The Trump movement's most illuminating and defining instances – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – came earlier this autumn. During the period of multiple weeks, the American president began displaying everyone his intentions for a lavish reception room double the dimensions compared to the White House and then commenced independently demolishing the East Wing portion to erect it.
He has done things countless times more severe – the existing assessment of fatalities resulting from his reductions to USAID is 600,000 and rising, and presently an analysis projected his energy policies would kill another 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No former leader would have attempted – truly, no previous leader would have imagined – unilaterally destroying large sections of the presidential residence in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of numerous the richest Americans, nearly all of which maintain dealings with public institutions.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' to 'the meek shall die of cholera'
As bewildering as it is to witness the leader attempt to overturn the traditional concept of democracy and substitute it with its complete opposite, there is one large group among Americans who wouldn't consider it completely novel. That is those of us – in older age cohorts almost a majority – who were raised as conventional Protestant believers.
We have witnessed across decades as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we learned about into the complete reverse of our understanding of him. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of affection into an icon of animosity who approves exactly the harshness that he condemned in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred more slowly, through multiple decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless disconcerting via comparable methods, a bewildering emotional blow for countless people.
A Harmful Christianity Establishes Itself
Therefore allow me to outline the Savior that I grew up with, because theoretically the Savior is the core of any Christian faith, and given that the fastest-growing cadre within America might have little sense about him as they consider themselves skeptics or agnostics or religiously unaffiliated. I have no problem with these various perspectives, nor with different religions; yet I maintain that there are pearls of significant worth in the Christian story.
It is unquestionably absolutely not the narrative of a mighty king emerging; rather, a baby is born to parents without shelter in a storage space, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to avoid undercover officers. The child matures in modest conditions, an employed craftsman; his message is about love for others, specifically for the poor – not merely emotional affection, but a concrete one, shown by providing food and housing. Jesus' answer to hostility is to offer the opposite cheek – not as an act of passive acceptance, but as a method to instruct the aggressor; his method regarding offenses states that when a person pilfers your outer garment you should give the person your additional clothing also.
The apparent and straightforward fact that Christ of the gospels calls for a form of profound affection focused on the needy has consistently rendered Christianity something of a scandalous religion: engaging for the masses, but because of its intrinsic extremism needing to be restrained. In the 1950s it was contained by dilution – Protestant Christianity was so dominant that it basically baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Highest of Us
Therefore I have felt encouraged to see the determined opposition to Trump arise during the previous year. It has served as great solace to help build the movement that has taken to the streets through repeated demonstrations, and seems to have inspired voters to turn out in significant amounts in interim political contests. We must have to continue it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags throughout each rally and appeals to the finest aspects in US history.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the stranger? Did you receive him and embrace them or not?
The country is optimally secured, essentially, by relationship to the finest in US heritage, exactly as the Christian faith is optimally secured through connection to what makes it special and magnificent, specifically the model of Christ. In neither case does it suggest feigning the most negative about the nation and Christianity never occurred; it represents both humility and faith, a mixture that serious US believers should embrace.
