The Trump movement's most telling and defining instances – not its most important, nor most brutal, nor most threatening, nor most foolish, but perhaps its most illuminating – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of several weeks, the US president started showing all observers his intentions for a lavish reception room two times larger of the White House and then commenced unilaterally ripping down the East Wing portion to construct it.
He has committed acts countless times more severe – the current estimate of fatalities from his cuts to USAID is 600,000 and increasing, and presently research projected his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities another 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No other president would have risked – really, no other president would have imagined – unilaterally destroying significant portions of the executive mansion to build a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of numerous America's wealthiest, nearly all of which have business with federal agencies.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the Earth' toward 'the meek shall die from cholera'
As bewildering as it is to observe the president attempt to overturn the established notion about democracy and replace it with its polar opposite, there is one large group within America who wouldn't consider it totally unfamiliar. That is those of us – in older age cohorts almost a majority – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have watched over the years as politically conservative religious groups transformed the Christ we grew up with into exactly the opposite of our understanding of him. At its most basic, they converted a persona of love into a symbol of animosity who approves specifically the brutality that he criticized in the Gospel; this change developed more gradually, over decades as opposed to months, but it is nonetheless unsettling via comparable methods, a confusing personal impact for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Establishes Itself
Therefore allow me to outline the Jesus from my upbringing, because theoretically Christ is the focus of Christian religion, and since the rapidly expanding group within America might have little sense about him because they identify as atheists or doubters or spiritual independents. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; yet I maintain that exist valuable insights of great price in biblical accounts.
It is unquestionably not the story of a mighty king emerging; conversely, a child comes into the world to homeless parents in a storage space, who are forced to hastily depart to a different country to evade secret police. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, a laboring woodworker; his doctrine focuses on affection for others, particularly for the disadvantaged – not simply tender feelings, but tangible care, demonstrated through nourishing and protecting. Jesus' answer to violence is to present the additional cheek – not as an act of passive acceptance, but as a means to instruct the attacker; his approach to wrongdoing is that if an individual takes your coat you must offer the person your additional clothing also.
The apparent and direct truth that the Savior of the gospels calls for a kind of extreme compassion concentrated on the impoverished has consistently rendered Christian religion something of a provocative belief system: engaging for the general public, but owing to its inherent radicalness demanding to be controlled. In the fifties it was controlled by dilution – Protestant Christianity was so prevalent that it basically sanctified existing conditions.
A Battle for the Highest of Us
Hence I have become heartened to observe the steadfast resistance to Trump emerge in this past year. It has been great solace to help build the movement that has taken to the streets through repeated demonstrations, and seems to have inspired electorate to turn out in large quantities during minor elections. We must have to continue it, and with identical determination, with American flags during all protests and calls to the finest aspects within national heritage.
We're going to be asked ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you welcome them and welcome him or refuse?
The country is optimally secured, essentially, through connection to the best within national tradition, exactly as the Christian faith is optimally secured by reference to that which renders it special and magnificent, which is the example of Jesus. In both situations does it suggest feigning the most damaging regarding America and Christianity was nonexistent; it means both humility and belief, a blend that committed national faithful ought to accept.
