The Trump movement's most illuminating and distinctive occasions – not its most important, nor most harsh, nor most hazardous, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of a few weeks, the American president began displaying the public his intentions for an ornate dance hall twice the size compared to the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the eastern section to erect it.
He has done things ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of deaths from his cuts to international aid is 600,000 and increasing, and this week research predicted his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have dared – truly, no other president would have conceived – unilaterally destroying large sections of the White House to build a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of numerous America's wealthiest, nearly all of which conduct transactions with federal agencies.
We moved from 'the gentle will obtain the world' to 'the gentle will succumb of cholera'
As bewildering as it is to observe the president attempt to overturn the old idea of democracy and substitute it with its complete opposite, there exists a significant segment among Americans who should not find it completely novel. This includes individuals like us – among senior generations almost a majority – who were educated as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have watched throughout the years while conservative evangelical congregations transformed the Christ we grew up with into exactly the opposite of our perception of his character. At its most basic, they converted a persona of affection into a symbol of hostility who approves exactly the harshness that he denounced in the Gospel; this change developed more gradually, over decades instead of months, however it is still disconcerting through similar means, a bewildering emotional blow for numerous individuals.
A Damaging Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Savior from my childhood, since in theory Jesus is the center of any Christian faith, and since the fastest-growing cadre among Americans may possess limited understanding regarding him as they consider themselves atheists or uncertain individuals or religiously unaffiliated. I raise no objection with these different approaches, nor with different religions; but I do think that there are pearls of significant worth within Christian narrative.
It is unquestionably definitely not the story of an authoritative monarch appearing; conversely, a child comes into the world to parents without shelter in a garage, who are forced to hastily depart to a different country to avoid secret police. The child matures in humble circumstances, a laboring woodworker; his teaching is about love for other people, especially for the poor – not merely emotional affection, but a concrete one, shown by providing food and housing. Jesus' answer to hostility is to present the opposite cheek – not as an act of passive acceptance, but as a method to educate the aggressor; his method regarding offenses states that when an individual takes your jacket you ought to provide the person your additional clothing too.
The obvious and direct reality that the Jesus of the gospels requests a kind of radical love concentrated on the needy has perpetually caused Christianity somewhat of a scandalous religion: attractive to the general public, but owing to its inherent radicalness needing to be contained. In the 1950s it was contained by dilution – Protestant Christianity was so widespread that it basically baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Best Within Us
Therefore I have felt inspired to see the persistent defiance regarding Trump arise in this past year. It has been significant comfort to assist in constructing the campaign that has demonstrated publicly via continuous gatherings, and likely has encouraged voters to show up in significant amounts during minor elections. We will need to maintain it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags throughout each rally and requests to the highest qualities of American history.
We shall be interrogated ... how did you receive the immigrant? Did you welcome them and welcome him or not?
The country is optimally secured, in other words, by relationship to the finest in US heritage, exactly as the Christian faith is optimally secured through connection to what makes it special and beautiful, specifically the model of Jesus. In all circumstances does it imply acting as if the most damaging of both America and Christianity did not happen; it signifies both meekness and belief, a combination that committed American Christians should embrace.
