The Trump movement's most telling and distinctive moments – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most hazardous, nor most senseless, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. During the period of multiple weeks, the American president began displaying the public his plans for an ornate dance hall twice the size than the White House and then commenced independently demolishing the eastern section to build it.
He has performed deeds ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of fatalities resulting from his reductions to international aid amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and this week a study predicted his energy policies would cause deaths another 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No other president would have dared – genuinely, no other president would have imagined – 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, almost all of whom conduct transactions with the government.
We moved from 'the meek shall inherit the planet' to 'the meek shall die to cholera'
As confusing as it is to observe the chief executive try to upend the established notion about democracy and substitute it with its polar opposite, there remains a substantial portion within America who wouldn't consider it completely novel. This includes individuals like us – in older age cohorts close to half – who were brought up as conventional Protestant believers.
We have witnessed over the years while conservative evangelical congregations turned the Jesus we were raised with into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they turned a figure of affection into a figure of hostility who endorses specifically the brutality that he criticized in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred more slowly, through multiple decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless disturbing in the same ways, a confusing personal impact for countless people.
A Damaging Christianity Establishes Itself
So let me first describe the Savior that I grew up with, because theoretically Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and since the fastest-growing cadre of Americans might have little sense regarding him as they consider themselves skeptics or uncertain individuals or nones. I have no problem with any of these traditions, nor with any other faith; but I do think that there are pearls of significant worth in biblical accounts.
It is emphatically not the story of a mighty king appearing; conversely, an infant arrives to displaced parents in a storage space, who must quickly flee to another nation to evade covert authorities. The infant develops in modest conditions, a working carpenter; his teaching is about love for fellow humans, especially for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but a concrete one, demonstrated through nourishing and protecting. Christ's response to violence is to turn the additional cheek – not as a demonstration of submissive tolerance, but as a way to educate the attacker; his approach to wrongdoing indicates that whenever an individual takes your coat you must offer them your pullover too.
The evident and clear truth that Christ from scripture calls for a type of profound affection centered on the impoverished is what has always made the Christian faith somewhat of a provocative belief system: attractive to the masses, but because of its intrinsic extremism requiring to be controlled. In the fifties it was contained via weakening – Protestant Christianity was so widespread that it essentially blessed current circumstances.
A Battle for the Best Within Us
So I have been encouraged to observe the persistent defiance against Trump develop during the previous year. It has served as substantial consolation to help build the campaign that has taken to the streets via continuous gatherings, and appears to have motivated voters to show up in numbers during minor elections. We will need to maintain it, and in the same spirit, featuring US banners at every demonstration and appeals to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We're going to be asked ... regarding how you welcomed the stranger? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or not?
The country is optimally secured, to put it differently, by reference to the best about American history, exactly as the Christian faith is best defended by reference to elements that cause it to be unique and beautiful, particularly the pattern of Christ. In both situations does it suggest feigning the most negative of both America and religious tradition never occurred; it signifies both humility and belief, a mixture that serious American Christians ought to accept.
