The Trump movement's most telling and distinctive moments – not its most important, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of several weeks, the US president started showing everyone his plans for a lavish reception room two times larger of the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the East Wing portion to construct it.
He has done things 10,000 times as bad – the existing assessment of casualties due to his slashing to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and this week research projected his fossil fuel policies would cause deaths an additional 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No former leader would have dared – truly, no former commander would have contemplated – solo demolishing significant portions of the executive mansion to build a royal-themed celebration hall, with the direct cooperation of multiple America's wealthiest, the majority of whom conduct transactions with public institutions.
We transitioned from 'the humble will receive the Earth' toward 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As confusing as it is to witness the leader attempt to overturn the old idea about democracy and substitute it with its direct contrary, there is one large group of Americans who wouldn't consider it completely novel. This includes individuals like us – among senior generations a near majority – who were educated as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have witnessed throughout the years as rightwing evangelical churches converted the Savior we learned about into the total contrary of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they transformed an image of compassion into a symbol of animosity who endorses exactly the harshness that he denounced in biblical teachings; this has happened more slowly, over decades instead of months, yet it remains disturbing via comparable methods, a bewildering emotional blow for countless people.
A Harmful Christianity Gains Ground
So let me first describe the Savior that I grew up with, since in theory Christ is the focus of Christian religion, and given that the fastest-growing cadre within America may possess limited understanding of him since they are atheists or uncertain individuals or spiritual independents. I have no problem with any of these traditions, nor with different religions; but I do think that exist valuable insights of great price within Christian narrative.
It is unquestionably not the story of an authoritative monarch emerging; instead, a child comes into the world to homeless parents in a storage space, who must quickly flee to a foreign land to evade secret police. The infant develops in modest conditions, an employed craftsman; his teaching is about love for other people, specifically for the impoverished – not simply tender feelings, but practical compassion, demonstrated through nourishing and sheltering. Jesus' answer to hostility is to offer the additional cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a means to educate the attacker; his crime policy is that if a person pilfers your jacket you should give him your sweater also.
The apparent and clear reality that the Jesus from scripture calls for a form of extreme compassion focused on the needy has consistently rendered Christianity something of a provocative belief system: appealing to the populace, but owing to its inherent radicalness requiring to be contained. In the 1950s it was restrained by dilution – Protestantism was so dominant that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Conflict for the Highest Within Us
Hence I have become heartened to see the persistent defiance regarding Trump emerge in this past year. It has served as great solace to assist in constructing the initiative that has taken to the streets in rally after rally, and likely has encouraged voters to show up in large quantities in the off-year elections. We will need to continue it, and in the same spirit, with American flags throughout each rally and requests to the best parts within national heritage.
We're going to be asked ... how did you receive the immigrant? Did you welcome them and receive them or not?
The country is optimally secured, to put it differently, through connection to the finest in US heritage, just as Christianity is best defended through connection to what makes it distinctive and magnificent, specifically the model of Christ. In all circumstances does it suggest acting as if the most negative of both America and Christian faith did not happen; it represents both humility and belief, a blend that serious US believers ought to accept.
