The Trump phenomenon's most illuminating and defining moments – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most threatening, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. In the course of a few weeks, the nation's leader commenced revealing everyone his plans for a lavish reception room two times larger of the White House and then began independently demolishing the East Wing to construct it.
He has performed deeds 10,000 times as bad – the current estimate of casualties from his cuts to USAID is 600,000 and rising, and this week an analysis predicted his petroleum strategies would cause deaths an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have attempted – genuinely, no former commander would have contemplated – independently wrecking significant portions of the White House in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of numerous America's wealthiest, almost all of whom maintain dealings with the government.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the planet' toward 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the leader attempt to overturn the traditional concept about democracy and replace it with its direct contrary, there exists a significant segment within America who might not perceive it completely novel. This includes individuals like us – within elder demographics a near majority – who were brought up within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have observed over the years as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we were raised with into the total contrary of our understanding of him. Essentially, they turned a figure of compassion into an icon of animosity who blesses exactly the harshness that he denounced in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred at a slower pace, through multiple decades instead of months, however it is still unsettling via comparable methods, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Toxic Christianity Establishes Itself
So let me first describe the Christ that I grew up with, because theoretically Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and given that the quickly increasing segment of Americans might have little sense about him because they identify as skeptics or doubters or spiritual independents. I take no issue with these different approaches, nor with any other faith; yet I maintain that there are pearls of significant worth in the Christian story.
It is decidedly not the account of an authoritative monarch arising; instead, an infant arrives to homeless parents in a garage, who are forced to hastily depart to another nation to evade undercover officers. The child matures in simple surroundings, a laboring woodworker; his teaching concerns compassion for other people, specifically for the impoverished – not simply tender feelings, but a concrete one, expressed by feeding and sheltering. The Savior's reaction to aggression is to offer the opposite cheek – not as a demonstration of passive acceptance, but as a means to educate the aggressor; his approach to wrongdoing is that if someone steals your jacket you should give the person your additional clothing also.
The apparent and clear reality that the Jesus of the gospels requests a form of extreme compassion centered on the needy has consistently rendered Christianity something of a controversial faith: engaging for the general public, but due to its natural unconventionality needing to be contained. During the 1950s it was contained by dilution – Protestant Christianity was so prevalent that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Struggle for the Highest Among Us
Hence I have become heartened to see the persistent defiance to Trump emerge in this past year. It has been great solace to assist in constructing the movement that has taken to the streets via continuous gatherings, and appears to have motivated electorate to show up in large quantities in the off-year elections. We shall require to continue it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags at every demonstration and calls to the highest qualities in US history.
We will be questioned ... regarding how you welcomed the foreigner? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or reject?
The nation is most protected, to put it differently, by reference to the best in US heritage, similar to Christianity is best defended by reference to elements that cause it to be distinctive and beautiful, specifically the model of Christ. In neither case does it mean feigning the most negative about the nation and Christianity was nonexistent; it represents both modesty and belief, a combination that serious US believers should embrace.
