The Trump movement's most revealing and distinctive moments – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most threatening, nor stupidest, but perhaps its most illuminating – occurred earlier this fall. During the period of multiple weeks, the nation's leader commenced revealing everyone his plans for an ornate dance hall twice the size compared to the White House and then commenced solo dismantling the eastern section to build it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe – the current estimate of deaths resulting from his reductions to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and rising, and recently research forecast his energy policies would cause deaths another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have risked – truly, no previous leader would have conceived – solo demolishing major areas of the White House to build a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of multiple the nation's most affluent, nearly all of which have business with the government.
We transitioned from 'the gentle will obtain the world' to 'the gentle will succumb from cholera'
As confusing as it is to witness the president attempt to overturn the traditional concept regarding democracy and replace it with its direct contrary, there is one large group among Americans who should not find it totally unfamiliar. This includes individuals like us – among senior generations close to half – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have witnessed across decades as rightwing evangelical churches converted the Savior we were raised with into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they transformed an image of compassion into a figure of hate who endorses precisely the cruelties that he criticized in scripture; this has happened more gradually, over decades rather than months, yet it remains unsettling in the same ways, a confusing personal impact for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Jesus 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 since they are non-believers or uncertain individuals or spiritual independents. I take no issue with any of these traditions, nor with alternative spiritual paths; yet I maintain that exist valuable insights of significant worth in the Christian story.
It is emphatically definitely not the story of a powerful ruler emerging; rather, a child comes into the world to homeless parents in a storage space, who must quickly flee to another nation to avoid undercover officers. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his doctrine concerns compassion for other people, especially for the disadvantaged – not simply tender feelings, but tangible care, demonstrated through nourishing and protecting. Jesus' answer to hostility is to offer the other cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a means to educate the attacker; his method regarding offenses states that when an individual takes your outer garment you must offer him your sweater as well.
The evident and clear reality that the Savior of the gospels requests a type of radical love focused on the impoverished has consistently rendered the Christian faith somewhat of a controversial faith: appealing to the general public, but because of its natural unconventionality needing to be controlled. In the fifties it was restrained via weakening – Protestant Christianity was so prevalent that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Finest of Us
So I have been inspired to witness the persistent defiance to Trump arise over the last twelve months. It has served as substantial consolation to assist in constructing the initiative that has protested openly in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated electorate to show up in numbers in the off-year elections. We shall require to persist with it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags throughout each rally and calls to the finest aspects in US history.
We shall be interrogated ... regarding how you welcomed the immigrant? Did you receive him and receive them or refuse?
The country is optimally secured, in other words, through connection to the best within national tradition, similar to Christianity is best defended by reference to that which renders it unique and beautiful, specifically the model of the Savior. In neither case does it suggest acting as if the most damaging regarding America and Christianity was nonexistent; it means both meekness and belief, a mixture that serious American Christians should be comfortable with.
