The Trump phenomenon's most telling and defining moments – not its most significant, nor cruelest, nor most hazardous, nor most foolish, but possibly its most revealing – occurred earlier this fall. In the course of several weeks, the nation's leader commenced revealing everyone his plans for an ornate dance hall twice the size than the White House and then commenced solo dismantling the East Wing to build it.
He has done things ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of deaths resulting from his reductions to international aid is 600,000 and increasing, and recently an analysis forecast his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities another 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No other president would have attempted – really, no previous leader would have conceived – independently wrecking significant portions of the presidential residence to construct a royal-themed celebration hall, with the direct cooperation of numerous the richest Americans, almost all of whom maintain dealings with public institutions.
We moved from 'the meek shall inherit the planet' to 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As bewildering as it is to witness the president try to upend the traditional concept about democracy and substitute it with its direct contrary, there exists a significant segment of Americans who should not find it entirely new. That encompasses people such as ourselves – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were raised as conventional Protestant believers.
We have witnessed throughout the years as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we grew up with into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. At its most basic, they converted a persona of love into a figure of animosity who endorses specifically the brutality that he condemned in scripture; this has happened at a slower pace, across decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless disturbing via comparable methods, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Gains Ground
So let me first describe the Christ from my upbringing, because theoretically Jesus is the center of any Christian faith, and given that the fastest-growing cadre of Americans could have minimal awareness about him as they consider themselves skeptics or doubters or nones. I have no problem with any of these traditions, nor with any other faith; yet I maintain that there are pearls of great price in the Christian story.
It is decidedly definitely not the account of a mighty king appearing; rather, a baby is born to parents without shelter in an automotive shelter, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to evade covert authorities. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his teaching is about love for fellow humans, particularly for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, expressed by feeding and housing. The Savior's reaction to violence is to offer the other cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a method to educate the aggressor; his method regarding offenses states that when someone steals your outer garment you should give them your pullover also.
The evident and straightforward truth that the Savior of the gospels calls for a form of extreme compassion concentrated on the impoverished has consistently rendered Christianity something of a scandalous religion: attractive to the general public, but because of its intrinsic extremism needing to be contained. In the fifties it was contained through watering down – Protestantism was so prevalent that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Finest of Us
Therefore I have felt inspired to witness the steadfast resistance against Trump emerge during the previous year. It has been great solace to participate in developing the initiative that has protested openly in rally after rally, and likely has encouraged electorate to turn out in numbers during minor elections. We must have to persist with it, and in the same spirit, with American flags throughout each rally and requests to the finest aspects in US history.
We're going to be asked ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or refuse?
The nation is most protected, in other words, through connection to the finest about American history, similar to Christianity is best defended through connection to that which renders it unique and wonderful, which is the example of Christ. In both situations does it mean feigning the most negative regarding America and Christianity did not happen; it signifies both humility and faith, a blend that genuine American Christians ought to accept.
