The Trump phenomenon's most illuminating and distinctive instances – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. In the course of multiple weeks, the nation's leader began displaying all observers his intentions for a lavish reception room twice the size of the White House and then began solo dismantling the East Wing portion to build it.
He has done things 10,000 times as bad – the present calculation of deaths resulting from his reductions to USAID is 600,000 and growing, and recently a study predicted his fossil fuel policies would kill another 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No other president would have attempted – truly, no previous leader would have conceived – independently wrecking significant portions of the White House to build a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of numerous America's wealthiest, almost all of whom maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' into 'the gentle will succumb to cholera'
As disorienting as it is to witness the chief executive attempt to overturn the traditional concept about democracy and substitute it with its complete opposite, there exists a significant segment among Americans who should not find it entirely new. That encompasses people such as ourselves – within elder demographics almost a majority – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have watched over the years while conservative evangelical congregations transformed the Christ we grew up with into the complete reverse of our perception of his character. Essentially, they converted a persona of compassion into an icon of animosity who approves specifically the brutality that he denounced in biblical teachings; this change developed more slowly, through multiple decades instead of months, but it is nonetheless disconcerting through similar means, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Toxic Christianity Gains Ground
So let me first describe the Christ that I grew up with, since in theory Jesus is the center of any Christian faith, and since the fastest-growing cadre of Americans may possess limited understanding about him because they identify as atheists or doubters or spiritual independents. I take no issue with these various perspectives, nor with different religions; but I do think that there are pearls of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is decidedly absolutely not the account of an authoritative monarch arising; instead, a baby is born to parents without shelter in a storage space, who are forced to hastily depart to a different country to escape covert authorities. The child matures in simple surroundings, an employed craftsman; his message focuses on affection for fellow humans, especially for the disadvantaged – and not a sentimental love, but tangible care, demonstrated through nourishing and protecting. Christ's response to aggression is to offer the additional cheek – not as a demonstration of passive acceptance, but as a way to instruct the attacker; his crime policy indicates that whenever an individual takes your jacket you must offer them your pullover also.
The obvious and clear fact that the Jesus in biblical accounts requests a form of extreme compassion focused on the poor has consistently rendered Christian religion somewhat of a scandalous religion: attractive to the populace, but owing to its natural unconventionality requiring to be controlled. In the fifties it was contained through watering down – Protestantism was so dominant that it basically baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Highest of Us
So I have been encouraged to observe the steadfast resistance to Trump arise in this past year. It has been great solace to help build the movement that has taken to the streets through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated citizens to turn out in significant amounts in the off-year elections. We will need to continue it, and through comparable resolve, displaying national flags throughout each rally and appeals to the highest qualities of American history.
We will be questioned ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you accept these individuals and welcome him or refuse?
America is best defended, to put it differently, by reference to the best within national tradition, similar to Christianity is best defended by relationship to that which renders it unique and beautiful, particularly the pattern of the Savior. In both situations does it imply pretending the most negative about the nation and Christian faith did not happen; it means both humility and faith, a combination that genuine US believers ought to accept.
