Trumpism's most telling and distinctive moments – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but possibly its most revealing – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of multiple weeks, the American president began displaying all observers his plans for a gilded ballroom two times larger than the White House and then began unilaterally ripping down the eastern section to build it.
He has committed acts countless times more severe – the present calculation of fatalities resulting from his reductions to international aid stands at 600,000 and rising, and recently research forecast his energy policies would result in fatalities 1.3 million more. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have dared – genuinely, no previous leader would have imagined – independently wrecking large sections of the White House to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of some of America's wealthiest, nearly all of which conduct transactions with federal agencies.
We transitioned from 'the meek shall inherit the planet' toward 'the meek shall die from cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the chief executive try to upend the established notion of democracy and replace it with its direct contrary, there is one large group of Americans who should not find it totally unfamiliar. This includes individuals like us – within elder demographics almost a majority – who were raised as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have observed throughout the years as politically conservative religious groups turned the Jesus we learned about into exactly the opposite of our understanding of him. At its most basic, they converted a persona of affection into a symbol of animosity who endorses exactly the harshness that he criticized in the Gospel; this change developed at a slower pace, over decades instead of months, however it is still disconcerting in the same ways, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground
Hence I shall explain the Jesus that I grew up with, because theoretically Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and because the quickly increasing segment among Americans could have minimal awareness of him because they identify as atheists or uncertain individuals or spiritual independents. I have no problem with any of these traditions, nor with any other faith; yet I maintain that there are pearls of significant worth in biblical accounts.
It is emphatically definitely not the narrative of a mighty king emerging; conversely, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in a garage, who must quickly flee to a different country to escape secret police. The child matures in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his teaching is about love for others, particularly for the disadvantaged – not merely emotional affection, but a concrete one, demonstrated through nourishing and protecting. Jesus' answer to hostility is to offer the other cheek – not as a gesture of submissive tolerance, but as a means to teach the assailant; his crime policy states that when someone steals your jacket you must offer them your pullover as well.
The apparent and straightforward truth that Christ in biblical accounts requests a kind of extreme compassion focused on the poor has consistently rendered the Christian faith rather a provocative belief system: engaging for the populace, but due to its intrinsic extremism requiring to be contained. In the 1950s it was contained by dilution – Protestant Christianity was so prevalent that it basically sanctified existing conditions.
A Conflict for the Best of Us
Hence I have become inspired to see the steadfast resistance to Trump develop during the previous year. It has provided significant comfort to assist in constructing the campaign that has demonstrated publicly in rally after rally, and likely has encouraged electorate to show up in numbers during minor elections. We shall require 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 ... about how you treated the stranger? Did you receive him and receive them or reject?
America is best defended, essentially, by reference to the finest within national tradition, exactly as the Christian faith is best defended by relationship to what makes it unique and wonderful, particularly the pattern of the Savior. In neither case does it mean acting as if the most negative of both America and religious tradition never occurred; it represents both meekness and conviction, a mixture that serious national faithful should embrace.
