The Trump movement's most illuminating and distinctive moments – not its most important, nor most harsh, nor most dangerous, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of several weeks, the nation's leader began displaying all observers his intentions for a lavish reception room double the dimensions than the White House and subsequently started solo dismantling the East Wing portion to build it.
He has done things ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of fatalities due to his slashing to USAID is 600,000 and rising, and presently a study forecast his petroleum strategies would kill another 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No former leader would have dared – truly, no previous leader would have conceived – unilaterally destroying significant portions of the White House in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of some of America's wealthiest, nearly all of which have business with the government.
We moved from 'the gentle will obtain the Earth' to 'the meek shall die to cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the president try to upend the old idea of democracy and exchange it with its polar opposite, there exists a significant segment of Americans who might not perceive it entirely new. This includes individuals like us – in older age cohorts close to half – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have witnessed throughout the years as politically conservative religious groups turned the Jesus we grew up with into exactly the opposite of our understanding of him. Essentially, they turned a figure of affection into a figure of hate who endorses exactly the harshness that he criticized in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred at a slower pace, across decades rather than months, yet it remains disconcerting through similar means, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Establishes Itself
Therefore allow me to outline the Jesus that I grew up with, because theoretically the Savior is the core within Christian belief, and because the quickly increasing segment among Americans might have little sense about him as they consider themselves atheists or agnostics or religiously unaffiliated. I have no problem with any of these traditions, nor with different religions; however I believe that there are pearls of great price in biblical accounts.
It is emphatically absolutely not the story of a powerful ruler arising; instead, a baby is born to displaced parents in a storage space, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to evade undercover officers. The baby grows up in simple surroundings, a working carpenter; his teaching is about love for others, especially for the impoverished – not simply tender feelings, but tangible care, demonstrated through nourishing and protecting. Christ's response to hostility is to turn the additional cheek – not as a demonstration of compliant endurance, but as a way to educate the aggressor; his crime policy indicates that whenever someone steals your jacket you must offer him your sweater too.
The obvious and straightforward truth that Christ of the gospels calls for a kind of extreme compassion centered on the poor is what has always made Christian religion somewhat of a scandalous religion: appealing to the general public, but due to its natural unconventionality demanding to be restrained. During the 1950s it was controlled via weakening – Protestantism was so dominant that it basically baptized the status quo.
A Conflict for the Finest Within Us
So I have been inspired to observe the steadfast resistance regarding Trump develop in this past year. It has served as significant comfort to participate in developing the initiative that has protested openly in rally after rally, and likely has encouraged voters to turn out in numbers during minor elections. We must have to maintain it, and with identical determination, with American flags throughout each rally and requests to the finest aspects in US history.
We're going to be asked ... about how you treated the stranger? Did you welcome them and welcome him or reject?
America is best defended, essentially, by relationship to the highest in US heritage, just as Christianity is best defended by reference to what makes it distinctive and beautiful, particularly the pattern of the Savior. In neither case does it imply feigning the worst about the nation and religious tradition did not happen; it signifies both humility and belief, a combination that committed US believers should embrace.
