The Trump movement's most illuminating and distinctive moments – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most hazardous, nor most senseless, but possibly its most revealing – came earlier this autumn. Over the span of several weeks, the nation's leader began displaying the public his designs for an ornate dance hall double the dimensions than the White House and then commenced independently demolishing the East Wing to erect it.
He has done things 10,000 times as bad – the current estimate of fatalities from his cuts to foreign assistance stands at 600,000 and growing, and this week research predicted his petroleum strategies would result in fatalities 1.3 million more. Yet nothing as characteristic. No other president would have dared – genuinely, no previous leader would have contemplated – solo demolishing major areas of the presidential residence to build a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of numerous America's wealthiest, the majority of whom maintain dealings with the government.
We moved from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' to 'the gentle will succumb to cholera'
As disorienting as it is to witness the president attempt to overturn the established notion of democracy and exchange it with its polar opposite, there exists a significant segment of Americans who should not find it entirely new. That encompasses people such as ourselves – within elder demographics a near majority – who were educated as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have observed over the years as politically conservative religious groups converted the Savior we learned about into the complete reverse of our understanding of him. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of love into a figure of animosity who approves exactly the harshness that he denounced in the Gospel; this transformation occurred more gradually, through multiple decades rather than months, however it is still unsettling via comparable methods, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Savior from my upbringing, since in theory the Savior is the core of Christian religion, and because the fastest-growing cadre within America might have little sense of him as they consider themselves skeptics or doubters or religiously unaffiliated. I have no problem with any of these traditions, nor with alternative spiritual paths; but I do think that contain precious wisdom of significant worth within Christian narrative.
It is emphatically not the narrative of a powerful ruler appearing; instead, an infant arrives to homeless parents in a garage, who need to rapidly escape to another nation to avoid secret police. The infant develops in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his doctrine is about love for other people, particularly for the disadvantaged – not merely emotional affection, but practical compassion, shown by providing food and protecting. Jesus' answer to hostility is to offer the other cheek – not as an act of compliant endurance, but as a way to educate the attacker; his method regarding offenses indicates that whenever an individual takes your coat you must offer them your pullover as well.
The obvious and direct reality that the Jesus in biblical accounts requests a kind of profound affection centered on the poor is what has always made Christianity something of a controversial faith: appealing to the populace, but owing to its intrinsic extremism needing to be restrained. In the 1950s it was controlled via weakening – Protestantism was so widespread that it practically sanctified existing conditions.
A Conflict for the Highest of Us
Therefore I have felt heartened to witness the determined opposition to Trump develop during the previous year. It has served as significant comfort to help build the campaign that has protested openly via continuous gatherings, and appears to have motivated voters to show up in large quantities in interim political contests. We must have to maintain it, and in the same spirit, with American flags during all protests and calls to the finest aspects within national heritage.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or reject?
America is best defended, in other words, by relationship to the finest about American history, similar to Christianity is best defended by relationship to elements that cause it to be unique and beautiful, which is the example of Christ. In neither case does it suggest feigning the most damaging of both America and Christianity was nonexistent; it represents both humility and conviction, a combination that genuine US believers should be comfortable with.
