Trumpism's most telling and defining instances – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most hazardous, nor stupidest, but possibly its most revealing – came earlier this autumn. In the course of multiple weeks, the nation's leader started showing all observers his plans for a gilded ballroom double the dimensions of the White House and subsequently started solo dismantling the eastern section to build it.
He has committed acts countless times more severe – the current estimate of fatalities due to his slashing to foreign assistance stands at 600,000 and growing, and recently research projected his fossil fuel policies would cause deaths an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have risked – really, no previous leader would have contemplated – independently wrecking large sections of the White House in order to erect a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the active collaboration of some of the nation's most affluent, nearly all of which conduct transactions with federal agencies.
We transitioned from 'the meek shall inherit the planet' toward 'the humble will perish to cholera'
As disorienting as it is to observe the president attempt to overturn the old idea of democracy and exchange it with its polar opposite, there exists a significant segment of Americans who wouldn't consider it completely novel. This includes individuals like us – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were educated as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have witnessed across decades while conservative evangelical congregations transformed the Christ we were raised with into the total contrary of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they converted a persona of affection into a figure of hostility who endorses specifically the brutality that he criticized in scripture; this change developed more gradually, through multiple decades rather than months, yet it remains disturbing through similar means, a confusing personal impact for countless people.
A Damaging Christianity Establishes Itself
So let me first describe the Christ from my upbringing, since in theory the Savior is the core of any Christian faith, and since the rapidly expanding group of Americans could have minimal awareness regarding him because they identify as skeptics or agnostics or spiritual independents. I have no problem with any of these traditions, nor with alternative spiritual paths; however I believe that contain precious wisdom of significant worth in the Christian story.
It is emphatically not the account of a mighty king arising; conversely, a child comes into the world to displaced parents in a garage, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to escape undercover officers. The child matures in modest conditions, a working carpenter; his doctrine concerns compassion for others, specifically for the disadvantaged – and not a sentimental love, but tangible care, demonstrated through nourishing and housing. Jesus' answer to aggression is to present the other cheek – not as a gesture of submissive tolerance, but as a way to teach the aggressor; his crime policy indicates that whenever someone steals your coat you must offer him your sweater also.
The obvious and direct truth that the Jesus of the gospels requests a kind of extreme compassion concentrated on the poor is what has always made the Christian faith rather a provocative belief system: engaging for the general public, but because of its inherent radicalness demanding to be restrained. During the 1950s it was restrained via weakening – The Protestant faith was so widespread that it essentially baptized the status quo.
A Struggle for the Best of Us
Therefore I have felt inspired to see the steadfast resistance to Trump emerge in this past year. It has provided significant comfort to help build the initiative that has protested openly in rally after rally, and seems to have inspired electorate to show up in significant amounts in the off-year elections. We shall require to maintain it, and with identical determination, with American flags throughout each rally and appeals to the best parts of American history.
We shall be interrogated ... how did you receive the immigrant? Did you receive him and receive them or reject?
America is best defended, essentially, by reference to the finest about American history, similar to Christianity is most protected by relationship to elements that cause it to be unique and magnificent, specifically the model of Jesus. In all circumstances does it suggest pretending the worst about the nation and religious tradition did not happen; it means both humility and conviction, a combination that serious US believers ought to accept.
