The Trump phenomenon's most telling and distinctive occasions – not its most important, nor most brutal, nor most threatening, nor most foolish, but possibly its most revealing – occurred earlier this fall. During the period of multiple weeks, the nation's leader began displaying all observers his plans for an ornate dance hall two times larger compared to the White House and then commenced unilaterally ripping down the East Wing to erect it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe – the present calculation of fatalities due to his slashing to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and rising, and recently research predicted his fossil fuel policies would cause deaths another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have dared – truly, no other president would have conceived – independently wrecking significant portions of the executive mansion to build a royal-themed celebration hall, with the direct cooperation of numerous the nation's most affluent, almost all of whom maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the world' toward 'the humble will perish from cholera'
As bewildering as it is to observe the president try to upend the established notion regarding democracy and replace it with its polar opposite, there remains a substantial portion of Americans who wouldn't consider it entirely new. That encompasses people such as ourselves – within elder demographics a near majority – who were raised within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have watched across decades as rightwing evangelical churches converted the Savior we learned about into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they turned a figure of compassion into a figure of animosity who approves exactly the harshness that he denounced in the Gospel; this has happened more gradually, over decades rather than months, however it is still disturbing in the same ways, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Jesus from my upbringing, as conceptually Christ is the focus of Christian religion, and because the rapidly expanding group within America might have little sense about him since they are skeptics or agnostics or religiously unaffiliated. I take no issue with these different approaches, nor with alternative spiritual paths; however I believe that contain precious wisdom of great price in the Christian story.
It is decidedly not the narrative of an authoritative monarch emerging; rather, an infant arrives to displaced parents in an automotive shelter, who must quickly flee to a different country to avoid covert authorities. The infant develops in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his message concerns compassion for others, specifically for the poor – not simply tender feelings, but practical compassion, demonstrated through nourishing and sheltering. Jesus' answer to aggression is to turn the additional cheek – not as a demonstration of submissive tolerance, but as a way to instruct the assailant; his crime policy is that if someone steals your outer garment you should give him your sweater too.
The obvious and straightforward reality that the Jesus from scripture calls for a kind of radical love concentrated on the needy has perpetually caused Christian religion rather a scandalous religion: attractive to the masses, but due to its natural unconventionality needing to be contained. In the 1950s it was contained by dilution – The Protestant faith was so widespread that it basically sanctified existing conditions.
A Battle for the Best Within Us
Hence I have become inspired to see the persistent defiance against Trump arise during the previous year. It has served as significant comfort to assist in constructing the campaign that has taken to the streets in rally after rally, and likely has encouraged citizens to turn out in numbers during minor elections. We must have to continue it, and with identical determination, displaying national flags at every demonstration and requests to the finest aspects within national heritage.
We're going to be asked ... regarding how you welcomed the foreigner? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or reject?
The country is optimally secured, in other words, through connection to the highest in US heritage, exactly as the Christian faith is optimally secured by reference to that which renders it distinctive and wonderful, specifically the model of Christ. In neither case does it imply acting as if the worst regarding America and Christian faith was nonexistent; it signifies both modesty and faith, a mixture that serious US believers should be comfortable with.