The Trump phenomenon's most telling and characteristic occasions – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most hazardous, nor most foolish, but perhaps its most illuminating – occurred earlier this fall. In the course of a few weeks, the US president began displaying everyone his plans for a gilded ballroom two times larger than the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the East Wing portion to build it.
He has done things ten thousand times worse – the present calculation of deaths resulting from his reductions to USAID stands at 600,000 and increasing, and recently an analysis projected his fossil fuel policies would kill another 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No former leader would have dared – genuinely, no previous leader would have conceived – solo demolishing large sections of the presidential residence to build a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of multiple America's wealthiest, nearly all of which have business with the government.
We moved from 'the meek shall inherit the planet' into 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As confusing as it is to observe the president attempt to overturn the established notion of democracy and replace it with its direct contrary, there remains a substantial portion within America who wouldn't consider it entirely new. This includes individuals like us – among senior generations close to half – who were brought up within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have watched across decades while conservative evangelical congregations turned the Jesus we were raised with into the total contrary of our understanding of him. Fundamentally, they transformed an image of affection into a symbol of animosity who blesses exactly the harshness that he condemned in biblical teachings; this has happened more gradually, through multiple decades instead of months, but it is nonetheless disturbing via comparable methods, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
Therefore allow me to outline the Christ that I grew up with, because theoretically the Savior is the core of Christian religion, and since the fastest-growing cadre within America may possess limited understanding of him because they identify as atheists or agnostics or nones. I have no problem with these different approaches, nor with alternative spiritual paths; yet I maintain that contain precious wisdom of substantial value in biblical accounts.
It is decidedly absolutely not the narrative of a mighty king emerging; conversely, an infant arrives to displaced parents in an automotive shelter, who must quickly flee to a different country to escape secret police. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his doctrine is about love for others, specifically for the impoverished – not simply tender feelings, but a concrete one, expressed by feeding and housing. The Savior's reaction to hostility is to turn the other cheek – not as an act of compliant endurance, but as a means to educate the aggressor; his crime policy is that if an individual takes your outer garment you ought to provide them your pullover as well.
The apparent and straightforward truth that the Savior from scripture requests a kind of radical love focused on the poor has consistently rendered the Christian faith something of a scandalous religion: appealing to the populace, but due to its natural unconventionality needing to be contained. In the fifties it was contained through watering down – The Protestant faith was so dominant that it basically sanctified existing conditions.
A Conflict for the Highest Among Us
Therefore I have felt encouraged to see the determined opposition against Trump develop during the previous year. It has served as great solace to participate in developing the initiative that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and likely has encouraged electorate to turn out in large quantities during minor elections. We must have to continue it, and with identical determination, with American flags during all protests and requests to the best parts in US history.
We will be questioned ... how did you receive the immigrant? Did you welcome them and receive them or reject?
The country is optimally secured, to put it differently, by reference to the best in US heritage, exactly as the Christian faith is best defended through connection to what makes it distinctive and magnificent, particularly the pattern of Jesus. In all circumstances does it suggest acting as if the worst about the nation and Christianity was nonexistent; it means both meekness and belief, a mixture that genuine US believers should be comfortable with.
