The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and distinctive moments – not its most important, nor most brutal, nor most hazardous, nor stupidest, but possibly its most revealing – occurred earlier this fall. During the period of a few weeks, the American president started showing everyone his intentions for a gilded ballroom twice the size compared to the White House and then began independently demolishing the eastern section to construct it.
He has performed deeds 10,000 times as bad – the current estimate of deaths from his cuts to international aid stands at 600,000 and increasing, and presently an analysis projected his petroleum strategies would result in fatalities 1.3 million more. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have risked – genuinely, no former commander would have imagined – unilaterally destroying major areas of the presidential residence in order to erect a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the active collaboration of multiple the nation's most affluent, the majority of whom conduct transactions with federal agencies.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the world' toward 'the meek shall die to cholera'
As bewildering as it is to witness the president try to upend the established notion about democracy and substitute it with its polar opposite, there is one large group within America who wouldn't consider it completely novel. That is those of us – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were raised as conventional Protestant believers.
We have observed across decades while conservative evangelical congregations turned the Jesus we were raised with into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of affection into an icon of hostility who endorses specifically the brutality that he condemned in the Gospel; this transformation occurred at a slower pace, through multiple decades rather than months, however it is still unsettling in the same ways, a disorienting gut punch for countless people.
A Harmful Christianity Establishes Itself
Therefore allow me to outline the Savior that I grew up with, since in theory Jesus is the center of Christian religion, and because the fastest-growing cadre of Americans could have minimal awareness regarding him as they consider themselves atheists or doubters or nones. I take no issue with any of these traditions, nor with different religions; yet I maintain that exist valuable insights of significant worth within Christian narrative.
It is emphatically not the story of a mighty king appearing; rather, a baby is born to displaced parents in an automotive shelter, who must quickly flee to a different country to escape covert authorities. The infant develops in simple surroundings, a laboring woodworker; his doctrine focuses on affection for others, specifically for the poor – not merely emotional affection, but a concrete one, demonstrated through nourishing and protecting. Jesus' answer to hostility is to offer the additional cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a method to educate the attacker; his crime policy states that when an individual takes your jacket you ought to provide him your sweater too.
The apparent and clear truth that the Jesus from scripture requests a form of extreme compassion concentrated on the impoverished has consistently rendered Christianity something of a provocative belief system: engaging for the populace, but due to its natural unconventionality needing to be restrained. In the fifties it was restrained through watering down – Protestant Christianity was so prevalent that it essentially blessed current circumstances.
A Struggle for the Best Among Us
So I have been inspired to see the persistent defiance regarding Trump arise in this past year. It has provided substantial consolation to participate in developing the campaign that has demonstrated publicly via continuous gatherings, and appears to have motivated electorate to turn out in numbers during minor elections. We must have to continue it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags at every demonstration and appeals to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We're going to be asked ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you welcome them and receive them or not?
The country is optimally secured, essentially, by reference to the highest in US heritage, just as Christianity is most protected by reference to that which renders it distinctive and wonderful, which is the example of Christ. In all circumstances does it mean feigning the most negative regarding America and religious tradition did not happen; it means both humility and faith, a mixture that genuine national faithful ought to accept.
