Trumpism's most revealing and characteristic instances – not its most crucial, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of multiple weeks, the American president began displaying all observers his intentions for a lavish reception room double the dimensions compared to the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the East Wing portion to erect it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of fatalities from his cuts to USAID is 600,000 and rising, and this week research forecast his energy policies would kill 1.3 million more. However nothing as distinctive. No other president would have attempted – really, no previous leader would have imagined – unilaterally destroying major areas of the presidential residence to build a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of multiple America's wealthiest, nearly all of which maintain dealings with the government.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the world' toward 'the humble will perish from cholera'
As disorienting as it is to observe the president attempt to overturn the established notion regarding democracy and replace it with its polar opposite, there is one large group of Americans who should not find it totally unfamiliar. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations almost a majority – who were educated as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have witnessed across decades as politically conservative religious groups transformed the Christ we were raised with into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they transformed an image of affection into a figure of hostility who approves exactly the harshness that he denounced in the Gospel; this change developed more gradually, across decades instead of months, but it is nonetheless disturbing via comparable methods, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Establishes Itself
Therefore allow me to outline the Christ from my upbringing, as conceptually Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and because the rapidly expanding group within America could have minimal awareness regarding him since they are atheists or uncertain individuals or spiritual independents. I have no problem with these various perspectives, nor with any other faith; but I do think that there are pearls of significant worth in the Christian story.
It is decidedly absolutely not the narrative of a mighty king appearing; conversely, a child comes into the world to homeless parents in a storage space, who must quickly flee to a different country to escape secret police. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, a laboring woodworker; his message is about love for fellow humans, particularly for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but tangible care, expressed by feeding and housing. Jesus' answer to aggression is to offer the other cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a means to instruct the assailant; his method regarding offenses states that when an individual takes your jacket you ought to provide them your pullover also.
The evident and straightforward fact that the Jesus from scripture advocates for a type of extreme compassion focused on the needy is what has always made the Christian faith somewhat of a provocative belief system: attractive to the populace, but because of its natural unconventionality needing to be restrained. In the fifties it was restrained by dilution – Protestantism was so prevalent that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Best Among Us
Therefore I have felt heartened to witness the persistent defiance against Trump develop over the last twelve months. It has been significant comfort to participate in developing the campaign that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and seems to have inspired citizens to participate in large quantities during minor elections. We must have to persist with it, and with identical determination, displaying national flags during all protests and appeals to the finest aspects of American history.
We will be questioned ... how did you receive the immigrant? Did you receive him and receive them or reject?
The country is optimally secured, in other words, through connection to the highest about American history, similar to Christianity is best defended through connection to what makes it unique and beautiful, specifically the model of Jesus. In both situations does it suggest feigning the most damaging regarding America and Christianity never occurred; it signifies both modesty and belief, a mixture that genuine national faithful should embrace.
