Trumpism's most telling and defining moments – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most hazardous, nor most senseless, but possibly its most revealing – came earlier this autumn. In the course of several weeks, the nation's leader began displaying the public his plans for a gilded ballroom twice the size of the White House and then began solo dismantling the East Wing to build it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of fatalities due to his slashing to USAID amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and recently a study projected his energy policies would cause deaths another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have dared – truly, no other president would have conceived – independently wrecking significant portions of the presidential residence to construct a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the direct cooperation of numerous the nation's most affluent, almost all of whom maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the planet' toward 'the meek shall die to cholera'
As confusing as it is to watch the president try to upend the old idea of democracy and replace it with its direct contrary, there remains a substantial portion among Americans who should not find it totally unfamiliar. This includes individuals like us – within elder demographics close to half – who were educated within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have watched over the years as politically conservative religious groups turned the Jesus we grew up with into the total contrary of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they transformed an image of compassion into a symbol of hate who endorses precisely the cruelties that he denounced in biblical teachings; this change developed more slowly, over decades instead of months, yet it remains disconcerting in the same ways, a disorienting gut punch for countless people.
A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground
Hence I shall explain the Savior from my childhood, since in theory Christ is the focus of Christian religion, and because the rapidly expanding group within America could have minimal awareness about him since they are non-believers or doubters or nones. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; but I do think that exist valuable insights of significant worth within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly not the story of a mighty king arising; instead, a child comes into the world to homeless parents in a garage, who need to rapidly escape to a different country to escape covert authorities. The infant develops in humble circumstances, a laboring woodworker; his teaching concerns compassion for other people, specifically for the poor – not merely emotional affection, but practical compassion, demonstrated through nourishing and housing. Christ's response to aggression is to turn the other cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a method to instruct the attacker; his method regarding offenses states that when a person pilfers your outer garment you ought to provide him your sweater as well.
The evident and straightforward fact that the Jesus from scripture calls for a form of extreme compassion focused on the needy is what has always made Christianity something of a controversial faith: attractive to the populace, but owing to its intrinsic extremism needing to be contained. In the fifties it was restrained through watering down – The Protestant faith was so dominant that it practically blessed current circumstances.
A Struggle for the Finest of Us
Therefore I have felt encouraged to see the steadfast resistance against Trump arise in this past year. It has provided significant comfort to assist in constructing the movement that has taken to the streets in rally after rally, and seems to have inspired electorate to turn out in significant amounts in interim political contests. We shall require to persist with it, and through comparable resolve, featuring US banners during all protests and calls to the finest aspects within national heritage.
We're going to be asked ... regarding how you welcomed the stranger? Did you receive him and receive them or not?
America is best defended, to put it differently, by reference to the finest within national tradition, similar to Christianity is best defended through connection to that which renders it special and beautiful, which is the example of Christ. In both situations does it mean pretending the worst regarding America and Christianity never occurred; it means both modesty and faith, a mixture that serious American Christians ought to accept.
