The Trump phenomenon's most telling and characteristic occasions – not its most important, nor most harsh, nor most hazardous, nor most senseless, but perhaps its most illuminating – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of a few weeks, the US president began displaying all observers his intentions for a gilded ballroom double the dimensions of the White House and then commenced solo dismantling the East Wing to build it.
He has performed deeds ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of fatalities from his cuts to USAID stands at 600,000 and increasing, and this week a study projected his energy policies would kill an additional 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No other president would have risked – truly, no former commander would have contemplated – unilaterally destroying major areas of the presidential residence in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of some of the richest Americans, the majority of whom conduct transactions with the government.
We transitioned from 'the meek shall inherit the world' into 'the meek shall die from cholera'
As confusing as it is to witness the chief executive attempt to overturn the old idea regarding democracy and substitute it with its complete opposite, there remains a substantial portion of Americans who should not find it entirely new. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations a near majority – who were educated within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have observed over the years while conservative evangelical congregations turned the Jesus we were raised with into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of affection into a symbol of hate who blesses precisely the cruelties that he condemned in the Gospel; this transformation occurred more slowly, across decades rather than months, yet it remains disconcerting through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Toxic Christianity Gains Ground
Therefore allow me to outline the Christ from my upbringing, as conceptually the Savior is the core of Christian religion, and since the rapidly expanding group among Americans might have little sense regarding him since they are skeptics or agnostics or spiritual independents. I raise no objection with these different approaches, nor with alternative spiritual paths; yet I maintain that exist valuable insights of significant worth within Christian narrative.
It is unquestionably not the account of a mighty king arising; rather, an infant arrives to displaced parents in an automotive shelter, who need to rapidly escape to another nation to escape covert authorities. The infant develops in modest conditions, a laboring woodworker; his message is about love for others, especially for the disadvantaged – not merely emotional affection, but a concrete one, expressed by feeding and housing. Christ's response to aggression is to offer the opposite cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a method to teach the assailant; his method regarding offenses states that when a person pilfers your outer garment you should give him your sweater also.
The obvious and clear truth that the Jesus of the gospels calls for a form of extreme compassion centered on the impoverished has consistently rendered the Christian faith rather a provocative belief system: appealing to the general public, but due to its inherent radicalness requiring to be contained. In the 1950s it was restrained by dilution – Protestantism was so widespread that it practically sanctified existing conditions.
A Conflict for the Highest Among Us
Therefore I have felt inspired to observe the persistent defiance against Trump develop during the previous year. It has been great solace to participate in developing the movement that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and seems to have inspired citizens to participate in numbers during minor elections. We will need to maintain it, and with identical determination, displaying national flags throughout each rally and requests to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you welcome them and embrace them or reject?
America is best defended, in other words, by reference to the best about American history, similar to Christianity is optimally secured through connection to what makes it unique and magnificent, which is the example of Christ. In neither case does it imply feigning the worst regarding America and religious tradition was nonexistent; it signifies both humility and conviction, a mixture that serious American Christians should embrace.
