The Trump movement's most telling and distinctive moments – not its most significant, nor cruelest, nor most dangerous, nor most senseless, but potentially its most enlightening – came earlier this autumn. Over the span of several weeks, the American president began displaying all observers his designs for an ornate dance hall twice the size than the White House and subsequently started solo dismantling the eastern section to erect it.
He has done things ten thousand times worse – the present calculation of casualties from his cuts to foreign assistance stands at 600,000 and increasing, and recently a study projected his fossil fuel policies would kill another 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No previous president would have attempted – genuinely, no former commander would have conceived – independently wrecking large sections of the executive mansion to construct a royal-themed celebration hall, with the direct cooperation of some of the nation's most affluent, almost all of whom maintain dealings with public institutions.
We moved from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' toward 'the humble will perish from cholera'
As bewildering as it is to witness the president try to upend the established notion of democracy and replace it with its polar opposite, there is one large group among Americans who should not find it totally unfamiliar. That is those of us – in older age cohorts almost a majority – who were raised within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have observed across decades as rightwing evangelical churches converted the Savior we were raised with into exactly the opposite of our perception of his character. Essentially, they converted a persona of compassion into a symbol of animosity who blesses specifically the brutality that he denounced in biblical teachings; this has happened more gradually, over decades instead of months, but it is nonetheless disconcerting via comparable methods, a bewildering emotional blow for countless people.
A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground
Hence I shall explain the Jesus from my upbringing, since in theory Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and since the rapidly expanding group of Americans might have little sense about him since they are skeptics or doubters or religiously unaffiliated. I take no issue with these different approaches, nor with different religions; but I do think that there are pearls of significant worth in biblical accounts.
It is emphatically not the story of a mighty king emerging; instead, a child comes into the world to displaced parents in an automotive shelter, who must quickly flee to a foreign land to avoid undercover officers. The baby grows up in simple surroundings, a laboring woodworker; his message focuses on affection for fellow humans, specifically for the poor – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, demonstrated through nourishing and sheltering. Christ's response to hostility is to present the additional cheek – not as a demonstration of submissive tolerance, but as a method to educate the assailant; his approach to wrongdoing is that if someone steals your outer garment you should give him your sweater too.
The obvious and straightforward fact that Christ in biblical accounts requests a type of radical love concentrated on the poor has perpetually caused Christian religion somewhat of a provocative belief system: appealing to the masses, but owing to its inherent radicalness requiring to be controlled. In the fifties it was restrained through watering down – The Protestant faith was so prevalent that it essentially baptized the status quo.
A Struggle for the Finest Among Us
Hence I have become inspired to see the steadfast resistance to Trump develop during the previous year. It has been substantial consolation to assist in constructing the campaign that has demonstrated publicly via continuous gatherings, and likely has encouraged electorate to turn out in large quantities in the off-year elections. We shall require to continue it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags during all protests and calls to the finest aspects within national heritage.
We shall be interrogated ... how did you receive the foreigner? Did you accept these individuals and receive them or refuse?
The nation is most protected, in other words, by relationship to the best about American history, exactly as the Christian faith is most protected by relationship to what makes it special and magnificent, specifically the model of Christ. In all circumstances does it suggest pretending the most damaging regarding America and religious tradition did not happen; it represents both humility and conviction, a mixture that committed US believers should be comfortable with.
