The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and characteristic instances – not its most important, nor most harsh, nor most threatening, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. In the course of several weeks, the US president started showing the public his plans for an ornate dance hall twice the size compared to the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the eastern section to construct it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of deaths from his cuts to USAID stands at 600,000 and increasing, and presently an analysis predicted his energy policies would kill another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No former leader would have dared – really, no other president would have contemplated – solo demolishing large sections of the presidential residence to build a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the direct cooperation of multiple the nation's most affluent, nearly all of which have business with federal agencies.
We transitioned from 'the humble will receive the Earth' to 'the gentle will succumb of cholera'
As confusing as it is to witness the chief executive attempt to overturn the traditional concept about democracy and replace it with its polar opposite, there exists a significant segment among Americans who should not find it totally unfamiliar. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations a near majority – who were brought up within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have witnessed across decades while conservative evangelical congregations converted the Savior we were raised with into exactly the opposite of our perception of his character. At its most basic, they transformed an image of compassion into an icon of hate who approves precisely the cruelties that he denounced in the Gospel; this change developed more slowly, over decades rather than months, yet it remains unsettling via comparable methods, a confusing personal impact for countless people.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Christ from my upbringing, because theoretically the Savior is the core within Christian belief, and given that the rapidly expanding group of Americans may possess limited understanding about him since they are non-believers or uncertain individuals or nones. I take no issue with these different approaches, nor with different religions; but I do think that there are pearls of significant worth in the Christian story.
It is decidedly definitely not the story of a powerful ruler appearing; conversely, a child comes into the world to parents without shelter in a garage, who must quickly flee to a different country to avoid secret police. The child matures in simple surroundings, a working carpenter; his teaching concerns compassion for others, especially for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but practical compassion, expressed by feeding and housing. The Savior's reaction to hostility is to present the other cheek – not as a gesture of submissive tolerance, but as a way to educate the attacker; his method regarding offenses is that if someone steals your jacket you must offer the person your additional clothing as well.
The apparent and direct truth that Christ of the gospels calls for a form of profound affection focused on the impoverished has perpetually caused the Christian faith something of a controversial faith: attractive to the masses, but because of its natural unconventionality needing to be controlled. During the 1950s it was restrained through watering down – Protestant Christianity was so widespread that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Best Among Us
Hence I have become encouraged to see the determined opposition against Trump emerge during the previous year. It has provided substantial consolation to assist in constructing the initiative that has demonstrated publicly through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated electorate to show up in numbers in interim political contests. We will need to maintain it, and through comparable resolve, displaying national flags throughout each rally and requests to the finest aspects in US history.
We're going to be asked ... how did you receive the foreigner? Did you accept these individuals and welcome him or not?
America is best defended, essentially, through connection to the best within national tradition, similar to Christianity is best defended through connection to what makes it special and magnificent, specifically the model of the Savior. In neither case does it imply feigning the most damaging about the nation and Christian faith never occurred; it means both humility and conviction, a blend that committed national faithful should be comfortable with.
