The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and characteristic instances – not its most significant, nor most harsh, nor most dangerous, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – came earlier this autumn. In the course of multiple weeks, the US president commenced revealing everyone his plans for a gilded ballroom twice the size of the White House and then commenced solo dismantling the East Wing portion to erect it.
He has done things 10,000 times as bad – the current estimate of fatalities from his cuts to foreign assistance stands at 600,000 and increasing, and recently an analysis forecast his energy policies would result in fatalities 1.3 million more. However nothing as distinctive. No previous president would have dared – genuinely, no former commander would have contemplated – solo demolishing significant portions of the presidential residence to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of some of the nation's most affluent, the majority of whom maintain dealings with the government.
We moved from 'the meek shall inherit the planet' into 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to observe the leader try to upend the old idea about democracy and exchange it with its complete opposite, there is one large group among Americans who wouldn't consider it completely novel. That is those of us – among senior generations a near majority – who were educated as conventional Protestant believers.
We have observed over the years as politically conservative religious groups converted the Savior we learned about into the total contrary of our understanding of him. At its most basic, they turned a figure of affection into a symbol of hostility who approves precisely the cruelties that he condemned in scripture; this transformation occurred more slowly, over decades as opposed to months, yet it remains unsettling through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Toxic Christianity Gains Ground
Therefore allow me to outline the Christ from my upbringing, as conceptually the Savior is the core within Christian belief, and given that the rapidly expanding group of Americans might have little sense about him since they are skeptics or doubters or spiritual independents. I have no problem with these different approaches, nor with different religions; however I believe that there are pearls of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is emphatically absolutely not the account of a powerful ruler appearing; instead, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in a garage, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to avoid undercover officers. The child matures in modest conditions, a working carpenter; his teaching concerns compassion for fellow humans, especially for the disadvantaged – not merely emotional affection, but tangible care, demonstrated through nourishing and protecting. The Savior's reaction to aggression is to turn the other cheek – not as a demonstration of passive acceptance, but as a method to instruct the assailant; his crime policy states that when an individual takes your outer garment you ought to provide the person your additional clothing as well.
The obvious and straightforward fact that Christ from scripture calls for a kind of radical love centered on the impoverished has consistently rendered Christianity rather a scandalous religion: attractive to the masses, but because of its intrinsic extremism demanding to be contained. In the 1950s it was contained through watering down – Protestant Christianity was so dominant that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Conflict for the Best Within Us
Therefore I have felt inspired to see the steadfast resistance to Trump arise over the last twelve months. It has provided great solace to help build the movement that has demonstrated publicly via continuous gatherings, and seems to have inspired voters to participate in significant amounts in the off-year elections. We will need to continue it, and with identical determination, with American flags throughout each rally and calls to the finest aspects of American history.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you receive him and receive them or refuse?
The country is optimally secured, in other words, by reference to the finest within national tradition, just as Christianity is best defended by reference to what makes it special and magnificent, particularly the pattern of Christ. In neither case does it imply acting as if the most negative about the nation and religious tradition did not happen; it represents both humility and belief, a blend that committed American Christians should be comfortable with.
