The Trump movement's most telling and characteristic moments – not its most crucial, nor most harsh, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but possibly its most revealing – came earlier this autumn. In the course of several weeks, the nation's leader started showing everyone his plans for a lavish reception room twice the size of the White House and subsequently started independently demolishing the East Wing portion to erect it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the present calculation of casualties resulting from his reductions to USAID stands at 600,000 and increasing, and recently a study forecast his energy policies would cause deaths 1.3 million more. However nothing as distinctive. No other president would have dared – truly, no other president would have conceived – unilaterally destroying significant portions of the presidential residence to construct a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the enthusiastic participation of multiple the richest Americans, almost all of whom conduct transactions with public institutions.
We moved from 'the gentle will obtain the planet' into 'the meek shall die of cholera'
As confusing as it is to watch the chief executive try to upend the traditional concept of democracy and substitute it with its complete opposite, there is one large group within America who wouldn't consider it totally unfamiliar. That encompasses people such as ourselves – within elder demographics close to half – who were raised as conventional Protestant believers.
We have witnessed across decades as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we learned about into the complete reverse of our understanding of him. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of love into an icon of hate who endorses exactly the harshness that he denounced in the Gospel; this change developed more slowly, across decades rather than months, however it is still unsettling through similar means, a confusing personal impact for countless people.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Christ that I grew up with, because theoretically the Savior is the core of any Christian faith, and because the fastest-growing cadre of Americans might have little sense about him since they are atheists or uncertain individuals or religiously unaffiliated. I have no problem with these different approaches, nor with alternative spiritual paths; but I do think that contain precious wisdom of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is unquestionably not the account of an authoritative monarch emerging; conversely, a child comes into the world to parents without shelter in a garage, who must quickly flee to a foreign land to escape secret police. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his teaching concerns compassion for fellow humans, specifically for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, demonstrated through nourishing and sheltering. Christ's response to violence is to present the opposite cheek – not as a demonstration of submissive tolerance, but as a method to teach the aggressor; his method regarding offenses states that when a person pilfers your outer garment you must offer them your pullover too.
The apparent and clear truth that the Savior from scripture calls for a type of radical love centered on the poor has perpetually caused Christianity rather a provocative belief system: attractive to the general public, but owing to its intrinsic extremism requiring to be controlled. During the 1950s it was contained through watering down – Protestantism was so widespread that it basically baptized the status quo.
A Struggle for the Best of Us
So I have been inspired to see the steadfast resistance against Trump develop over the last twelve months. It has provided great solace to help build the campaign that has taken to the streets through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated voters to participate in large quantities in the off-year elections. We shall require to persist with it, and with identical determination, with American flags during all protests and appeals to the finest aspects in US history.
We're going to be asked ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you receive him and receive them or not?
The nation is most protected, to put it differently, by relationship to the best in US heritage, similar to Christianity is optimally secured through connection to that which renders it unique and wonderful, which is the example of Jesus. In all circumstances does it mean acting as if the worst of both America and religious tradition never occurred; it signifies both modesty and faith, a blend that serious American Christians should embrace.
