The Trump movement's most telling and defining moments – not its most significant, nor most harsh, nor most hazardous, nor stupidest, but perhaps its most illuminating – came earlier this autumn. In the course of a few weeks, the American president commenced revealing all observers his intentions for a lavish reception room twice the size of the White House and then began solo dismantling the eastern section to erect it.
He has done things 10,000 times as bad – the current estimate of deaths resulting from his reductions to USAID is 600,000 and rising, and recently a study projected his fossil fuel policies would cause deaths another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have risked – truly, no previous leader would have contemplated – solo demolishing significant portions of the White House to build a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the enthusiastic participation of some of America's wealthiest, the majority of whom have business with the government.
We went from 'the humble will receive the world' toward 'the gentle will succumb from cholera'
As confusing as it is to witness the president try to upend the traditional concept regarding democracy and exchange it with its direct contrary, there is one large group within America who might not perceive it completely novel. That encompasses people such as ourselves – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were educated as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have watched over the years while conservative evangelical congregations converted the Savior we learned about into the total contrary of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they transformed an image of compassion into an icon of animosity who endorses specifically the brutality that he condemned in the Gospel; this transformation occurred at a slower pace, over decades rather than months, yet it remains unsettling through similar means, a confusing personal impact for many of us.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
Hence I shall explain the Jesus from my upbringing, as conceptually Jesus is the center of any Christian faith, and because the fastest-growing cadre among Americans could have minimal awareness about him since they are atheists or uncertain individuals or spiritual independents. I take no issue with these various perspectives, nor with different religions; yet I maintain that there are pearls of significant worth in biblical accounts.
It is unquestionably definitely not the story of a powerful ruler emerging; rather, a child comes into the world to parents without shelter in a storage space, who need to rapidly escape to a different country to evade secret police. The baby grows up in modest conditions, a laboring woodworker; his message concerns compassion for fellow humans, especially for the disadvantaged – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, expressed by feeding and housing. Jesus' answer to hostility is to present the additional cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a way to instruct the attacker; his method regarding offenses indicates that whenever a person pilfers your outer garment you must offer the person your additional clothing too.
The evident and clear fact that Christ from scripture advocates for a kind of extreme compassion focused on the impoverished is what has always made Christian religion rather a scandalous religion: engaging for the masses, but due to its intrinsic extremism demanding to be restrained. During the 1950s it was contained by dilution – Protestant Christianity was so widespread that it essentially sanctified existing conditions.
A Struggle for the Finest Within Us
Therefore I have felt heartened to witness the persistent defiance against Trump arise in this past year. It has provided substantial consolation to help build the movement that has demonstrated publicly in rally after rally, and likely has encouraged citizens to participate in large quantities in interim political contests. We shall require to persist with it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags throughout each rally and appeals to the finest aspects in US history.
We're going to be asked ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or not?
America is best defended, essentially, through connection to the best in US heritage, similar to Christianity is best defended by reference to what makes it unique and wonderful, particularly the pattern of Jesus. In both situations does it mean acting as if the worst of both America and Christianity never occurred; it means both meekness and faith, a combination that serious national faithful ought to accept.
