The Trump movement's most revealing and characteristic moments – not its most significant, nor cruelest, nor most hazardous, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. In the course of several weeks, the American president started showing all observers his intentions for an ornate dance hall twice the size of the White House and then began solo dismantling the East Wing portion to construct it.
He has committed acts 10,000 times as bad – the existing assessment of deaths resulting from his reductions to international aid amounts to 600,000 and growing, and this week research forecast his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities an additional 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No other president would have risked – really, no previous leader would have contemplated – independently wrecking large sections of the executive mansion in order to erect a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the direct cooperation of numerous America's wealthiest, the majority of whom have business with the government.
We transitioned from 'the meek shall inherit the planet' toward 'the humble will perish from cholera'
As bewildering as it is to observe the chief executive attempt to overturn the traditional concept regarding democracy and substitute it with its polar opposite, there is one large group among Americans who might not perceive it entirely new. That is those of us – among senior generations close to half – who were brought up within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have witnessed over the years as politically conservative religious groups turned the Jesus we learned about into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of compassion into an icon of animosity who endorses exactly the harshness that he denounced in the Gospel; this change developed more slowly, over decades instead of months, however it is still unsettling via comparable methods, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Christ that I grew up with, as conceptually the Savior is the core of Christian religion, and because the rapidly expanding group among Americans might have little sense about him as they consider themselves non-believers or doubters or spiritual independents. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; yet I maintain that exist valuable insights of substantial value in biblical accounts.
It is emphatically not the account of an authoritative monarch arising; rather, a baby is born to displaced parents in an automotive shelter, who need to rapidly escape to a different country to escape covert authorities. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his doctrine is about love for fellow humans, especially for the disadvantaged – and not a sentimental love, but practical compassion, shown by providing food and sheltering. The Savior's reaction to violence is to offer the other cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a method to teach the assailant; his crime policy indicates that whenever an individual takes your jacket you should give the person your additional clothing as well.
The apparent and straightforward fact that the Savior from scripture calls for a kind of profound affection focused on the impoverished has consistently rendered Christian religion something of a controversial faith: engaging for the masses, but due to its natural unconventionality demanding to be controlled. In the fifties it was restrained by dilution – Protestantism was so widespread that it essentially baptized the status quo.
A Struggle for the Highest Within Us
So I have been heartened to witness the persistent defiance to Trump develop in this past year. It has provided significant comfort to assist in constructing the campaign that has demonstrated publicly via continuous gatherings, and likely has encouraged electorate to show up in significant amounts in interim political contests. We will need to persist with it, and in the same spirit, with American flags at every demonstration and calls to the finest aspects in US history.
We're going to be asked ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you welcome them and receive them or refuse?
America is best defended, in other words, by reference to the best about American history, just as Christianity is optimally secured through connection to elements that cause it to be special and beautiful, specifically the model of Christ. In neither case does it suggest acting as if the worst of both America and Christian faith did not happen; it represents both meekness and faith, a combination that serious American Christians should be comfortable with.
