The Trump phenomenon's most illuminating and characteristic moments – not its most important, nor most brutal, nor most hazardous, nor most foolish, but perhaps its most illuminating – emerged earlier this harvest season. During the period of multiple weeks, the nation's leader commenced revealing everyone his plans for an ornate dance hall double the dimensions than the White House and then began solo dismantling the East Wing portion to construct it.
He has done things 10,000 times as bad – the existing assessment of fatalities due to his slashing to foreign assistance is 600,000 and rising, and presently a study predicted his fossil fuel policies would kill an additional 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No former leader would have attempted – genuinely, no previous leader would have conceived – solo demolishing major areas of the presidential residence to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of numerous the richest Americans, almost all of whom conduct transactions with the government.
We transitioned from 'the humble will receive the Earth' into 'the meek shall die to cholera'
As disorienting as it is to observe the president try to upend the traditional concept about democracy and exchange it with its polar opposite, there remains a substantial portion within America who should not find it completely novel. This includes individuals like us – in older age cohorts almost a majority – who were educated within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have witnessed throughout the years while conservative evangelical congregations converted the Savior we grew up with into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they converted a persona of affection into a symbol of hostility who endorses exactly the harshness that he criticized in biblical teachings; this change developed more gradually, across decades as opposed to months, yet it remains disconcerting through similar means, a bewildering emotional blow for numerous individuals.
A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground
Therefore allow me to outline the Savior that I grew up with, since in theory Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and since the rapidly expanding group of Americans might have little sense of him since they are skeptics or doubters or religiously unaffiliated. I have no problem with these different approaches, nor with any other faith; but I do think that there are pearls of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is decidedly definitely not the story of an authoritative monarch appearing; rather, a baby is born to homeless parents in a garage, who need to rapidly escape to another nation to avoid undercover officers. The child matures in modest conditions, a laboring woodworker; his message is about love for other people, specifically for the poor – and not a sentimental love, but tangible care, expressed by feeding and housing. Christ's response to hostility is to turn the other cheek – not as a demonstration of passive acceptance, but as a means to educate the assailant; his approach to wrongdoing indicates that whenever someone steals your outer garment you ought to provide him your sweater also.
The obvious and direct fact that the Savior in biblical accounts advocates for a type of radical love centered on the impoverished has consistently rendered the Christian faith something of a provocative belief system: appealing to the masses, but because of its intrinsic extremism demanding to be controlled. In the 1950s it was restrained through watering down – Protestantism was so prevalent that it basically sanctified existing conditions.
A Struggle for the Best of Us
Hence I have become encouraged to witness the persistent defiance to Trump develop in this past year. It has been substantial consolation to assist in constructing the campaign that has taken to the streets via continuous gatherings, and appears to have motivated citizens to show up in numbers in interim political contests. We will need to maintain it, and with identical determination, featuring US banners at every demonstration and requests to the best parts in US history.
We shall be interrogated ... regarding how you welcomed the stranger? Did you accept these individuals and receive them or not?
The nation is most protected, essentially, by reference to the finest about American history, just as Christianity is optimally secured through connection to what makes it unique and beautiful, which is the example of the Savior. In both situations does it mean acting as if the most negative about the nation and religious tradition was nonexistent; it represents both humility and conviction, a combination that committed American Christians should embrace.
