The Trump movement's most revealing and defining moments β not its most crucial, nor most harsh, nor most dangerous, nor most senseless, but possibly its most revealing β occurred earlier this fall. In the course of several weeks, the nation's leader began displaying the public his designs for an ornate dance hall two times larger compared to the White House and then commenced independently demolishing the East Wing portion to build it.
He has done things 10,000 times as bad β the present calculation of fatalities from his cuts to international aid amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and presently research forecast his fossil fuel policies would cause deaths an additional 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No previous president would have attempted β really, no previous leader would have contemplated β independently wrecking significant portions of the executive mansion to build a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of some of America's wealthiest, the majority of whom have business with the government.
We went from 'the humble will receive the planet' toward 'the meek shall die from cholera'
As bewildering as it is to observe the leader try to upend the old idea of democracy and exchange it with its complete opposite, there remains a substantial portion within America who wouldn't consider it entirely new. This includes individuals like us β within elder demographics close to half β who were brought up within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have observed over the years while conservative evangelical congregations transformed the Christ we learned about into the complete reverse of our perception of his character. At its most basic, they turned a figure of affection into an icon of animosity who blesses exactly the harshness that he condemned in biblical teachings; this change developed at a slower pace, through multiple decades as opposed to months, but it is nonetheless disconcerting in the same ways, a confusing personal impact for countless people.
A Harmful Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Jesus that I grew up with, since in theory Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and because the fastest-growing cadre of Americans might have little sense of him because they identify as skeptics or doubters or religiously unaffiliated. I have no problem with these different approaches, nor with any other faith; but I do think that there are pearls of significant worth in the Christian story.
It is decidedly not the narrative of an authoritative monarch emerging; conversely, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in an automotive shelter, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to avoid secret police. The infant develops in simple surroundings, a working carpenter; his message is about love for other people, specifically for the disadvantaged β not simply tender feelings, but practical compassion, expressed by feeding and sheltering. Christ's response to violence is to turn the additional cheek β not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a means to educate the attacker; his method regarding offenses states that when an individual takes your jacket you ought to provide him your sweater also.
The evident and straightforward reality that the Savior of the gospels requests a kind of extreme compassion focused on the impoverished is what has always made the Christian faith something of a scandalous religion: appealing to the general public, but owing to its intrinsic extremism demanding to be contained. During the 1950s it was controlled through watering down β Protestant Christianity was so widespread that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Finest of Us
Therefore I have felt inspired to witness the persistent defiance against Trump arise in this past year. It has served as great solace to assist in constructing the movement that has protested openly in rally after rally, and likely has encouraged voters to show up in numbers during minor elections. We will need to persist with it, and in the same spirit, featuring US banners during all protests and calls to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We shall be interrogated ... regarding how you welcomed the foreigner? Did you accept these individuals and welcome him or reject?
The nation is most protected, in other words, by relationship to the best within national tradition, similar to Christianity is optimally secured by reference to that which renders it special and wonderful, which is the example of Jesus. In neither case does it suggest pretending the worst regarding America and religious tradition did not happen; it means both meekness and faith, a combination that committed US believers should be comfortable with.
