The Trump phenomenon's most telling and characteristic moments – not its most significant, nor most harsh, nor most dangerous, nor most senseless, but possibly its most revealing – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of multiple weeks, the nation's leader started showing the public his designs for a gilded ballroom two times larger than the White House and then began unilaterally ripping down the East Wing portion to erect it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe – the present calculation of fatalities due to his slashing to international aid stands at 600,000 and rising, and presently research forecast his petroleum strategies would result in fatalities another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No former leader would have dared – genuinely, no other president would have conceived – unilaterally destroying large sections of the White House in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of multiple the richest Americans, the majority of whom conduct transactions with federal agencies.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the Earth' into 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As bewildering as it is to witness the chief executive attempt to overturn the old idea regarding democracy and replace it with its complete opposite, there exists a significant segment within America who wouldn't consider it totally unfamiliar. That is those of us – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were raised within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have witnessed across decades as rightwing evangelical churches converted the Savior we grew up with into the total contrary of our understanding of him. Essentially, they converted a persona of affection into an icon of hostility who endorses specifically the brutality that he denounced in biblical teachings; this change developed more slowly, across decades as opposed to months, however it is still disconcerting in the same ways, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Gains Ground
Hence I shall explain the Jesus from my childhood, since in theory Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and since the rapidly expanding group within America may possess limited understanding about him because they identify as skeptics or agnostics or religiously unaffiliated. I take no issue with these different approaches, nor with alternative spiritual paths; but I do think that there are pearls of significant worth in biblical accounts.
It is decidedly absolutely not the account of an authoritative monarch appearing; rather, a baby is born to displaced parents in a garage, who need to rapidly escape to a different country to evade covert authorities. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his doctrine concerns compassion for others, especially for the disadvantaged – not simply tender feelings, but a concrete one, shown by providing food and housing. Christ's response to violence is to offer the other cheek – not as an act of passive acceptance, but as a means to instruct the aggressor; his method regarding offenses indicates that whenever a person pilfers your jacket you should give the person your additional clothing as well.
The apparent and direct reality that Christ of the gospels requests a type of radical love centered on the impoverished has perpetually caused Christianity something of a provocative belief system: attractive to the masses, but due to its inherent radicalness needing to be controlled. During the 1950s it was controlled through watering down – Protestant Christianity was so widespread that it essentially sanctified existing conditions.
A Battle for the Best Among Us
Therefore I have felt encouraged to witness the persistent defiance to Trump emerge over the last twelve months. It has served as significant comfort to participate in developing the movement that has taken to the streets via continuous gatherings, and likely has encouraged citizens to participate in large quantities in the off-year elections. We will need to continue it, and through comparable resolve, featuring US banners at every demonstration and requests to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We're going to be asked ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you welcome them and receive them or refuse?
The country is optimally secured, in other words, through connection to the best within national tradition, exactly as the Christian faith is optimally secured by relationship to that which renders it distinctive and wonderful, which is the example of Christ. In neither case does it mean pretending the most negative regarding America and religious tradition was nonexistent; it represents both meekness and conviction, a combination that committed national faithful should be comfortable with.
