The Trump movement's most telling and characteristic occasions – not its most crucial, nor most harsh, nor most threatening, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – came earlier this autumn. Over the span of several weeks, the US president started showing the public his designs for a lavish reception room double the dimensions of the White House and subsequently started solo dismantling the East Wing portion to build it.
He has committed acts 10,000 times as bad – the existing assessment of casualties from his cuts to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and presently an analysis predicted his energy policies would result in fatalities an additional 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No other president would have risked – really, no previous leader would have contemplated – solo demolishing major areas of the executive mansion to build a royal-themed celebration hall, with the enthusiastic participation of some of the nation's most affluent, the majority of whom conduct transactions with the government.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the world' toward 'the meek shall die of cholera'
As confusing as it is to witness the chief executive attempt to overturn the established notion regarding democracy and exchange it with its complete opposite, there is one large group of Americans who might not perceive it totally unfamiliar. That is those of us – within elder demographics close to half – who were educated within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have watched across decades as politically conservative religious groups transformed the Christ we learned about into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they converted a persona of compassion into a symbol of animosity who endorses precisely the cruelties that he denounced in scripture; this has happened more slowly, across decades as opposed to months, yet it remains disconcerting in the same ways, a disorienting gut punch for numerous individuals.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
Hence I shall explain the Savior that I grew up with, because theoretically Jesus is the center within Christian belief, and since the rapidly expanding group within America might have little sense of him because they identify as atheists or doubters or religiously unaffiliated. I take no issue with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; however I believe that exist valuable insights of great price in the Christian story.
It is decidedly not the account of an authoritative monarch arising; rather, a child comes into the world to displaced parents in a storage space, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to evade secret police. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his doctrine focuses on affection for fellow humans, especially for the poor – not merely emotional affection, but tangible care, expressed by feeding and housing. Christ's response to hostility is to present the opposite cheek – not as a demonstration of compliant endurance, but as a way to teach the assailant; his crime policy states that when a person pilfers your coat you ought to provide them your pullover also.
The evident and direct reality that the Jesus from scripture calls for a kind of radical love focused on the impoverished is what has always made the Christian faith something of a controversial faith: appealing to the masses, but due to its natural unconventionality demanding to be contained. During the 1950s it was controlled through watering down – The Protestant faith was so prevalent that it practically blessed current circumstances.
A Struggle for the Finest Among Us
Therefore I have felt heartened to see the determined opposition to Trump emerge in this past year. It has served as great solace to help build the campaign that has demonstrated publicly through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated citizens to turn out in significant amounts during minor elections. We will need to persist with it, and in the same spirit, with American flags during all protests and appeals to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the stranger? Did you welcome them and embrace them or refuse?
America is best defended, to put it differently, by reference to the highest in US heritage, similar to Christianity is optimally secured by reference to elements that cause it to be unique and magnificent, which is the example of the Savior. In all circumstances does it suggest pretending the worst regarding America and religious tradition did not happen; it represents both modesty and belief, a mixture that committed national faithful should be comfortable with.
