The Trump movement's most telling and distinctive moments – not its most crucial, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but perhaps its most illuminating – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of several weeks, the US president began displaying all observers his designs for an ornate dance hall double the dimensions of the White House and then began independently demolishing the eastern section to build it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of casualties due to his slashing to foreign assistance stands at 600,000 and increasing, and this week an analysis forecast his petroleum strategies would result in fatalities another 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No other president would have attempted – really, no previous leader would have imagined – unilaterally destroying major areas of the White House to build a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of multiple the richest Americans, almost all of whom maintain dealings with the government.
We transitioned from 'the meek shall inherit the world' to 'the humble will perish from cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the leader attempt to overturn the established notion about democracy and substitute it with its direct contrary, there is one large group of Americans who should not find it completely novel. This includes individuals like us – in older age cohorts almost a majority – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have observed across decades as rightwing evangelical churches transformed the Christ we grew up with into the total contrary of our understanding of him. At its most basic, they converted a persona of compassion into an icon of hate who endorses exactly the harshness that he denounced in biblical teachings; this has happened more slowly, across decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless disconcerting in the same ways, a disorienting gut punch for countless people.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Savior from my upbringing, as conceptually Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and given that the fastest-growing cadre among Americans might have little sense regarding him since they are non-believers or uncertain individuals or nones. I have no problem with any of these traditions, nor with any other faith; but I do think that there are pearls of significant worth in the Christian story.
It is unquestionably not the story of a mighty king arising; conversely, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in an automotive shelter, who are forced to hastily depart to another nation to escape secret police. The child matures in simple surroundings, a working carpenter; his doctrine concerns compassion for other people, specifically for the poor – and not a sentimental love, but tangible care, demonstrated through nourishing and protecting. Christ's response to violence is to offer the opposite cheek – not as a demonstration of submissive tolerance, but as a method to instruct the aggressor; his method regarding offenses indicates that whenever someone steals your jacket you should give him your sweater also.
The apparent and clear reality that the Savior of the gospels requests a form of extreme compassion centered on the needy has consistently rendered Christianity something of a controversial faith: appealing to the masses, but owing to its intrinsic extremism demanding to be contained. In the fifties it was restrained via weakening – The Protestant faith was so widespread that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Conflict for the Best Among Us
So I have been heartened to observe the steadfast resistance against Trump emerge in this past year. It has been great solace to participate in developing the initiative that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and likely has encouraged voters to show up in numbers in the off-year elections. We shall require to continue it, and through comparable resolve, displaying national flags at every demonstration and calls to the highest qualities in US history.
We will be questioned ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or not?
America is best defended, in other words, through connection to the highest about American history, just as Christianity is most protected by relationship to that which renders it special and magnificent, specifically the model of Christ. In all circumstances does it suggest acting as if the most damaging about the nation and Christian faith never occurred; it represents both meekness and belief, a blend that genuine American Christians should be comfortable with.
