The Trump movement's most telling and characteristic moments – not its most important, nor most brutal, nor most threatening, nor most foolish, but possibly its most revealing – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of multiple weeks, the nation's leader started showing everyone his plans for a gilded ballroom two times larger compared to the White House and then began independently demolishing the eastern section to build it.
He has done things 10,000 times as bad – the existing assessment of casualties due to his slashing to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and growing, and recently an analysis projected his fossil fuel policies would kill another 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No former leader would have attempted – truly, no former commander would have imagined – unilaterally destroying significant portions of the presidential residence in order to erect a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the active collaboration of some of the richest Americans, nearly all of which conduct transactions with federal agencies.
We transitioned from 'the humble will receive the planet' to 'the meek shall die of cholera'
As confusing as it is to observe the leader try to upend the old idea of democracy and replace it with its complete opposite, there is one large group within America who should not find it totally unfamiliar. That encompasses people such as ourselves – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were educated as conventional Protestant believers.
We have witnessed across decades while conservative evangelical congregations converted the Savior we learned about into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. At its most basic, they turned a figure of compassion into an icon of hostility who endorses precisely the cruelties that he condemned in biblical teachings; this has happened at a slower pace, across decades rather than months, however it is still disconcerting through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for countless people.
A Harmful Christianity Gains Ground
So let me first describe the Christ that I grew up with, because theoretically Christ is the focus of Christian religion, and because the rapidly expanding group of Americans may possess limited understanding about him since they are atheists or uncertain individuals or spiritual independents. I take no issue with these various perspectives, nor with any other faith; yet I maintain that there are pearls of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is emphatically absolutely not the story of a powerful ruler emerging; rather, an infant arrives to displaced parents in a garage, who are forced to hastily depart to another nation to escape undercover officers. The infant develops in simple surroundings, a working carpenter; his message concerns compassion for other people, specifically for the poor – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, expressed by feeding and protecting. Jesus' answer to hostility is to turn the additional cheek – not as an act of passive acceptance, but as a way to educate the aggressor; his crime policy states that when a person pilfers your jacket you should give him your sweater as well.
The apparent and direct fact that the Jesus from scripture requests a type of profound affection centered on the needy is what has always made the Christian faith rather a controversial faith: attractive to the populace, but due to its intrinsic extremism needing to be controlled. In the 1950s it was restrained through watering down – Protestant Christianity was so prevalent that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Struggle for the Highest Among Us
So I have been heartened to observe the persistent defiance against Trump emerge over the last twelve months. It has been significant comfort to assist in constructing the initiative that has demonstrated publicly through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated citizens to show up in numbers in interim political contests. We shall require to maintain it, and with identical determination, with American flags during all protests and appeals to the best parts of American history.
We're going to be asked ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you receive him and receive them or reject?
The nation is most protected, essentially, through connection to the highest within national tradition, similar to Christianity is most protected through connection to that which renders it special and beautiful, specifically the model of Jesus. In all circumstances does it suggest acting as if the worst about the nation and Christianity never occurred; it represents both modesty and belief, a blend that serious national faithful should be comfortable with.
