The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and defining moments – not its most important, nor most harsh, nor most dangerous, nor most foolish, but possibly its most revealing – occurred earlier this fall. During the period of several weeks, the American president started showing the public his plans for a gilded ballroom twice the size than the White House and subsequently started solo dismantling the eastern section to build it.
He has committed acts 10,000 times as bad – the present calculation of casualties due to his slashing to USAID amounts to 600,000 and rising, and presently research predicted his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities 1.3 million more. Yet nothing as characteristic. No former leader would have dared – truly, no previous leader would have conceived – unilaterally destroying large sections of the executive mansion in order to erect a royal-themed celebration hall, with the direct cooperation of multiple America's wealthiest, nearly all of which conduct transactions with public institutions.
We moved from 'the gentle will obtain the Earth' into 'the humble will perish to cholera'
As disorienting as it is to witness the president try to upend the traditional concept about democracy and substitute it with its complete opposite, there is one large group within America who might not perceive it totally unfamiliar. That encompasses people such as ourselves – in older age cohorts close to half – who were raised as conventional Protestant believers.
We have witnessed throughout the years as politically conservative religious groups converted the Savior we grew up with into the complete reverse of our understanding of him. Essentially, they turned a figure of affection into an icon of animosity who approves precisely the cruelties that he condemned in scripture; this transformation occurred at a slower pace, across decades rather than months, however it is still unsettling in the same ways, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Toxic Christianity Gains Ground
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 within America could have minimal awareness about him as they consider themselves skeptics or doubters or nones. I raise no objection with any of these traditions, nor with different religions; but I do think that there are pearls of great price in the Christian story.
It is emphatically definitely not the narrative of an authoritative monarch arising; instead, a child comes into the world to displaced parents in an automotive shelter, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to escape secret police. The infant develops in modest conditions, an employed craftsman; his message is about love for fellow humans, specifically for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but practical compassion, shown by providing food and protecting. The Savior's reaction to violence is to turn the other cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a means to teach the aggressor; his approach to wrongdoing states that when someone steals your jacket you must offer them your pullover also.
The apparent and straightforward truth that the Jesus from scripture requests a kind of extreme compassion focused on the impoverished is what has always made Christian religion rather a scandalous religion: appealing to the general public, but because of its inherent radicalness requiring to be controlled. In the 1950s it was controlled via weakening – Protestantism was so prevalent that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Finest Among Us
So I have been encouraged to see the determined opposition regarding Trump arise in this past year. It has provided great solace to help build the movement that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and likely has encouraged voters to show up in large quantities in interim political contests. We will need to persist with it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags throughout each rally and requests to the highest qualities of American history.
We will be questioned ... regarding how you welcomed the foreigner? Did you welcome them and receive them or not?
The country is optimally secured, to put it differently, by relationship to the finest within national tradition, similar to Christianity is most protected by relationship to what makes it distinctive and wonderful, which is the example of Jesus. In both situations does it mean pretending the worst about the nation and Christianity did not happen; it signifies both humility and belief, a blend that serious American Christians should embrace.
