The Trump phenomenon's most telling and distinctive moments – not its most significant, nor cruelest, nor most threatening, nor most senseless, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. During the period of several weeks, the American president started showing all observers his intentions for a lavish reception room twice the size than the White House and subsequently started solo dismantling the eastern section to erect it.
He has performed deeds ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of fatalities resulting from his reductions to USAID stands at 600,000 and rising, and presently a study forecast his fossil fuel policies would cause deaths 1.3 million more. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have attempted – genuinely, no former commander would have imagined – unilaterally destroying significant portions of the White House in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of some of the nation's most affluent, nearly all of which conduct transactions with the government.
We transitioned from 'the humble will receive the planet' to 'the gentle will succumb to cholera'
As bewildering as it is to observe the chief executive attempt to overturn the traditional concept regarding democracy and replace it with its direct contrary, there is one large group within America who should not find it totally unfamiliar. That is those of us – among senior generations close to half – who were brought up within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have witnessed over the years while conservative evangelical congregations converted the Savior we learned about into the total contrary of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they transformed an image of love into an icon of animosity who blesses precisely the cruelties that he condemned in biblical teachings; this has happened more slowly, across decades as opposed to months, but it is nonetheless disconcerting via comparable methods, a disorienting gut punch for numerous individuals.
A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground
So let me first describe the Jesus that I grew up with, since in theory Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and given that the fastest-growing cadre among Americans might have little sense regarding him because they identify as skeptics or uncertain individuals or religiously unaffiliated. I have no problem with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; however I believe that there are pearls of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is emphatically not the story of a mighty king appearing; instead, an infant arrives to homeless parents in an automotive shelter, who must quickly flee to another nation to avoid covert authorities. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his doctrine focuses on affection for fellow humans, especially for the poor – not simply tender feelings, but tangible care, expressed by feeding and sheltering. Christ's response to violence is to turn the opposite cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a means to teach the aggressor; his crime policy states that when an individual takes your coat you must offer him your sweater as well.
The evident and clear reality that Christ of the gospels requests a form of profound affection centered on the poor is what has always made Christian religion somewhat of a provocative belief system: attractive to the populace, but because of its natural unconventionality demanding to be controlled. In the 1950s it was controlled via weakening – Protestant Christianity was so prevalent that it essentially blessed current circumstances.
A Conflict for the Finest Among Us
Hence I have become encouraged to see the persistent defiance to Trump develop over the last twelve months. It has been substantial consolation to help build the campaign that has taken to the streets via continuous gatherings, and seems to have inspired citizens to turn out in numbers during minor elections. We shall require to continue it, and through comparable resolve, displaying national flags during all protests and calls to the highest qualities of American history.
We're going to be asked ... how did you receive the immigrant? Did you welcome them and receive them or refuse?
America is best defended, to put it differently, through connection to the best in US heritage, exactly as the Christian faith is most protected by relationship to that which renders it distinctive and beautiful, which is the example of Jesus. In neither case does it imply feigning the most damaging regarding America and Christian faith never occurred; it means both modesty and conviction, a combination that serious national faithful ought to accept.
