The Trump phenomenon's most telling and distinctive instances – not its most significant, nor most harsh, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. During the period of multiple weeks, the US president began displaying the public his plans for an ornate dance hall two times larger of the White House and then commenced independently demolishing the East Wing to construct it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of casualties from his cuts to international aid is 600,000 and increasing, and this week a study forecast his energy policies would cause deaths 1.3 million more. Yet nothing as characteristic. No previous president would have dared – genuinely, no previous leader would have contemplated – unilaterally destroying significant portions of the White House in order to erect a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the active collaboration of some of America's wealthiest, the majority of whom have business with federal agencies.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the world' into 'the humble will perish from cholera'
As disorienting as it is to witness the president try to upend the old idea of democracy and substitute it with its complete opposite, there remains a substantial portion among Americans who should not find it entirely new. That is those of us – among senior generations almost a majority – who were raised as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have witnessed across decades while conservative evangelical congregations transformed the Christ we learned about into the complete reverse of our perception of his character. Essentially, they converted a persona of love into a figure of hate who blesses specifically the brutality that he criticized in scripture; this transformation occurred more slowly, through multiple decades rather than months, however it is still unsettling through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Gains Ground
Hence I shall explain the Jesus from my childhood, because theoretically Jesus is the center of any Christian faith, and given that the quickly increasing segment among Americans could have minimal awareness of him since they are skeptics or doubters or spiritual independents. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; however I believe that exist valuable insights of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is decidedly definitely not the story of a powerful ruler emerging; rather, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in a storage space, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to evade secret police. The infant develops in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his teaching is about love for others, especially for the impoverished – not simply tender feelings, but a concrete one, expressed by feeding and protecting. Jesus' answer to hostility is to present the additional cheek – not as a demonstration of passive acceptance, but as a method to teach the aggressor; his approach to wrongdoing indicates that whenever someone steals your outer garment you should give the person your additional clothing too.
The evident and clear reality that the Savior in biblical accounts requests a form of extreme compassion centered on the needy has perpetually caused the Christian faith rather a provocative belief system: appealing to the masses, but because of its intrinsic extremism needing to be contained. In the fifties it was restrained through watering down – Protestant Christianity was so dominant that it basically blessed current circumstances.
A Conflict for the Best Within Us
Hence I have become heartened to see the determined opposition regarding Trump develop over the last twelve months. It has been great solace to assist in constructing the campaign that has taken to the streets in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated citizens to turn out in large quantities in interim political contests. We shall require to continue it, and through comparable resolve, displaying national flags during all protests and appeals to the best parts of American history.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you receive him and welcome him or refuse?
The nation is most protected, to put it differently, through connection to the best within national tradition, similar to Christianity is most protected by relationship to that which renders it distinctive and wonderful, which is the example of Jesus. In both situations does it imply feigning the worst regarding America and Christianity did not happen; it means both meekness and conviction, a mixture that serious national faithful ought to accept.
