The Trump movement's most telling and distinctive moments – not its most important, nor most harsh, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but possibly its most revealing – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of several weeks, the American president started showing the public his designs for a gilded ballroom twice the size than the White House and then began solo dismantling the eastern section to construct it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe – the present calculation of casualties resulting from his reductions to international aid stands at 600,000 and rising, and presently research predicted his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities an additional 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No previous president would have risked – genuinely, no other president would have contemplated – unilaterally destroying major areas of the presidential residence to construct a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the enthusiastic participation of numerous America's wealthiest, almost all of whom conduct transactions with public institutions.
We transitioned from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' into 'the meek shall die of cholera'
As confusing as it is to witness the leader try to upend the old idea about democracy and exchange it with its direct contrary, there remains a substantial portion of Americans who might not perceive it completely novel. This includes individuals like us – in older age cohorts close to half – who were educated within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have witnessed across decades as politically conservative religious groups converted the Savior we were raised with into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they turned a figure of love into an icon of animosity who approves precisely the cruelties that he denounced in scripture; this transformation occurred more slowly, over decades as opposed to months, yet it remains unsettling in the same ways, a disorienting gut punch for numerous individuals.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
Therefore allow me to outline the Jesus from my upbringing, since in theory Christ is the focus within Christian belief, and given that the fastest-growing cadre within America may possess limited understanding of him as they consider themselves atheists or uncertain individuals or religiously unaffiliated. I take no issue with any of these traditions, nor with alternative spiritual paths; however I believe that contain precious wisdom of significant worth within Christian narrative.
It is emphatically not the story of a powerful ruler arising; conversely, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in a storage space, who must quickly flee to another nation to avoid undercover officers. The baby grows up in simple surroundings, a laboring woodworker; his doctrine is about love for fellow humans, particularly for the disadvantaged – not simply tender feelings, but practical compassion, expressed by feeding and protecting. Christ's response to hostility is to present the opposite cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a method to teach the aggressor; his method regarding offenses states that when someone steals your coat you must offer them your pullover as well.
The apparent and straightforward fact that Christ from scripture advocates for a type of radical love concentrated on the needy is what has always made the Christian faith somewhat of a controversial faith: attractive to the populace, but due to its intrinsic extremism needing to be controlled. In the 1950s it was restrained by dilution – Protestant Christianity was so dominant that it basically blessed current circumstances.
A Conflict for the Finest of Us
So I have been heartened to witness the persistent defiance against Trump arise over the last twelve months. It has been significant comfort to assist in constructing the campaign that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and likely has encouraged voters to turn out in significant amounts during minor elections. We must have to persist with it, and in the same spirit, featuring US banners during all protests and requests to the finest aspects in US history.
We're going to be asked ... regarding how you welcomed the stranger? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or not?
America is best defended, in other words, through connection to the finest in US heritage, just as Christianity is optimally secured by relationship to that which renders it distinctive and magnificent, particularly the pattern of the Savior. In neither case does it suggest acting as if the most damaging of both America and religious tradition never occurred; it means both meekness and belief, a blend that committed US believers should be comfortable with.
