The Trump phenomenon's most telling and characteristic moments β not its most crucial, nor cruelest, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but perhaps its most illuminating β emerged earlier this harvest season. In the course of multiple weeks, the American president commenced revealing all observers his plans for a lavish reception room two times larger than the White House and then commenced independently demolishing the East Wing to construct it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe β the current estimate of casualties due to his slashing to USAID stands at 600,000 and growing, and this week an analysis forecast his fossil fuel policies would cause deaths another 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No former leader would have attempted β genuinely, no former commander would have conceived β unilaterally destroying significant portions of the presidential residence to build a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the enthusiastic participation of numerous America's wealthiest, nearly all of which conduct transactions with the government.
We went from 'the gentle will obtain the Earth' to 'the humble will perish from cholera'
As disorienting as it is to observe the president seek toι’ θ¦ the old idea of democracy and substitute it with its polar opposite, there remains a substantial portion among Americans who wouldn't consider it completely novel. That is those of us β in older age cohorts almost a majority β who were raised within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have witnessed across decades as politically conservative religious groups converted the Savior we learned about into the total contrary of our perception of his character. At its most basic, they turned a figure of love into an icon of hostility who approves exactly the harshness that he condemned in the Gospel; this has happened more gradually, across decades rather than months, yet it remains disconcerting in the same ways, a bewildering emotional blow for countless people.
A Toxic Christianity Gains Ground
So let me first describe the Christ from my upbringing, because theoretically the Savior is the core of Christian religion, and because the fastest-growing cadre among Americans could have minimal awareness regarding him as they consider themselves skeptics or doubters or nones. I have no problem with these different approaches, nor with alternative spiritual paths; but I do think that there are pearls of significant worth within Christian narrative.
It is emphatically absolutely not the story of a powerful ruler appearing; conversely, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in an automotive shelter, who must quickly flee to another nation to escape secret police. The child matures in modest conditions, a laboring woodworker; his message concerns compassion for other people, particularly for the impoverished β and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, shown by providing food and protecting. The Savior's reaction to hostility is to offer the other cheek β not as an act of compliant endurance, but as a way to instruct the aggressor; his approach to wrongdoing is that if an individual takes your outer garment you must offer the person your additional clothing too.
The evident and direct reality that the Jesus from scripture requests a type of profound affection centered on the poor has perpetually caused Christian religion somewhat of a provocative belief system: attractive to the populace, but due to its inherent radicalness needing to be restrained. In the fifties it was controlled via weakening β Protestantism was so widespread that it essentially sanctified existing conditions.
A Struggle for the Highest Within Us
Hence I have become encouraged to see the determined opposition against Trump develop in this past year. It has served as substantial consolation to participate in developing the movement that has protested openly via continuous gatherings, and appears to have motivated voters to participate in large quantities in interim political contests. We will need to maintain it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags at every demonstration and calls to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We're going to be asked ... regarding how you welcomed the immigrant? Did you welcome them and receive them or not?
America is best defended, essentially, by relationship to the finest within national tradition, similar to Christianity is optimally secured by relationship to elements that cause it to be special and beautiful, specifically the model of Christ. In neither case does it imply feigning the worst regarding America and Christianity never occurred; it represents both meekness and faith, a mixture that serious US believers should embrace.
