The Trump phenomenon's most illuminating and distinctive instances – not its most crucial, nor most harsh, nor most threatening, nor stupidest, but possibly its most revealing – occurred earlier this fall. In the course of a few weeks, the American president began displaying everyone his designs for a gilded ballroom twice the size compared to the White House and then commenced solo dismantling the East Wing to erect it.
He has done things countless times more severe – the present calculation of deaths due to his slashing to USAID is 600,000 and increasing, and presently an analysis projected his fossil fuel policies would kill an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No former leader would have dared – really, no previous leader would have conceived – independently wrecking large sections of the presidential residence to build a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of numerous the richest Americans, the majority of whom conduct transactions with the government.
We went from 'the gentle will obtain the Earth' into 'the meek shall die to cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the chief executive attempt to overturn the old idea about democracy and replace it with its complete opposite, there exists a significant segment within America who should not find it completely novel. This includes individuals like us – within elder demographics almost a majority – who were raised as conventional Protestant believers.
We have witnessed across decades while conservative evangelical congregations transformed the Christ we learned about into the complete reverse of our perception of his character. Essentially, they turned a figure of compassion into an icon of hate who endorses specifically the brutality that he denounced in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred more gradually, through multiple decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless unsettling in the same ways, a bewildering emotional blow for countless people.
A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground
Therefore allow me to outline the Jesus from my childhood, since in theory Christ is the focus within Christian belief, and because the fastest-growing cadre of Americans may possess limited understanding about him since they are atheists or uncertain individuals or religiously unaffiliated. I take no issue with any of these traditions, nor with alternative spiritual paths; but I do think that contain precious wisdom of significant worth in the Christian story.
It is decidedly absolutely not the narrative of an authoritative monarch emerging; conversely, a baby is born to displaced parents in an automotive shelter, who need to rapidly escape to another nation to avoid undercover officers. The child matures in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his doctrine is about love for fellow humans, especially for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, demonstrated through nourishing and sheltering. Jesus' answer to violence is to present the other cheek – not as an act of compliant endurance, but as a way to instruct the aggressor; his method regarding offenses indicates that whenever a person pilfers your outer garment you should give them your pullover as well.
The apparent and direct fact that Christ in biblical accounts advocates for a form of extreme compassion centered on the poor is what has always made the Christian faith rather a scandalous religion: attractive to the populace, but owing to its inherent radicalness needing to be restrained. In the fifties it was restrained through watering down – Protestantism was so dominant that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Finest Within Us
So I have been encouraged to witness the persistent defiance against Trump develop over the last twelve months. It has provided significant comfort to participate in developing the movement that has taken to the streets via continuous gatherings, and seems to have inspired electorate to show up in significant amounts in the off-year elections. We will need to continue it, and with identical determination, displaying national flags at every demonstration and appeals to the finest aspects of American history.
We're going to be asked ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you welcome them and receive them or not?
The nation is most protected, to put it differently, by reference to the best about American history, similar to Christianity is optimally secured by relationship to that which renders it special and magnificent, which is the example of Jesus. In both situations does it suggest feigning the worst of both America and Christianity did not happen; it represents both modesty and conviction, a mixture that genuine US believers ought to accept.
