Trumpism's most illuminating and characteristic moments – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most dangerous, nor most senseless, but perhaps its most illuminating – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of several weeks, the US president started showing the public his designs for an ornate dance hall two times larger of the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the East Wing to erect it.
He has performed deeds 10,000 times as bad – the present calculation of casualties resulting from his reductions to foreign assistance is 600,000 and increasing, and presently research forecast his fossil fuel policies would cause deaths an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have dared – truly, no other president would have conceived – independently wrecking major areas of the presidential residence to build a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the enthusiastic participation of numerous the nation's most affluent, nearly all of which maintain dealings with the government.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' to 'the humble will perish to cholera'
As confusing as it is to watch the president try to upend the established notion about democracy and exchange it with its complete opposite, there exists a significant segment among Americans who wouldn't consider it totally unfamiliar. That is those of us – among senior generations almost a majority – who were educated as conventional Protestant believers.
We have observed throughout the years as rightwing evangelical churches transformed the Christ we learned about into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they transformed an image of love into a figure of animosity who approves precisely the cruelties that he denounced in biblical teachings; this has happened at a slower pace, through multiple decades instead of months, but it is nonetheless disconcerting via comparable methods, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Gains Ground
Therefore allow me to outline the Christ from my childhood, as conceptually the Savior is the core of Christian religion, and because the quickly increasing segment of Americans may possess limited understanding regarding him as they consider themselves atheists or doubters or nones. I take no issue with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; however I believe that contain precious wisdom of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is unquestionably definitely not the narrative of a powerful ruler arising; rather, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in a storage space, who need to rapidly escape to another nation to avoid secret police. The child matures in humble circumstances, a laboring woodworker; his teaching is about love for fellow humans, especially for the disadvantaged – not simply tender feelings, but practical compassion, expressed by feeding and protecting. Jesus' answer to violence is to offer the other cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a method to educate the assailant; his approach to wrongdoing states that when an individual takes your jacket you should give him your sweater as well.
The obvious and direct reality that Christ from scripture requests a type of radical love concentrated on the poor has perpetually caused Christianity something of a controversial faith: appealing to the general public, but due to its natural unconventionality needing to be contained. In the 1950s it was restrained via weakening – The Protestant faith was so widespread that it basically baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Highest Among Us
So I have been encouraged to observe the determined opposition to Trump arise over the last twelve months. It has provided substantial consolation to participate in developing the initiative that has demonstrated publicly via continuous gatherings, and likely has encouraged citizens to participate in numbers during minor elections. We will need to continue it, and in the same spirit, with American flags during all protests and requests to the finest aspects in US history.
We're going to be asked ... how did you receive the immigrant? Did you accept these individuals and receive them or reject?
The country is optimally secured, essentially, through connection to the finest in US heritage, just as Christianity is best defended by relationship to that which renders it special and beautiful, particularly the pattern of Christ. In neither case does it mean acting as if the worst regarding America and Christianity was nonexistent; it represents both humility and conviction, a mixture that committed national faithful should be comfortable with.
