The Trump movement's most illuminating and characteristic moments – not its most crucial, nor cruelest, nor most hazardous, nor most senseless, but perhaps its most illuminating – occurred earlier this fall. During the period of multiple weeks, the US president commenced revealing all observers his intentions for a lavish reception room double the dimensions compared to the White House and subsequently started independently demolishing the East Wing portion to erect it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the present calculation of fatalities resulting from his reductions to international aid is 600,000 and growing, and this week an analysis projected his petroleum strategies would cause deaths another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have risked – genuinely, no other president would have imagined – solo demolishing large sections of the White House to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of numerous the nation's most affluent, nearly all of which maintain dealings with the government.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' into 'the humble will perish from cholera'
As bewildering as it is to witness the president attempt to overturn the traditional concept about democracy and substitute it with its direct contrary, there exists a significant segment within America who wouldn't consider it completely novel. This includes individuals like us – among senior generations almost a majority – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have witnessed throughout the years while conservative evangelical congregations transformed the Christ we learned about into the total contrary of our understanding of him. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of compassion into an icon of hate who blesses exactly the harshness that he denounced in the Gospel; this transformation occurred at a slower pace, across decades instead of months, yet it remains unsettling through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Gains Ground
Therefore allow me to outline the Jesus that I grew up with, because theoretically Christ is the focus of Christian religion, and since the rapidly expanding group of Americans may possess limited understanding regarding him because they identify as atheists or doubters or nones. I take no issue with these various perspectives, nor with any other faith; but I do think that there are pearls of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is decidedly definitely not the account of a powerful ruler emerging; rather, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in a storage space, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to avoid covert authorities. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, a laboring woodworker; his message focuses on affection for other people, especially for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but tangible care, shown by providing food and protecting. The Savior's reaction to hostility is to offer the opposite cheek – not as an act of compliant endurance, but as a means to educate the attacker; his method regarding offenses is that if a person pilfers your coat you should give them your pullover too.
The apparent and direct truth that the Savior of the gospels calls for a form of radical love centered on the needy has consistently rendered Christianity somewhat of a provocative belief system: attractive to the masses, but owing to its natural unconventionality demanding to be restrained. In the 1950s it was contained via weakening – The Protestant faith was so dominant that it practically sanctified existing conditions.
A Battle for the Highest Among Us
So I have been inspired to witness the determined opposition against Trump arise over the last twelve months. It has served as great solace to assist in constructing the campaign that has protested openly via continuous gatherings, and likely has encouraged electorate to show up in significant amounts during minor elections. We shall require to maintain it, and with identical determination, with American flags during all protests and requests to the finest aspects of American history.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the stranger? Did you receive him and welcome him or not?
America is best defended, essentially, through connection to the finest about American history, just as Christianity is most protected through connection to that which renders it special and beautiful, which is the example of the Savior. In neither case does it suggest feigning the worst about the nation and Christianity never occurred; it represents both meekness and belief, a mixture that genuine American Christians should be comfortable with.
