The Trump phenomenon's most illuminating and characteristic instances – not its most crucial, nor cruelest, nor most threatening, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – came earlier this autumn. During the period of several weeks, the nation's leader started showing everyone his plans for a gilded ballroom twice the size compared to the White House and then began independently demolishing the East Wing portion to build it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of fatalities due to his slashing to international aid is 600,000 and rising, and recently research projected his petroleum strategies would cause deaths another 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No other president would have risked – truly, no previous leader would have conceived – unilaterally destroying significant portions of the executive mansion to build a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of multiple America's wealthiest, almost all of whom conduct transactions with the government.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the planet' toward 'the meek shall die of cholera'
As confusing as it is to witness the president attempt to overturn the traditional concept about democracy and replace it with its polar opposite, there exists a significant segment among Americans who might not perceive it completely novel. That encompasses people such as ourselves – in older age cohorts close to half – who were educated within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have watched over the years as rightwing evangelical churches converted the Savior we learned about into the total contrary of our understanding of him. Fundamentally, they transformed an image of compassion into a figure of hostility who endorses precisely the cruelties that he criticized in biblical teachings; this has happened at a slower pace, through multiple decades rather than months, however it is still disturbing through similar means, a confusing personal impact for numerous individuals.
A Harmful Christianity Gains Ground
So let me first describe the Christ that I grew up with, since in theory the Savior is the core of Christian religion, and because the fastest-growing cadre among Americans may possess limited understanding regarding him since they are skeptics or doubters or spiritual independents. I raise no objection with any of these traditions, nor with different religions; but I do think that contain precious wisdom of great price in biblical accounts.
It is unquestionably absolutely not the narrative of a mighty king emerging; conversely, an infant arrives to homeless parents in a storage space, who are forced to hastily depart to another nation to avoid secret police. The infant develops in modest conditions, an employed craftsman; his doctrine concerns compassion for fellow humans, especially for the poor – not merely emotional affection, but tangible care, expressed by feeding and protecting. Christ's response to hostility is to turn the additional cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a means to teach the attacker; his approach to wrongdoing states that when a person pilfers your jacket you ought to provide the person your additional clothing as well.
The apparent and clear fact that Christ in biblical accounts calls for a form of radical love focused on the needy is what has always made the Christian faith rather a controversial faith: attractive to the masses, but owing to its intrinsic extremism needing to be controlled. During the 1950s it was controlled via weakening – Protestantism was so widespread that it basically blessed current circumstances.
A Struggle for the Highest Within Us
Therefore I have felt heartened to observe the steadfast resistance regarding Trump develop during the previous year. It has provided significant comfort to help build the movement that has demonstrated publicly in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated electorate to turn out in significant amounts in the off-year elections. We will need to continue it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags throughout each rally and calls to the finest aspects within national heritage.
We will be questioned ... about how you treated the stranger? Did you welcome them and welcome him or refuse?
The country is optimally secured, to put it differently, by reference to the finest within national tradition, just as Christianity is optimally secured by reference to elements that cause it to be unique and beautiful, particularly the pattern of Jesus. In both situations does it mean feigning the worst of both America and Christianity did not happen; it means both humility and belief, a mixture that serious national faithful should embrace.
