Trumpism's most telling and distinctive moments – not its most important, nor most harsh, nor most dangerous, nor most foolish, but possibly its most revealing – emerged earlier this harvest season. In the course of multiple weeks, the nation's leader commenced revealing all observers his designs for a lavish reception room twice the size of the White House and then commenced independently demolishing the East Wing portion to build it.
He has committed acts countless times more severe – the existing assessment of deaths from his cuts to foreign assistance is 600,000 and growing, and recently an analysis predicted his energy policies would cause deaths another 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No previous president would have risked – really, no former commander would have contemplated – solo demolishing significant portions of the White House to build a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of some of the nation's most affluent, almost all of whom have business with federal agencies.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the world' into 'the gentle will succumb from cholera'
As confusing as it is to observe the president attempt to overturn the traditional concept about democracy and replace it with its direct contrary, there is one large group within America who wouldn't consider it completely novel. This includes individuals like us – in older age cohorts close to half – who were educated as conventional Protestant believers.
We have watched throughout the years as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we were raised with into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they turned a figure of love into a figure of hate who endorses precisely the cruelties that he condemned in scripture; this change developed more slowly, across decades rather than months, yet it remains disturbing in the same ways, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Gains Ground
Therefore allow me to outline the Christ from my childhood, because theoretically Jesus is the center within Christian belief, and given that the quickly increasing segment within America might have little sense about him as they consider themselves non-believers or doubters or religiously unaffiliated. I raise no objection with these different approaches, nor with different religions; yet I maintain that exist valuable insights of significant worth in biblical accounts.
It is decidedly not the narrative of a mighty king emerging; instead, a baby is born to parents without shelter in a garage, who need to rapidly escape to another nation to escape secret police. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, a laboring woodworker; his teaching is about love for fellow humans, particularly for the impoverished – not simply tender feelings, but a concrete one, expressed by feeding and housing. Christ's response to aggression is to offer the additional cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a means to instruct the attacker; his approach to wrongdoing is that if an individual takes your coat you ought to provide the person your additional clothing also.
The evident and straightforward reality that the Jesus from scripture calls for a form of radical love concentrated on the impoverished has consistently rendered Christian religion somewhat of a scandalous religion: engaging for the masses, but owing to its intrinsic extremism needing to be contained. In the fifties it was contained by dilution – Protestant Christianity was so widespread that it essentially sanctified existing conditions.
A Struggle for the Highest Among Us
Therefore I have felt encouraged to see the steadfast resistance regarding Trump arise over the last twelve months. It has served as significant comfort to help build the movement that has taken to the streets in rally after rally, and likely has encouraged citizens to participate in large quantities during minor elections. We will need to maintain it, and with identical determination, with American flags during all protests and calls to the highest qualities of American history.
We will be questioned ... how did you receive the foreigner? Did you welcome them and embrace them or not?
The country is optimally secured, to put it differently, by relationship to the highest about American history, exactly as the Christian faith is optimally secured through connection to elements that cause it to be distinctive and wonderful, particularly the pattern of Jesus. In neither case does it imply feigning the most damaging regarding America and religious tradition never occurred; it means both meekness and faith, a mixture that serious US believers ought to accept.
