The Trump movement's most illuminating and distinctive instances – not its most significant, nor cruelest, nor most dangerous, nor most foolish, but perhaps its most illuminating – came earlier this autumn. In the course of several weeks, the US president began displaying everyone his plans for a gilded ballroom two times larger than the White House and then began independently demolishing the eastern section to build it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the present calculation of fatalities resulting from his reductions to international aid amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and this week a study predicted his petroleum strategies would kill an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have dared – genuinely, no former commander would have imagined – independently wrecking large sections of the White House to build a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of multiple the nation's most affluent, almost all of whom maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We transitioned from 'the meek shall inherit the world' into 'the gentle will succumb to cholera'
As bewildering as it is to watch the president try to upend the established notion of democracy and substitute it with its polar opposite, there exists a significant segment of Americans who might not perceive it totally unfamiliar. This includes individuals like us – among senior generations a near majority – who were educated as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have witnessed throughout the years as politically conservative religious groups transformed the Christ we learned about into the total contrary of our perception of his character. Essentially, they transformed an image of love into a figure of animosity who endorses exactly the harshness that he criticized in biblical teachings; this has happened more slowly, over decades instead of months, however it is still disturbing via comparable methods, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Christ from my upbringing, because theoretically Jesus is the center of any Christian faith, and because the rapidly expanding group within America may possess limited understanding of him because they identify as atheists or doubters or religiously unaffiliated. I take no issue with these various perspectives, nor with different religions; yet I maintain that there are pearls of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is emphatically definitely not the narrative of an authoritative monarch emerging; conversely, a baby is born to parents without shelter in a storage space, who need to rapidly escape to another nation to avoid covert authorities. The infant develops in humble circumstances, a laboring woodworker; his teaching is about love for other people, particularly for the poor – and not a sentimental love, but tangible care, expressed by feeding and housing. Christ's response to hostility is to offer the opposite cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a way to educate the assailant; his approach to wrongdoing is that if someone steals your outer garment you ought to provide him your sweater too.
The evident and straightforward reality that Christ from scripture calls for a kind of profound affection concentrated on the impoverished has consistently rendered Christianity somewhat of a scandalous religion: attractive to the populace, but because of its intrinsic extremism demanding to be controlled. During the 1950s it was restrained by dilution – Protestantism was so dominant that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Conflict for the Highest of Us
Therefore I have felt heartened to witness the determined opposition against Trump emerge over the last twelve months. It has provided substantial consolation to participate in developing the initiative that has taken to the streets via continuous gatherings, and likely has encouraged electorate to participate in large quantities in the off-year elections. We must have to continue it, and with identical determination, featuring US banners at every demonstration and calls to the best parts in US history.
We're going to be asked ... regarding how you welcomed the immigrant? Did you accept these individuals and receive them or refuse?
America is best defended, in other words, through connection to the best about American history, exactly as the Christian faith is most protected through connection to what makes it unique and beautiful, particularly the pattern of Jesus. In neither case does it suggest acting as if the worst regarding America and Christian faith was nonexistent; it signifies both meekness and conviction, a blend that serious American Christians should embrace.
