The Trump phenomenon's most telling and distinctive occasions – not its most significant, nor cruelest, nor most dangerous, nor most senseless, but perhaps its most illuminating – came earlier this autumn. During the period of multiple weeks, the nation's leader began displaying all observers his designs for an ornate dance hall twice the size than the White House and then commenced solo dismantling the East Wing to construct it.
He has done things ten thousand times worse – the present calculation of fatalities due to his slashing to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and this week an analysis predicted his energy policies would cause deaths another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have dared – really, no former commander would have conceived – independently wrecking large sections of the executive mansion to construct a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the active collaboration of numerous the nation's most affluent, nearly all of which maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the planet' to 'the gentle will succumb of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to witness the president try to upend the traditional concept of democracy and replace it with its polar opposite, there exists a significant segment within America who should not find it totally unfamiliar. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations almost a majority – who were raised as conventional Protestant believers.
We have watched over the years while conservative evangelical congregations transformed the Christ we learned about into exactly the opposite of our understanding of him. Fundamentally, they turned a figure of affection into a symbol of hostility who endorses precisely the cruelties that he condemned in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred at a slower pace, across decades as opposed to months, but it is nonetheless disconcerting through similar means, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Establishes Itself
So let me first describe the Savior that I grew up with, because theoretically Jesus is the center within Christian belief, and given that the quickly increasing segment within America could have minimal awareness of him since they are skeptics or agnostics or spiritual independents. I take no issue with these various perspectives, nor with any other faith; however I believe that there are pearls of substantial value within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly absolutely not the story of a powerful ruler emerging; instead, a child comes into the world to displaced parents in a storage space, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to escape covert authorities. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his teaching is about love for others, specifically for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but tangible care, shown by providing food and protecting. Christ's response to violence is to turn the opposite cheek – not as an act of passive acceptance, but as a means to teach the aggressor; his approach to wrongdoing states that when someone steals your outer garment you should give them your pullover as well.
The evident and straightforward fact that the Jesus from scripture calls for a form of radical love concentrated on the impoverished is what has always made Christianity somewhat of a scandalous religion: engaging for the masses, but due to its natural unconventionality needing to be contained. In the 1950s it was contained via weakening – Protestantism was so widespread that it essentially blessed current circumstances.
A Struggle for the Best Within Us
So I have been inspired to witness the determined opposition to Trump emerge during the previous year. It has been great solace to assist in constructing the campaign that has protested openly via continuous gatherings, and likely has encouraged electorate to turn out in large quantities in interim political contests. We shall require to persist with it, and with identical determination, featuring US banners throughout each rally and appeals to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We shall be interrogated ... how did you receive the immigrant? Did you receive him and embrace them or reject?
The country is optimally secured, in other words, by relationship to the highest in US heritage, exactly as the Christian faith is optimally secured through connection to that which renders it unique and magnificent, specifically the model of Christ. In neither case does it mean acting as if the most negative about the nation and religious tradition did not happen; it means both humility and belief, a mixture that committed US believers ought to accept.
