The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and defining occasions – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most threatening, nor most senseless, but possibly its most revealing – occurred earlier this fall. During the period of several weeks, the American president commenced revealing everyone his plans for an ornate dance hall double the dimensions of the White House and then began unilaterally ripping down the eastern section to erect it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe – the current estimate of deaths from his cuts to USAID is 600,000 and growing, and this week an analysis projected his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities an additional 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No other president would have risked – truly, no previous leader would have contemplated – independently wrecking major areas of the executive mansion to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of some of the nation's most affluent, the majority of whom maintain dealings with public institutions.
We went from 'the gentle will obtain the Earth' toward 'the meek shall die of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to observe the leader try to upend the established notion of democracy and substitute it with its complete opposite, there exists a significant segment among Americans who should not find it totally unfamiliar. This includes individuals like us – within elder demographics almost a majority – who were raised within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have watched across decades as politically conservative religious groups transformed the Christ we grew up with into exactly the opposite of our understanding of him. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of affection into a symbol of hate who blesses specifically the brutality that he criticized in the Gospel; this has happened more slowly, across decades as opposed to months, yet it remains disconcerting via comparable methods, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Christ that I grew up with, because theoretically Christ is the focus within Christian belief, and since the rapidly expanding group among Americans might have little sense of him as they consider themselves atheists or uncertain individuals or religiously unaffiliated. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; yet I maintain that contain precious wisdom of substantial value in biblical accounts.
It is decidedly absolutely not the account of a mighty king emerging; conversely, an infant arrives to homeless parents in an automotive shelter, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to evade undercover officers. The child matures in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his doctrine is about love for fellow humans, specifically for the disadvantaged – not merely emotional affection, but practical compassion, shown by providing food and protecting. Christ's response to aggression is to offer the additional cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a method to teach the attacker; his method regarding offenses is that if someone steals your coat you must offer them your pullover also.
The obvious and direct truth that the Savior from scripture requests a kind of extreme compassion centered on the poor has consistently rendered the Christian faith rather a provocative belief system: attractive to the populace, but owing to its natural unconventionality needing to be contained. In the 1950s it was controlled through watering down – Protestant Christianity was so dominant that it basically sanctified existing conditions.
A Struggle for the Best of Us
Therefore I have felt inspired to observe the persistent defiance to Trump develop during the previous year. It has provided significant comfort to assist in constructing the initiative that has protested openly in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated voters to turn out in large quantities in interim political contests. We shall require to continue it, and through comparable resolve, featuring US banners throughout each rally and calls to the best parts in US history.
We will be questioned ... how did you receive the immigrant? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or refuse?
America is best defended, in other words, by reference to the highest in US heritage, just as Christianity is optimally secured through connection to what makes it unique and wonderful, specifically the model of Jesus. In neither case does it mean pretending the most damaging about the nation and Christianity did not happen; it represents both meekness and belief, a combination that committed American Christians should be comfortable with.
