The Trump phenomenon's most telling and characteristic occasions – not its most important, nor most brutal, nor most hazardous, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – came earlier this autumn. Over the span of multiple weeks, the nation's leader started showing everyone his plans for an ornate dance hall twice the size of the White House and then commenced unilaterally ripping down the East Wing to build it.
He has committed acts countless times more severe – the present calculation of casualties from his cuts to international aid stands at 600,000 and increasing, and presently an analysis predicted his petroleum strategies would result in fatalities 1.3 million more. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have risked – truly, no other president would have conceived – independently wrecking large sections of the executive mansion to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of multiple America's wealthiest, nearly all of which have business with public institutions.
We transitioned from 'the meek shall inherit the planet' toward 'the meek shall die to cholera'
As bewildering as it is to witness the president attempt to overturn the traditional concept of democracy and substitute it with its direct contrary, there is one large group among Americans who might not perceive it completely novel. That is those of us – in older age cohorts almost a majority – who were educated as conventional Protestant believers.
We have witnessed throughout the years while conservative evangelical congregations transformed the Christ we learned about into exactly the opposite of our understanding of him. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of love into a symbol of hostility who endorses exactly the harshness that he denounced in the Gospel; this change developed more gradually, through multiple decades as opposed to months, however it is still unsettling in the same ways, a disorienting gut punch for numerous individuals.
A Harmful Christianity Takes Hold
Therefore allow me to outline the Christ that I grew up with, as conceptually the Savior is the core within Christian belief, and since the rapidly expanding group within America may possess limited understanding about him since they are non-believers or uncertain individuals or spiritual independents. 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 child comes into the world to homeless parents in a garage, who must quickly flee to a different country to escape covert authorities. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, a laboring woodworker; his message concerns compassion for other people, especially for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but practical compassion, demonstrated through nourishing and housing. Christ's response to hostility is to turn the opposite cheek – not as a demonstration of submissive tolerance, but as a means to educate the aggressor; his approach to wrongdoing is that if a person pilfers your outer garment you ought to provide them your pullover too.
The evident and direct truth that the Jesus in biblical accounts advocates for a kind of extreme compassion centered on the needy has perpetually caused the Christian faith rather a provocative belief system: attractive to the general public, but because of its inherent radicalness needing to be restrained. During the 1950s it was controlled via weakening – Protestant Christianity was so dominant that it basically blessed current circumstances.
A Struggle for the Best of Us
Hence I have become heartened to see the steadfast resistance to Trump emerge over the last twelve months. It has provided significant comfort to participate in developing the initiative that has taken to the streets in rally after rally, and seems to have inspired voters to turn out in large quantities during minor elections. We shall require to persist with it, and through comparable resolve, featuring US banners during all protests and appeals to the finest aspects within national heritage.
We're going to be asked ... how did you receive the foreigner? Did you accept these individuals and welcome him or refuse?
America is best defended, in other words, by reference to the highest in US heritage, exactly as the Christian faith is optimally secured by reference to that which renders it special and wonderful, which is the example of the Savior. In both situations does it mean acting as if the worst of both America and Christianity did not happen; it represents both modesty and conviction, a mixture that serious American Christians should be comfortable with.
