Trumpism's most telling and distinctive occasions – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most threatening, nor most foolish, but possibly its most revealing – occurred earlier this fall. In the course of several weeks, the nation's leader began displaying the public his designs for an ornate dance hall twice the size compared to the White House and then began independently demolishing the eastern section to erect it.
He has done things 10,000 times as bad – the current estimate of casualties from his cuts to foreign assistance is 600,000 and increasing, and this week research predicted his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities 1.3 million more. Yet nothing as characteristic. No previous president would have risked – truly, no previous leader would have contemplated – solo demolishing large sections of the White House to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of numerous America's wealthiest, nearly all of which maintain dealings with the government.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' to 'the humble will perish from cholera'
As bewildering as it is to observe the president attempt to overturn the old idea about democracy and exchange it with its polar opposite, there remains a substantial portion of Americans who might not perceive it completely novel. That is those of us – within elder demographics close to half – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have observed throughout the years while conservative evangelical congregations converted the Savior we grew up with into the total contrary of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they turned a figure of affection into an icon of hostility who blesses exactly the harshness that he criticized in biblical teachings; this change developed more slowly, through multiple decades instead of months, but it is nonetheless disturbing in the same ways, a bewildering emotional blow for countless people.
A Damaging Christianity Establishes Itself
Hence I shall explain the Jesus from my upbringing, since in theory Christ is the focus within Christian belief, and because the rapidly expanding group of Americans may possess limited understanding regarding him because they identify as atheists or agnostics or spiritual independents. I take no issue with these different approaches, nor with different religions; however I believe that there are pearls of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is decidedly not the story of an authoritative monarch emerging; rather, a baby is born to displaced parents in a garage, who are forced to hastily depart to a different country to avoid covert authorities. The infant develops in modest conditions, an employed craftsman; his message concerns compassion for others, particularly for the disadvantaged – not merely emotional affection, but a concrete one, demonstrated through nourishing and sheltering. The Savior's reaction to violence is to turn the additional cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a means to educate the aggressor; his method regarding offenses is that if an individual takes your jacket you must offer the person your additional clothing as well.
The apparent and straightforward truth that the Jesus of the gospels requests a form of profound affection centered on the poor is what has always made Christianity somewhat of a controversial faith: engaging for the masses, but owing to its intrinsic extremism requiring to be restrained. During the 1950s it was contained by dilution – The Protestant faith was so prevalent that it essentially sanctified existing conditions.
A Battle for the Best Within Us
So I have been heartened to observe the persistent defiance to Trump emerge in this past year. It has provided substantial consolation to assist in constructing the initiative that has protested openly in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated electorate to turn out in large quantities in the off-year elections. We will need to persist with it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags throughout each rally and calls to the finest aspects of American history.
We will be questioned ... how did you receive the foreigner? Did you welcome them and receive them or refuse?
The nation is most protected, in other words, through connection to the highest in US heritage, exactly as the Christian faith is most protected by reference to what makes it special and magnificent, which is the example of the Savior. In neither case does it suggest acting as if the worst of both America and religious tradition was nonexistent; it means both humility and conviction, a blend that serious US believers should be comfortable with.
