The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and characteristic moments – not its most important, nor most harsh, nor most hazardous, nor most senseless, but perhaps its most illuminating – came earlier this autumn. Over the span of multiple weeks, the nation's leader began displaying everyone his plans for an ornate dance hall two times larger compared to the White House and subsequently started independently demolishing the East Wing portion to construct it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of deaths from his cuts to foreign assistance stands at 600,000 and growing, and recently research predicted his petroleum strategies would cause deaths another 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No former leader would have risked – really, no other president would have conceived – unilaterally destroying major areas of the executive mansion in order to erect a royal-themed celebration hall, with the enthusiastic participation of some of the richest Americans, almost all of whom conduct transactions with federal agencies.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the planet' toward 'the gentle will succumb from cholera'
As disorienting as it is to observe the president attempt to overturn the traditional concept regarding democracy and exchange it with its direct contrary, there exists a significant segment among Americans who should not find it completely novel. That encompasses people such as ourselves – in older age cohorts almost a majority – who were educated as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have witnessed across decades as politically conservative religious groups turned the Jesus we grew up with into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they transformed an image of compassion into a symbol of animosity who approves exactly the harshness that he condemned in the Gospel; this change developed more slowly, through multiple decades as opposed to months, however it is still disconcerting via comparable methods, a bewildering emotional blow for numerous individuals.
A Toxic Christianity Establishes Itself
Therefore allow me to outline the Jesus that I grew up with, because theoretically Jesus is the center within Christian belief, and because the rapidly expanding group of Americans might have little sense regarding him since they are non-believers or doubters or nones. I take no issue with these various perspectives, nor with any other faith; however I believe that contain precious wisdom of substantial value within Christian narrative.
It is emphatically not the narrative of a mighty king arising; rather, a child comes into the world to parents without shelter in a storage space, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to escape secret police. The child matures in simple surroundings, an employed craftsman; his teaching concerns compassion for others, specifically for the disadvantaged – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, demonstrated through nourishing and sheltering. The Savior's reaction to hostility is to offer the other cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a means to teach the assailant; his approach to wrongdoing is that if an individual takes your outer garment you ought to provide them your pullover also.
The obvious and direct truth that the Savior from scripture advocates for a kind of extreme compassion focused on the needy has consistently rendered the Christian faith somewhat of a controversial faith: attractive to the general public, but due to its intrinsic extremism requiring to be restrained. In the 1950s it was contained through watering down – Protestant Christianity was so widespread that it practically blessed current circumstances.
A Struggle for the Finest Among Us
So I have been inspired to observe the persistent defiance against Trump develop during the previous year. It has served as great solace to participate in developing the campaign that has demonstrated publicly via continuous gatherings, and seems to have inspired citizens to show up in significant amounts in the off-year elections. We will need to maintain it, and with identical determination, featuring US banners during all protests and requests to the highest qualities of American history.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you accept these individuals and receive them or reject?
The country is optimally secured, in other words, through connection to the finest about American history, exactly as the Christian faith is most protected by reference to elements that cause it to be special and magnificent, particularly the pattern of Christ. In neither case does it imply acting as if the worst of both America and Christian faith never occurred; it means both humility and conviction, a combination that serious US believers should embrace.
