The Trump phenomenon's most illuminating and defining instances – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. In the course of several weeks, the US president began displaying everyone his plans for a gilded ballroom twice the size compared to the White House and subsequently started independently demolishing the East Wing to construct it.
He has committed acts countless times more severe – the existing assessment of fatalities due to his slashing to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and rising, and presently research projected his energy policies would cause deaths another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No former leader would have attempted – really, no former commander would have conceived – unilaterally destroying major areas of the White House to construct a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the enthusiastic participation of some of America's wealthiest, nearly all of which conduct transactions with the government.
We moved from 'the gentle will obtain the world' into 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As confusing as it is to witness the chief executive try to upend the old idea about democracy and replace it with its direct contrary, there is one large group among Americans who should not find it completely novel. That is those of us – among senior generations almost a majority – who were raised as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have observed over the years while conservative evangelical congregations converted the Savior we grew up with into the total contrary of our perception of his character. Essentially, they turned a figure of love into a figure of animosity who blesses precisely the cruelties that he denounced in scripture; this has happened at a slower pace, through multiple decades instead of months, but it is nonetheless disconcerting in the same ways, a confusing personal impact for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground
Hence I shall explain the Christ from my upbringing, because theoretically the Savior is the core within Christian belief, and because the quickly increasing segment within America may possess limited understanding of him because they identify as non-believers or uncertain individuals or nones. I take no issue with these different approaches, nor with alternative spiritual paths; yet I maintain that there are pearls of great price in the Christian story.
It is emphatically not the account of a powerful ruler appearing; rather, a baby is born to parents without shelter in an automotive shelter, who are forced to hastily depart to a different country to avoid undercover officers. The infant develops in humble circumstances, a laboring woodworker; his teaching concerns compassion for fellow humans, especially for the poor – and not a sentimental love, but practical compassion, demonstrated through nourishing and sheltering. The Savior's reaction to violence is to turn the opposite cheek – not as a gesture of submissive tolerance, but as a means to teach the attacker; his method regarding offenses states that when an individual takes your outer garment you must offer the person your additional clothing also.
The evident and direct reality that the Savior from scripture advocates for a type of extreme compassion concentrated on the needy is what has always made Christian religion somewhat of a scandalous religion: attractive to the populace, but due to its natural unconventionality demanding to be contained. In the fifties it was controlled through watering down – Protestant Christianity was so prevalent that it practically sanctified existing conditions.
A Conflict for the Finest of Us
Therefore I have felt heartened to observe the steadfast resistance against Trump emerge during the previous year. It has provided substantial consolation to participate in developing the initiative that has demonstrated publicly in rally after rally, and seems to have inspired voters to show up in numbers in the off-year elections. We shall require to continue it, and through comparable resolve, displaying national flags at every demonstration and appeals to the finest aspects in US history.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you welcome them and welcome him or reject?
The country is optimally secured, in other words, through connection to the best within national tradition, exactly as the Christian faith is most protected by reference to that which renders it unique and beautiful, specifically the model of Christ. In neither case does it imply pretending the most negative regarding America and Christianity never occurred; it means both modesty and faith, a combination that committed US believers should be comfortable with.
