Trumpism's most illuminating and distinctive moments – not its most important, nor most harsh, nor most threatening, nor most foolish, but possibly its most revealing – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of several weeks, the nation's leader started showing everyone his plans for a gilded ballroom two times larger than the White House and subsequently started independently demolishing the eastern section to build it.
He has performed deeds 10,000 times as bad – the present calculation of casualties from his cuts to international aid is 600,000 and increasing, and recently research predicted his petroleum strategies would kill an additional 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No other president would have risked – genuinely, no former commander would have imagined – independently wrecking significant portions of the White House to build a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the active collaboration of multiple America's wealthiest, the majority of whom maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We moved from 'the gentle will obtain the planet' to 'the humble will perish from cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the president try to upend the established notion of democracy and replace it with its complete opposite, there remains a substantial portion among Americans who should not find it entirely new. That encompasses people such as ourselves – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were raised as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have watched over the years as rightwing evangelical churches transformed the Christ we grew up with into the total contrary of our understanding of him. Fundamentally, they turned a figure of compassion into an icon of animosity who approves precisely the cruelties that he condemned in scripture; this change developed more gradually, through multiple decades instead of months, but it is nonetheless unsettling through similar means, a bewildering emotional blow for numerous individuals.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Savior that I grew up with, because theoretically Jesus is the center of Christian religion, and because the quickly increasing segment of Americans could have minimal awareness of him as they consider themselves skeptics or uncertain individuals or spiritual independents. I raise no objection with any of these traditions, nor with any other faith; but I do think that contain precious wisdom of substantial value in biblical accounts.
It is emphatically not the account of a powerful ruler arising; rather, a baby is born to homeless parents in an automotive shelter, who need to rapidly escape to a different country to evade covert authorities. The infant develops in simple surroundings, a laboring woodworker; his message focuses on affection for fellow humans, especially for the poor – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, shown by providing food and protecting. The Savior's reaction to hostility is to turn the other cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a way to instruct the assailant; his crime policy indicates that whenever someone steals your coat you ought to provide them your pullover as well.
The apparent and clear fact that Christ in biblical accounts requests a form of radical love focused on the needy has consistently rendered the Christian faith rather a provocative belief system: appealing to the masses, but due to its inherent radicalness demanding to be restrained. In the fifties it was contained through watering down – Protestant Christianity was so prevalent that it practically sanctified existing conditions.
A Struggle for the Highest of Us
Therefore I have felt inspired to see the steadfast resistance against Trump develop over the last twelve months. It has served as great solace to assist in constructing the movement that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and seems to have inspired citizens to turn out in significant amounts during minor elections. We shall require to persist with it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags at every demonstration and appeals to the highest qualities in US history.
We're going to be asked ... regarding how you welcomed the foreigner? Did you receive him and welcome him or not?
America is best defended, essentially, through connection to the best in US heritage, similar to Christianity is best defended by relationship to what makes it special and wonderful, specifically the model of Christ. In neither case does it imply acting as if the most damaging of both America and Christian faith was nonexistent; it represents both meekness and faith, a mixture that committed US believers should embrace.
