The Trump phenomenon's most telling and defining occasions – not its most crucial, nor most harsh, nor most dangerous, nor most senseless, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. In the course of multiple weeks, the American president began displaying all observers his intentions for a lavish reception room twice the size of the White House and then commenced independently demolishing the eastern section to erect it.
He has performed deeds ten thousand times worse – the present calculation of deaths from his cuts to USAID stands at 600,000 and rising, and this week an analysis predicted his petroleum strategies would cause deaths another 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No other president would have attempted – genuinely, no former commander would have conceived – solo demolishing large sections of the White House to build a royal-themed celebration hall, with the direct cooperation of multiple America's wealthiest, almost all of whom have business with federal agencies.
We transitioned from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' toward 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As confusing as it is to witness the president attempt to overturn the old idea about democracy and substitute it with its complete opposite, there is one large group within America who might not perceive it entirely new. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations close to half – who were raised within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have witnessed over the years as politically conservative religious groups converted the Savior we grew up with into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they turned a figure of love into a figure of hostility who approves specifically the brutality that he condemned in biblical teachings; this has happened more gradually, over decades instead of months, but it is nonetheless disconcerting through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Savior from my upbringing, since in theory Jesus is the center of any Christian faith, and given that the quickly increasing segment among Americans may possess limited understanding about him because they identify as non-believers or agnostics or religiously unaffiliated. I have no problem with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; but I do think that there are pearls of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is decidedly definitely not the account of a powerful ruler arising; instead, a baby is born to displaced parents in a garage, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to avoid undercover officers. The child matures in modest conditions, a working carpenter; his message is about love for others, particularly for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but practical compassion, demonstrated through nourishing and protecting. The Savior's reaction to aggression is to turn the opposite cheek – not as an act of passive acceptance, but as a means to teach the assailant; his method regarding offenses is that if an individual takes your outer garment you ought to provide him your sweater too.
The obvious and direct reality that the Savior of the gospels advocates for a kind of extreme compassion focused on the needy has perpetually caused the Christian faith rather a provocative belief system: appealing to the general public, but owing to its intrinsic extremism demanding to be controlled. In the 1950s it was contained via weakening – Protestant Christianity was so dominant that it essentially sanctified existing conditions.
A Battle for the Finest Within Us
So I have been heartened to witness the persistent defiance against Trump arise during the previous year. It has provided significant comfort to participate in developing the movement that has taken to the streets through repeated demonstrations, and likely has encouraged citizens to turn out in large quantities in the off-year elections. We must have to maintain it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags during all protests and appeals to the finest aspects within national heritage.
We're going to be asked ... how did you receive the foreigner? Did you welcome them and embrace them or not?
The country is optimally secured, to put it differently, by relationship to the highest within national tradition, exactly as the Christian faith is best defended by relationship to elements that cause it to be distinctive and magnificent, which is the example of Jesus. In both situations does it imply acting as if the most damaging about the nation and Christian faith never occurred; it represents both meekness and belief, a blend that serious US believers should embrace.
