The Trump movement's most illuminating and defining moments – not its most crucial, nor cruelest, nor most threatening, 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 lavish reception room double the dimensions than the White House and then began unilaterally ripping down the eastern section to build it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe – the present calculation of deaths due to his slashing to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and recently a study projected his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities another 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No former leader would have dared – really, no previous leader would have contemplated – solo demolishing large sections of the presidential residence to construct a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the direct cooperation of multiple America's wealthiest, the majority of whom maintain dealings with the government.
We moved from 'the gentle will obtain the world' to 'the humble will perish from cholera'
As disorienting as it is to witness the president attempt to overturn the old idea of democracy and exchange it with its complete opposite, there is one large group among Americans who should not find it totally unfamiliar. That is those of us – within elder demographics a near majority – who were raised as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have witnessed throughout the years while conservative evangelical congregations turned the Jesus we learned about into exactly the opposite of our perception of his character. Essentially, they converted a persona of love into a figure of hostility who blesses exactly the harshness that he condemned in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred at a slower pace, through multiple decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless disturbing through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Establishes Itself
So let me first describe the Savior from my upbringing, as conceptually Christ is the focus of Christian religion, and given that the rapidly expanding group within America may possess limited understanding of him because they identify as atheists or uncertain individuals or spiritual independents. I have no problem with these different approaches, nor with different religions; yet I maintain that there are pearls of significant worth within Christian narrative.
It is emphatically absolutely not the narrative of a mighty king emerging; conversely, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in a garage, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to avoid secret police. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his message focuses on affection for others, especially for the poor – not simply tender feelings, but a concrete one, shown by providing food and sheltering. Jesus' answer to hostility is to turn the other cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a means to educate the aggressor; his crime policy is that if someone steals your jacket you must offer him your sweater as well.
The obvious and direct truth that Christ of the gospels requests a form of radical love centered on the impoverished has consistently rendered Christianity somewhat of a provocative belief system: engaging for the populace, but owing to its intrinsic extremism requiring to be restrained. During the 1950s it was contained via weakening – The Protestant faith was so dominant that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Struggle for the Highest Within Us
So I have been heartened to witness the persistent defiance regarding Trump develop in this past year. It has served as great solace to help build the movement that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and likely has encouraged electorate to turn out in numbers in the off-year elections. We must have to maintain it, and in the same spirit, featuring US banners at every demonstration and calls to the finest aspects of American history.
We're going to be asked ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you accept these individuals and welcome him or not?
The nation is most protected, to put it differently, by reference to the highest in US heritage, just as Christianity is optimally secured through connection to elements that cause it to be distinctive and beautiful, particularly the pattern of the Savior. In both situations does it mean feigning the most negative of both America and Christianity never occurred; it means both modesty and belief, a blend that committed American Christians should embrace.
