The Trump movement's most telling and characteristic moments – not its most significant, nor most harsh, nor most hazardous, nor stupidest, but perhaps its most illuminating – emerged earlier this harvest season. In the course of several weeks, the US president began displaying all observers his intentions for an ornate dance hall double the dimensions of the White House and subsequently started solo dismantling the East Wing to erect it.
He has performed deeds ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of fatalities from his cuts to international aid is 600,000 and increasing, and presently a study predicted his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have dared – really, no former commander would have conceived – unilaterally destroying significant portions of the presidential residence in order to erect a royal-themed celebration hall, with the active collaboration of multiple America's wealthiest, nearly all of which conduct transactions with federal agencies.
We went from 'the gentle will obtain the world' into 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As confusing as it is to watch the president try to upend the traditional concept about democracy and exchange it with its direct contrary, there is one large group of Americans who should not find it entirely new. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations almost a majority – who were brought up within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have watched across decades as politically conservative religious groups transformed the Christ we learned about into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. At its most basic, they transformed an image of compassion into an icon of hostility who blesses exactly the harshness that he denounced in biblical teachings; this change developed at a slower pace, across decades rather than months, yet it remains disconcerting via comparable methods, a bewildering emotional blow for countless people.
A Toxic Christianity Gains Ground
Therefore allow me to outline the Savior from my upbringing, because theoretically the Savior is the core of any Christian faith, and given that the fastest-growing cadre among Americans may possess limited understanding regarding him as they consider themselves skeptics or doubters or spiritual independents. I raise no objection with these different approaches, nor with alternative spiritual paths; however I believe that there are pearls of substantial value within Christian narrative.
It is emphatically definitely not the account of an authoritative monarch emerging; rather, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in a storage space, who need to rapidly escape to a different country to escape covert authorities. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, a laboring woodworker; his message focuses on affection for other people, especially for the poor – not merely emotional affection, but a concrete one, shown by providing food and housing. The Savior's reaction to violence is to turn the opposite cheek – not as a demonstration of passive acceptance, but as a way to teach the assailant; his approach to wrongdoing states that when a person pilfers your jacket you must offer them your pullover as well.
The evident and direct reality that the Jesus from scripture calls for a type of radical love centered on the needy has consistently rendered the Christian faith somewhat of a scandalous religion: engaging for the general public, but owing to its inherent radicalness needing to be contained. In the fifties it was controlled by dilution – Protestant Christianity was so widespread that it basically sanctified existing conditions.
A Struggle for the Finest of Us
So I have been heartened to witness the persistent defiance regarding Trump develop in this past year. It has served as significant comfort to help build the initiative that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated citizens to participate in numbers in the off-year elections. We must have to continue it, and through comparable resolve, displaying national flags during all protests and requests to the finest aspects within national heritage.
We're going to be asked ... how did you receive the immigrant? Did you receive him and embrace them or refuse?
The country is optimally secured, in other words, by reference to the highest within national tradition, exactly as the Christian faith is optimally secured through connection to what makes it distinctive and magnificent, specifically the model of the Savior. In all circumstances does it mean acting as if the most negative about the nation and Christianity was nonexistent; it signifies both humility and belief, a combination that serious American Christians should embrace.
