The Trump phenomenon's most telling and distinctive moments – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most threatening, nor most senseless, but possibly its most revealing – emerged earlier this harvest season. During the period of a few weeks, the American president started showing everyone his plans for a lavish reception room double the dimensions compared to the White House and then began unilaterally ripping down the eastern section to build it.
He has committed acts countless times more severe – the current estimate of casualties from his cuts to USAID stands at 600,000 and rising, and this week research forecast his petroleum strategies would result in fatalities an additional 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No previous president would have attempted – truly, no former commander would have contemplated – unilaterally destroying large sections of the White House to build a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of multiple the nation's most affluent, nearly all of which have business with federal agencies.
We transitioned from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' toward 'the gentle will succumb of cholera'
As confusing as it is to witness the president attempt to overturn the established notion of democracy and substitute it with its complete opposite, there exists a significant segment within America who wouldn't consider it entirely new. This includes individuals like us – within elder demographics close to half – who were brought up within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have watched across decades while conservative evangelical congregations transformed the Christ we learned about into exactly the opposite of our perception of his character. At its most basic, they converted a persona of compassion into a figure of animosity who endorses precisely the cruelties that he criticized in the Gospel; this transformation occurred at a slower pace, through multiple decades instead of months, yet it remains disconcerting through similar means, a confusing personal impact for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Jesus from my upbringing, since in theory Jesus is the center within Christian belief, and since the rapidly expanding group among Americans might have little sense about him since they are non-believers or agnostics or spiritual independents. I take no issue with any of these traditions, nor with different religions; however I believe that there are pearls of great price in biblical accounts.
It is decidedly not the narrative of a powerful ruler arising; conversely, an infant arrives to displaced parents in a storage space, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to escape secret police. The infant develops in simple surroundings, a working carpenter; his doctrine is about love for others, particularly for the poor – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, shown by providing food and protecting. Christ's response to hostility is to offer the other cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a method to teach the assailant; his method regarding offenses is that if an individual takes your outer garment you must offer them your pullover too.
The obvious and straightforward reality that Christ in biblical accounts requests a type of extreme compassion concentrated on the needy has consistently rendered Christianity somewhat of a scandalous religion: engaging for the masses, but because of its natural unconventionality demanding to be restrained. In the fifties it was restrained by dilution – The Protestant faith was so widespread that it essentially sanctified existing conditions.
A Conflict for the Finest of Us
So I have been inspired to see the determined opposition to Trump arise in this past year. It has served as substantial consolation to help build the movement that has taken to the streets in rally after rally, and seems to have inspired citizens to turn out in numbers in interim political contests. We shall require to continue it, and in the same spirit, featuring US banners throughout each rally and requests to the best parts in US history.
We're going to be asked ... regarding how you welcomed the stranger? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or refuse?
America is best defended, in other words, by relationship to the finest in US heritage, similar to Christianity is optimally secured by relationship to what makes it unique and magnificent, which is the example of Jesus. In both situations does it suggest pretending the most negative regarding America and Christianity was nonexistent; it represents both modesty and conviction, a mixture that genuine American Christians should be comfortable with.
