The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and distinctive instances – not its most significant, nor most harsh, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. During the period of multiple weeks, the American president started showing all observers his intentions for an ornate dance hall two times larger compared to the White House and then commenced solo dismantling the East Wing to build it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of fatalities resulting from his reductions to international aid stands at 600,000 and growing, and this week a study projected his fossil fuel policies would kill an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have attempted – genuinely, no previous leader would have conceived – solo demolishing large sections of the presidential residence in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of numerous the richest Americans, nearly all of which conduct transactions with public institutions.
We transitioned from 'the humble will receive the planet' to 'the meek shall die from cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the leader try to upend the old idea of democracy and exchange it with its complete opposite, there exists a significant segment within America who wouldn't consider it completely novel. That is those of us – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were brought up as conventional Protestant believers.
We have observed across decades while conservative evangelical congregations transformed the Christ we were raised with into the total contrary of our understanding of him. At its most basic, they transformed an image of love into an icon of animosity who approves exactly the harshness that he criticized in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred more slowly, through multiple decades rather than months, however it is still unsettling through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for numerous individuals.
A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground
Therefore allow me to outline the Savior from my upbringing, since in theory Christ is the focus within Christian belief, and given that the quickly increasing segment of Americans could have minimal awareness of him because they identify as atheists or agnostics or nones. I have no problem with these various perspectives, nor with different religions; yet I maintain that there are pearls of significant worth in the Christian story.
It is emphatically absolutely not the account of an authoritative monarch emerging; instead, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in a garage, who need to rapidly escape to a different country to evade undercover officers. The baby grows up in modest conditions, a laboring woodworker; his message focuses on affection for fellow humans, particularly for the poor – not merely emotional affection, but practical compassion, shown by providing food and protecting. The Savior's reaction to violence is to offer the other cheek – not as an act of passive acceptance, but as a method to educate the assailant; his method regarding offenses is that if an individual takes your jacket you must offer the person your additional clothing as well.
The apparent and clear fact that the Savior of the gospels calls for a kind of profound affection concentrated on the poor is what has always made the Christian faith somewhat of a provocative belief system: appealing to the masses, but because of its inherent radicalness demanding to be contained. During the 1950s it was contained by dilution – Protestantism was so prevalent that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Struggle for the Highest Among Us
So I have been inspired to witness the persistent defiance regarding Trump emerge during the previous year. It has been significant comfort to participate in developing the campaign that has taken to the streets through repeated demonstrations, and seems to have inspired citizens to turn out in large quantities in the off-year elections. We will need to continue it, and with identical determination, with American flags during all protests and requests to the best parts within national heritage.
We will be questioned ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you accept these individuals and receive them or refuse?
The nation is most protected, in other words, by relationship to the highest within national tradition, similar to Christianity is optimally secured by reference to elements that cause it to be special and wonderful, which is the example of Jesus. In both situations does it imply acting as if the most damaging of both America and religious tradition did not happen; it represents both meekness and belief, a combination that committed US believers should embrace.
