The Trump movement's most illuminating and characteristic moments – not its most crucial, nor most brutal, nor most hazardous, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. In the course of several weeks, the American president began displaying everyone his designs for a gilded ballroom two times larger compared to the White House and then began solo dismantling the East Wing portion to construct it.
He has done things 10,000 times as bad – the existing assessment of fatalities from his cuts to foreign assistance stands at 600,000 and rising, and this week a study predicted his energy policies would cause deaths 1.3 million more. But nothing as definitional. No former leader would have risked – genuinely, no other president would have contemplated – unilaterally destroying large sections of the executive mansion in order to erect a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the enthusiastic participation of some of the nation's most affluent, almost all of whom maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We transitioned from 'the humble will receive the world' into 'the humble will perish from cholera'
As bewildering as it is to witness the leader try to upend the old idea of democracy and exchange it with its polar opposite, there exists a significant segment among Americans who wouldn't consider it totally unfamiliar. This includes individuals like us – in older age cohorts close to half – who were brought up as conventional Protestant believers.
We have witnessed across decades as rightwing evangelical churches transformed the Christ we learned about into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. At its most basic, they transformed an image of affection into a symbol of animosity who endorses precisely the cruelties that he denounced in scripture; this has happened more gradually, over decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless disconcerting in the same ways, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground
So let me first describe the Savior from my childhood, since in theory Jesus is the center within Christian belief, and because the rapidly expanding group among Americans might have little sense of him as they consider themselves non-believers or doubters or nones. I have no problem with these different approaches, nor with alternative spiritual paths; however I believe that contain precious wisdom of great price within Christian narrative.
It is unquestionably definitely not the narrative of a powerful ruler emerging; instead, a baby is born to parents without shelter in a garage, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to avoid undercover officers. The child matures in humble circumstances, a laboring woodworker; his doctrine concerns compassion for others, specifically for the poor – not simply tender feelings, but practical compassion, expressed by feeding and protecting. Christ's response to violence is to offer the additional cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a means to teach the aggressor; his approach to wrongdoing indicates that whenever a person pilfers your outer garment you must offer them your pullover as well.
The evident and straightforward fact that Christ from scripture requests a kind of extreme compassion focused on the poor has consistently rendered Christianity somewhat of a scandalous religion: engaging for the populace, but due to its natural unconventionality requiring to be restrained. During the 1950s it was contained by dilution – Protestantism was so prevalent that it basically baptized the status quo.
A Conflict for the Highest of Us
Hence I have become inspired to see the determined opposition against Trump arise over the last twelve months. It has served as significant comfort to participate in developing the campaign that has taken to the streets through repeated demonstrations, and seems to have inspired citizens to participate in numbers during minor elections. We will need to maintain it, and through comparable resolve, displaying national flags during all protests and requests to the finest aspects of American history.
We shall be interrogated ... regarding how you welcomed the immigrant? Did you receive him and welcome him or refuse?
America is best defended, to put it differently, by reference to the best within national tradition, just as Christianity is best defended through connection to that which renders it special and magnificent, particularly the pattern of Christ. In both situations does it imply pretending the worst of both America and Christian faith did not happen; it represents both modesty and conviction, a blend that genuine national faithful should be comfortable with.
