The Trump movement's most telling and characteristic moments – not its most significant, nor cruelest, nor most threatening, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – came earlier this autumn. Over the span of a few weeks, the American president started showing the public his intentions for an ornate dance hall double the dimensions than the White House and then commenced unilaterally ripping down the eastern section to build it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe – the present calculation of casualties resulting from his reductions to international aid amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and presently research predicted his fossil fuel policies would kill an additional 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No former leader would have attempted – truly, no previous leader would have contemplated – independently wrecking significant portions of the executive mansion to build a royal-themed celebration hall, with the active collaboration of some of America's wealthiest, nearly all of which have business with federal agencies.
We transitioned from 'the gentle will obtain the world' toward 'the gentle will succumb from cholera'
As confusing as it is to watch the president attempt to overturn the established notion regarding democracy and replace it with its complete opposite, there remains a substantial portion of Americans who wouldn't consider it entirely new. This includes individuals like us – in older age cohorts almost a majority – who were educated as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have watched throughout the years as rightwing evangelical churches converted the Savior we learned about into the complete reverse of our understanding of him. Essentially, they turned a figure of affection into an icon of hate who blesses exactly the harshness that he criticized in the Gospel; this has happened at a slower pace, over decades instead of months, however it is still disconcerting in the same ways, a disorienting gut punch for countless people.
A Damaging Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Jesus that I grew up with, as conceptually Jesus is the center within Christian belief, and given that the fastest-growing cadre among Americans might have little sense about him since they are skeptics or doubters or nones. I have no problem with these various perspectives, nor with any other faith; yet I maintain that there are pearls of significant worth within Christian narrative.
It is unquestionably not the story of a powerful ruler appearing; rather, a baby is born to parents without shelter in a storage space, who need to rapidly escape to a different country to avoid secret police. The child matures in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his doctrine focuses on affection for other people, particularly for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but practical compassion, expressed by feeding and protecting. Jesus' answer to violence is to turn the opposite cheek – not as a demonstration of compliant endurance, but as a means to instruct the assailant; his approach to wrongdoing indicates that whenever an individual takes your jacket you must offer them your pullover as well.
The obvious and straightforward fact that Christ of the gospels advocates for a form of profound affection centered on the poor is what has always made the Christian faith somewhat of a provocative belief system: appealing to the masses, but owing to its intrinsic extremism requiring to be restrained. In the 1950s it was restrained through watering down – Protestantism was so widespread that it basically baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Best of Us
So I have been heartened to observe the persistent defiance regarding Trump develop during the previous year. It has served as great solace to assist in constructing the campaign that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and likely has encouraged citizens to show up in numbers in the off-year elections. We must have to maintain it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags during all protests and calls to the highest qualities of American history.
We're going to be asked ... regarding how you welcomed the stranger? Did you receive him and embrace them or reject?
The nation is most protected, essentially, by relationship to the best within national tradition, exactly as the Christian faith is most protected by reference to elements that cause it to be distinctive and magnificent, which is the example of the Savior. In both situations does it mean pretending the worst about the nation and religious tradition did not happen; it signifies both meekness and faith, a combination that serious American Christians should embrace.
