless disturbing via comparable methods, a bewildering emotional blow for countless people.
A Toxic Christianity Establishes Itself
So let me first describe the Christ from my upbringing, as conceptually Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and because the rapidly expanding group of Americans might have little sense regarding him as they consider themselves atheists or agnostics or nones. I have no problem with these different approaches, nor with alternative spiritual paths; however I believe that contain precious wisdom of significant worth in the Christian story.
It is decidedly definitely not the narrative of an authoritative monarch emerging; rather, a baby is born to displaced parents in an automotive shelter, who need to rapidly escape to another nation to escape undercover officers. The child matures in simple surroundings, a laboring woodworker; his teaching concerns compassion for others, specifically for the poor – not merely emotional affection, but tangible care, shown by providing food and housing. Jesus' answer to aggression is to turn the opposite cheek – not as an act of passive acceptance, but as a means to teach the attacker; his method regarding offenses indicates that whenever a person pilfers your coat you must offer the person your additional clothing too.
The evident and straightforward fact that the Jesus in biblical accounts calls for a kind of extreme compassion focused on the poor is what has always made Christian religion somewhat of a scandalous religion: attractive to the masses, but due to its intrinsic extremism requiring to be restrained. In the fifties it was controlled by dilution – Protestantism was so dominant that it essentially sanctified existing conditions.
A Conflict for the Highest Among Us
Hence I have become inspired to see the determined opposition against Trump arise over the last twelve months. It has been great solace to assist in constructing the campaign that has protested openly via continuous gatherings, and likely has encouraged voters to show up in numbers in interim political contests. We shall require to continue it, and in the same spirit, featuring US banners during all protests and appeals to the highest qualities of American history.
We will be questioned ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or refuse?
America is best defended, in other words, by reference to the best within national tradition, similar to Christianity is optimally secured through connection to that which renders it distinctive and beautiful, specifically the model of Jesus. In neither case does it imply acting as if the most damaging of both America and Christianity did not happen; it signifies both meekness and faith, a blend that committed US believers should be comfortable with.
