The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and defining occasions – not its most significant, nor cruelest, nor most threatening, nor stupidest, but perhaps its most illuminating – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of several weeks, the American president commenced revealing the public his intentions for a gilded ballroom twice the size of the White House and then began solo dismantling the East Wing to construct it.
He has performed deeds ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of fatalities due to his slashing to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and rising, and this week research predicted his energy policies would kill 1.3 million more. Yet nothing as characteristic. No other president would have attempted – really, no other president would have imagined – unilaterally destroying significant portions of the presidential residence in order to erect a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the enthusiastic participation of multiple the nation's most affluent, the majority of whom have business with the government.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the planet' to 'the gentle will succumb from cholera'
As confusing as it is to observe the chief executive try to upend the old idea of democracy and replace it with its direct contrary, 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 brought up as conventional Protestant believers.
We have observed throughout the years as politically conservative religious groups turned the Jesus we learned about into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they transformed an image of affection into a figure of animosity who approves exactly the harshness that he criticized in biblical teachings; this has happened more gradually, through multiple decades instead of months, but it is nonetheless disconcerting via comparable methods, a confusing personal impact for countless people.
A Damaging Christianity Establishes Itself
So let me first describe the Savior from my childhood, because theoretically Jesus is the center within Christian belief, and because the fastest-growing cadre among Americans could have minimal awareness of him since they are atheists or doubters or spiritual independents. I raise no objection with any of these traditions, nor with alternative spiritual paths; but I do think that exist valuable insights of significant worth within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly absolutely not the story of an authoritative monarch appearing; rather, a child comes into the world to displaced parents in a storage space, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to escape undercover officers. The infant develops in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his teaching is about love for other people, specifically for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but tangible care, demonstrated through nourishing and housing. Jesus' answer to violence is to offer the opposite cheek – not as a demonstration of passive acceptance, but as a means to instruct the aggressor; his approach to wrongdoing is that if an individual takes your jacket you ought to provide him your sweater also.
The evident and straightforward reality that Christ in biblical accounts advocates for a form of extreme compassion concentrated on the needy has perpetually caused Christianity somewhat of a controversial faith: attractive to the populace, but owing to its intrinsic extremism needing to be contained. In the fifties it was contained through watering down – Protestant Christianity was so widespread that it essentially sanctified existing conditions.
A Conflict for the Best Within Us
Therefore I have felt encouraged to observe the steadfast resistance against Trump arise in this past year. It has served as significant comfort to assist in constructing the campaign that has demonstrated publicly through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated voters to turn out in significant amounts during minor elections. We will need to persist with it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags during all protests and appeals to the highest qualities of American history.
We shall be interrogated ... regarding how you welcomed the immigrant? Did you welcome them and receive them or refuse?
The nation is most protected, to put it differently, through connection to the finest in US heritage, similar to Christianity is most protected by reference to elements that cause it to be distinctive and wonderful, specifically the model of the Savior. In neither case does it suggest feigning the worst regarding America and Christianity never occurred; it means both modesty and conviction, a combination that committed American Christians ought to accept.
