The Trump movement's most telling and characteristic occasions – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most hazardous, nor most foolish, but possibly its most revealing – occurred earlier this fall. During the period of multiple weeks, the nation's leader began displaying everyone his intentions for a gilded ballroom twice the size of the White House and then began solo dismantling the East Wing to construct it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the present calculation of fatalities from his cuts to USAID amounts to 600,000 and rising, and this week research projected his fossil fuel policies would cause deaths 1.3 million more. However nothing as distinctive. No former leader would have dared – really, no former commander would have conceived – unilaterally destroying large sections of the presidential residence in order to erect a royal-themed celebration hall, with the active collaboration of some of the richest Americans, nearly all of which maintain dealings with public institutions.
We transitioned from 'the humble will receive the world' to 'the meek shall die to cholera'
As confusing as it is to witness the president attempt to overturn the old idea about democracy and exchange it with its direct contrary, there exists a significant segment of Americans who might not perceive it completely novel. This includes individuals like us – within elder demographics close to half – who were educated as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have observed throughout the years while conservative evangelical congregations transformed the Christ we learned about into the total contrary of our perception of his character. Essentially, they converted a persona of love into a figure of hate who blesses exactly the harshness that he criticized in the Gospel; this transformation occurred more gradually, over decades instead of months, yet it remains unsettling through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground
Therefore allow me to outline the Jesus from my upbringing, because theoretically the Savior is the core of Christian religion, and since the rapidly expanding group among Americans may possess limited understanding about him since they are non-believers or doubters or religiously unaffiliated. I raise no objection with these different approaches, nor with any other faith; but I do think that there are pearls of substantial value in biblical accounts.
It is unquestionably definitely not the narrative of a mighty king arising; rather, an infant arrives to homeless parents in a garage, who need to rapidly escape to a different country to avoid secret police. The child matures in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his teaching concerns compassion for other people, especially for the poor – not simply tender feelings, but tangible care, shown by providing food and sheltering. The Savior's reaction to violence is to offer the other cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a way to instruct the assailant; his method regarding offenses is that if someone steals your jacket you ought to provide him your sweater also.
The evident and clear fact that the Savior in biblical accounts advocates for a type of radical love centered on the impoverished is what has always made Christianity somewhat of a provocative belief system: appealing to the masses, but because of its inherent radicalness needing to be contained. In the fifties it was controlled through watering down – The Protestant faith was so prevalent that it essentially baptized the status quo.
A Struggle for the Finest Among Us
Hence I have become encouraged to witness the determined opposition against Trump arise in this past year. It has been significant comfort to assist in constructing the movement that has demonstrated publicly in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated voters to show up in large quantities in the off-year elections. We must have to maintain it, and through comparable resolve, displaying national flags at every demonstration and appeals to the best parts in US history.
We will be questioned ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you welcome them and receive them or not?
The country is optimally secured, to put it differently, through connection to the best within national tradition, exactly as the Christian faith is best defended by reference to that which renders it unique and magnificent, particularly the pattern of Jesus. In all circumstances does it imply acting as if the most damaging about the nation and Christianity never occurred; it means both modesty and conviction, a mixture that committed US believers should be comfortable with.
