The Trump phenomenon's most illuminating and defining instances – not its most significant, nor cruelest, nor most hazardous, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – came earlier this autumn. In the course of multiple weeks, the American president commenced revealing all observers his designs for a gilded ballroom twice the size of the White House and then began unilaterally ripping down the East Wing to build it.
He has done things countless times more severe – the current estimate of fatalities resulting from his reductions to international aid is 600,000 and increasing, and this week research projected his energy policies would kill another 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No former leader would have risked – truly, no former commander would have contemplated – independently wrecking significant portions of the executive mansion in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of some of the richest Americans, nearly all of which conduct transactions with federal agencies.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the planet' into 'the meek shall die from cholera'
As disorienting as it is to witness the president attempt to overturn the traditional concept about democracy and substitute it with its direct contrary, there remains a substantial portion of Americans who might not perceive it totally unfamiliar. This includes individuals like us – among senior generations a near majority – who were educated as conventional Protestant believers.
We have observed over the years as rightwing evangelical churches converted the Savior we learned about into the complete reverse of our perception of his character. Essentially, they converted a persona of love into a figure of hate who blesses exactly the harshness that he denounced in scripture; this change developed more gradually, across decades rather than months, however it is still unsettling via comparable methods, a confusing personal impact for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Establishes Itself
Hence I shall explain the Jesus from my childhood, since in theory the Savior is the core within Christian belief, and since the rapidly expanding group within America could have minimal awareness about him as they consider themselves skeptics or doubters or spiritual independents. I take no issue with these different approaches, nor with different religions; but I do think that there are pearls of great price within Christian narrative.
It is unquestionably absolutely not the story of a mighty king appearing; instead, a child comes into the world to homeless parents in a garage, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to evade undercover officers. The child matures in simple surroundings, a working carpenter; his teaching focuses on affection for other people, especially for the disadvantaged – not simply tender feelings, but tangible care, demonstrated through nourishing and protecting. Jesus' answer to aggression is to present the opposite cheek – not as an act of compliant endurance, but as a way to instruct the aggressor; his approach to wrongdoing is that if a person pilfers your outer garment you must offer the person your additional clothing too.
The evident and direct reality that the Jesus from scripture requests a kind of radical love focused on the poor has consistently rendered the Christian faith something of a scandalous religion: attractive to the masses, but because of its inherent radicalness demanding to be contained. In the fifties it was restrained by dilution – The Protestant faith was so prevalent that it essentially baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Highest Among Us
So I have been encouraged to see the persistent defiance against Trump emerge in this past year. It has been great solace to assist in constructing the movement that has demonstrated publicly through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated citizens to show up in numbers during minor elections. We will need to maintain it, and in the same spirit, with American flags throughout each rally and requests to the best parts of American history.
We're going to be asked ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you welcome them and receive them or refuse?
The country is optimally secured, in other words, through connection to the best within national tradition, just as Christianity is best defended by relationship to elements that cause it to be unique and magnificent, particularly the pattern of Jesus. In neither case does it mean feigning the most damaging regarding America and Christianity never occurred; it represents both meekness and belief, a mixture that genuine national faithful should embrace.
