The Trump movement's most revealing and characteristic moments – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of a few weeks, the nation's leader began displaying all observers his intentions for a gilded ballroom two times larger compared to the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the East Wing portion to build it.
He has committed acts countless times more severe – the present calculation of fatalities resulting from his reductions to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and this week a study forecast his energy policies would result in fatalities an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have dared – really, no other president would have imagined – solo demolishing significant portions of the White House in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of multiple America's wealthiest, the majority of whom have business with public institutions.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the planet' toward 'the gentle will succumb from cholera'
As bewildering as it is to watch the chief executive try to upend the traditional concept of democracy and exchange it with its direct contrary, there remains a substantial portion of Americans who might not perceive it completely novel. That is those of us – within elder demographics a near majority – who were raised as conventional Protestant believers.
We have watched over the years as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we learned about into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they transformed an image of love into an icon of hostility who blesses specifically the brutality that he condemned in biblical teachings; this change developed more gradually, across decades rather than months, yet it remains disconcerting through similar means, a confusing personal impact for countless people.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Jesus from my childhood, as conceptually Christ is the focus within Christian belief, and given that the fastest-growing cadre of Americans could have minimal awareness of him because they identify as skeptics or uncertain individuals or spiritual independents. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; however I believe that there are pearls of great price in the Christian story.
It is emphatically definitely not the narrative of a mighty king arising; rather, a baby is born to displaced parents in a garage, who need to rapidly escape to a different country to avoid secret police. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his teaching is about love for other people, especially for the poor – not merely emotional affection, but tangible care, shown by providing food and housing. The Savior's reaction to aggression is to offer the opposite cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a way to educate the assailant; his method regarding offenses indicates that whenever a person pilfers your coat you must offer them your pullover as well.
The apparent and direct reality that the Savior of the gospels requests a kind of radical love focused on the poor has perpetually caused Christian religion something of a scandalous religion: attractive to the masses, but because of its inherent radicalness demanding to be controlled. In the 1950s it was contained through watering down – Protestantism was so dominant that it essentially baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Finest of Us
Therefore I have felt encouraged to see the determined opposition against Trump arise in this past year. It has served as substantial consolation to participate in developing the movement that has demonstrated publicly via continuous gatherings, and likely has encouraged voters to show up in significant amounts in interim political contests. We shall require to continue it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags at every demonstration and calls to the best parts within national heritage.
We're going to be asked ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you welcome them and embrace them or reject?
The nation is most protected, to put it differently, through connection to the highest in US heritage, exactly as the Christian faith is most protected by relationship to elements that cause it to be distinctive and magnificent, which is the example of Jesus. In neither case does it suggest feigning the most damaging of both America and Christianity never occurred; it signifies both humility and conviction, a combination that committed US believers should be comfortable with.
