The Trump movement's most telling and characteristic instances – not its most significant, nor cruelest, nor most hazardous, nor most senseless, but perhaps its most illuminating – came earlier this autumn. In the course of multiple weeks, the American president started showing the public his plans for a lavish reception room twice the size compared to the White House and then commenced independently demolishing the East Wing to build it.
He has performed deeds ten thousand times worse – the present calculation of fatalities from his cuts to international aid stands at 600,000 and increasing, and presently research projected his petroleum strategies would cause deaths 1.3 million more. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have risked – genuinely, no former commander would have conceived – independently wrecking significant portions of the presidential residence to construct a royal-themed celebration hall, with the direct cooperation of numerous the nation's most affluent, almost all of whom have business with the government.
We went from 'the gentle will obtain the planet' to 'the gentle will succumb from cholera'
As bewildering as it is to observe the president attempt to overturn the traditional concept of democracy and replace it with its polar opposite, there is one large group among Americans who should not find it entirely new. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations a near majority – who were raised within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have witnessed over the years as rightwing evangelical churches converted the Savior we were raised with into exactly the opposite of our perception of his character. At its most basic, they converted a persona of compassion into a figure of hostility who blesses specifically the brutality that he condemned in the Gospel; this change developed at a slower pace, over decades instead of months, but it is nonetheless disturbing via comparable methods, a confusing personal impact for countless people.
A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground
So let me first describe the Christ from my childhood, since in theory Jesus is the center of any Christian faith, and given that the fastest-growing cadre of Americans may possess limited understanding about him because they identify as atheists or doubters or spiritual independents. I have no problem with any of these traditions, nor with alternative spiritual paths; but I do think that exist valuable insights of great price within Christian narrative.
It is emphatically absolutely not the story of a powerful ruler appearing; rather, a child comes into the world to parents without shelter in a garage, who must quickly flee to a foreign land to escape covert authorities. The baby grows up in modest conditions, an employed craftsman; his teaching is about love for other people, particularly for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but practical compassion, expressed by feeding and sheltering. Christ's response to violence is to present the other cheek – not as an act of compliant endurance, but as a means to educate the attacker; his method regarding offenses indicates that whenever an individual takes your outer garment you must offer them your pullover as well.
The evident and direct reality that the Savior of the gospels calls for a form of radical love centered on the poor has perpetually caused Christianity something of a scandalous religion: attractive to the general public, but owing to its intrinsic extremism needing to be contained. During the 1950s it was controlled by dilution – Protestantism was so dominant that it essentially baptized the status quo.
A Conflict for the Highest Among Us
Therefore I have felt heartened to see the steadfast resistance against Trump arise over the last twelve months. It has been substantial consolation to participate in developing the initiative that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and likely has encouraged citizens to participate in numbers during minor elections. We will need to maintain it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags at every demonstration and appeals to the finest aspects in US history.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or refuse?
The nation is most protected, in other words, through connection to the best about American history, just as Christianity is most protected by relationship to what makes it unique and wonderful, which is the example of Christ. In neither case does it imply acting as if the most negative regarding America and Christian faith never occurred; it signifies both modesty and faith, a combination that committed national faithful should be comfortable with.
