The Trump movement's most telling and characteristic instances – not its most important, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but possibly its most revealing – came earlier this autumn. Over the span of a few weeks, the American president started showing everyone his plans for a gilded ballroom double the dimensions compared to the White House and then began independently demolishing the East Wing portion to erect it.
He has committed acts countless times more severe – the present calculation of fatalities from his cuts to USAID amounts to 600,000 and rising, and presently an analysis projected his fossil fuel policies would kill an additional 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No previous president would have attempted – truly, no previous leader would have imagined – solo demolishing major areas of the White House to build a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of multiple the richest Americans, nearly all of which have business with public institutions.
We moved from 'the meek shall inherit the world' to 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the president try to upend the established notion of democracy and substitute it with its complete opposite, there is one large group among Americans who wouldn't consider it totally unfamiliar. This includes individuals like us – within elder demographics close to half – who were educated as conventional Protestant believers.
We have observed throughout the years as rightwing evangelical churches converted the Savior we learned about into the total contrary of who we understood him to be. At its most basic, they transformed an image of love into an icon of hate who approves exactly the harshness that he criticized in the Gospel; this change developed more gradually, across decades rather than months, however it is still disturbing in the same ways, a confusing personal impact for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Takes Hold
Hence I shall explain the Christ that I grew up with, because theoretically Jesus is the center within Christian belief, and since the rapidly expanding group among Americans may possess limited understanding of him as they consider themselves atheists or agnostics or religiously unaffiliated. I have no problem with any of these traditions, nor with different religions; yet I maintain that there are pearls of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is emphatically not the narrative of a mighty king emerging; rather, a child comes into the world to parents without shelter in a garage, who must quickly flee to a different country to evade undercover officers. The child matures in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his message concerns compassion for others, specifically for the disadvantaged – not simply tender feelings, but a concrete one, shown by providing food and protecting. Jesus' answer to aggression is to turn the additional cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a means to instruct the assailant; his method regarding offenses indicates that whenever someone steals your jacket you must offer him your sweater as well.
The evident and clear truth that the Savior in biblical accounts advocates for a kind of profound affection concentrated on the impoverished has perpetually caused Christian religion something of a controversial faith: engaging for the populace, but owing to its inherent radicalness needing to be restrained. In the fifties it was contained by dilution – Protestant Christianity was so dominant that it basically blessed current circumstances.
A Struggle for the Best of Us
Therefore I have felt encouraged to observe the steadfast resistance to Trump emerge over the last twelve months. It has been significant comfort to assist in constructing the movement that has taken to the streets through repeated demonstrations, and seems to have inspired citizens to turn out in large quantities in the off-year elections. We shall require to persist with it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags at every demonstration and requests to the finest aspects of American history.
We will be questioned ... how did you receive the foreigner? Did you receive him and receive them or reject?
The nation is most protected, to put it differently, by relationship to the highest in US heritage, similar to Christianity is best defended by relationship to elements that cause it to be distinctive and beautiful, specifically the model of Jesus. In both situations does it suggest feigning the worst regarding America and Christianity was nonexistent; it means both modesty and conviction, a blend that serious American Christians should be comfortable with.
