The Trump phenomenon's most telling and defining occasions – not its most crucial, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but possibly its most revealing – occurred earlier this fall. During the period of several weeks, the US president commenced revealing the public his intentions for an ornate dance hall two times larger compared to the White House and then commenced solo dismantling the East Wing to build it.
He has done things countless times more severe – the existing assessment of deaths from his cuts to USAID stands at 600,000 and rising, and presently an analysis projected his fossil fuel policies would kill another 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No other president would have attempted – really, no previous leader would have contemplated – unilaterally destroying major areas of the presidential residence to build a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of multiple America's wealthiest, the majority of whom maintain dealings with the government.
We went from 'the humble will receive the planet' into 'the humble will perish to cholera'
As bewildering as it is to witness the chief executive try to upend the traditional concept about democracy and replace it with its polar opposite, there is one large group among Americans who should not find it completely novel. This includes individuals like us – within elder demographics almost a majority – who were brought up within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have watched over the years while conservative evangelical congregations transformed the Christ we grew up with into the complete reverse of our perception of his character. Essentially, they converted a persona of love into an icon of animosity who approves specifically the brutality that he condemned in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred more slowly, across decades as opposed to months, but it is nonetheless disconcerting in the same ways, a disorienting gut punch for countless people.
A Harmful Christianity Gains Ground
Hence I shall explain the Savior from my upbringing, since in theory Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and because the fastest-growing cadre of Americans could have minimal awareness about him as they consider themselves skeptics or agnostics or nones. I have no problem with these different approaches, nor with any other faith; but I do think that exist valuable insights of substantial value in biblical accounts.
It is emphatically not the story of a mighty king arising; conversely, a child comes into the world to parents without shelter in a storage space, who must quickly flee to a different country to avoid secret police. The infant develops in simple surroundings, a laboring woodworker; his message focuses on affection for fellow humans, specifically for the poor – and not a sentimental love, but practical compassion, shown by providing food and sheltering. Jesus' answer to aggression is to turn the other cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a means to teach the attacker; his approach to wrongdoing is that if someone steals your outer garment you must offer him your sweater too.
The evident and straightforward fact that Christ from scripture advocates for a form of radical love concentrated on the impoverished has perpetually caused the Christian faith rather a provocative belief system: attractive to the general public, but owing to its natural unconventionality demanding to be restrained. During the 1950s it was restrained via weakening – Protestantism was so dominant that it practically blessed current circumstances.
A Struggle for the Finest of Us
So I have been heartened to observe the steadfast resistance against Trump develop over the last twelve months. It has been substantial consolation to help build the campaign that has demonstrated publicly through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated voters to show up in large quantities in interim political contests. We will need to maintain it, and in the same spirit, featuring US banners throughout each rally and requests to the best parts in US history.
We will be questioned ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you welcome them and welcome him or refuse?
The country is optimally secured, essentially, by relationship to the best within national tradition, just as Christianity is most protected through connection to what makes it unique and wonderful, specifically the model of Christ. In neither case does it mean acting as if the most damaging regarding America and Christianity was nonexistent; it signifies both meekness and faith, a blend that committed American Christians ought to accept.
