The Trump phenomenon's most telling and characteristic moments – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most hazardous, nor most foolish, but possibly its most revealing – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of a few weeks, the American president started showing all observers his intentions for an ornate dance hall two times larger compared to the White House and then commenced independently demolishing the East Wing portion to construct it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe – the present calculation of deaths from his cuts to foreign assistance is 600,000 and growing, and recently an analysis projected his petroleum strategies would cause deaths an additional 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No previous president would have dared – genuinely, no other president would have contemplated – unilaterally destroying significant portions of the White House to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of multiple the richest Americans, the majority of whom have business with the government.
We moved from 'the meek shall inherit the world' to 'the gentle will succumb to cholera'
As confusing as it is to watch the leader try to upend the established notion of democracy and exchange it with its complete opposite, there exists a significant segment of Americans who wouldn't consider it entirely new. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations a near majority – who were educated within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have witnessed over the years while conservative evangelical congregations turned the Jesus we learned about into the total contrary of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they turned a figure of love into a symbol of hate who endorses precisely the cruelties that he denounced in the Gospel; this transformation occurred at a slower pace, across decades instead of months, however it is still disconcerting through similar means, a confusing personal impact for countless people.
A Toxic Christianity Gains Ground
Hence I shall explain the Jesus that I grew up with, since in theory the Savior is the core within Christian belief, and because the fastest-growing cadre among Americans could have minimal awareness about him because they identify as non-believers or uncertain individuals or religiously unaffiliated. I raise no objection with these different approaches, nor with different religions; but I do think that exist valuable insights of substantial value within Christian narrative.
It is emphatically not the story of a powerful ruler appearing; instead, a child comes into the world to homeless parents in a garage, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to avoid undercover officers. The child matures in simple surroundings, a laboring woodworker; his message concerns compassion for others, particularly for the disadvantaged – and not a sentimental love, but tangible care, shown by providing food and housing. The Savior's reaction to hostility is to turn the opposite cheek – not as a demonstration of passive acceptance, but as a method to instruct the assailant; his crime policy indicates that whenever someone steals your jacket you ought to provide the person your additional clothing as well.
The apparent and direct truth that the Savior of the gospels requests a kind of radical love concentrated on the poor is what has always made the Christian faith something of a provocative belief system: appealing to the masses, but owing to its inherent radicalness demanding to be contained. In the fifties it was contained via weakening – Protestant Christianity was so prevalent that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Struggle for the Best Within Us
Hence I have become inspired to observe the determined opposition regarding Trump arise in this past year. It has served as great solace to participate in developing the movement that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and likely has encouraged electorate to turn out in large quantities in the off-year elections. We will need to persist with it, and through comparable resolve, featuring US banners throughout each rally and calls to the finest aspects in US history.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or refuse?
America is best defended, to put it differently, by reference to the finest within national tradition, similar to Christianity is optimally secured through connection to that which renders it special and wonderful, specifically the model of the Savior. In all circumstances does it mean feigning the most damaging about the nation and religious tradition never occurred; it means both meekness and conviction, a mixture that serious American Christians should be comfortable with.
