The Trump phenomenon's most telling and defining occasions – not its most crucial, nor cruelest, nor most dangerous, nor most foolish, but perhaps its most illuminating – came earlier this autumn. In the course of several weeks, the nation's leader began displaying all observers his intentions for a gilded ballroom twice the size of the White House and then commenced unilaterally ripping down the East Wing portion to build it.
He has committed acts countless times more severe – the current estimate of fatalities due to his slashing to international aid amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and this week research forecast his energy policies would result in fatalities an additional 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No former leader would have dared – genuinely, no former commander would have contemplated – unilaterally destroying major areas of the presidential residence to build a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of multiple America's wealthiest, the majority of whom maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We transitioned from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' to 'the gentle will succumb of cholera'
As bewildering as it is to watch the leader try to upend the traditional concept about democracy and exchange it with its direct contrary, there remains a substantial portion within America who should not find it entirely new. That is those of us – in older age cohorts almost a majority – who were raised as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have witnessed across decades as politically conservative religious groups transformed the Christ we grew up with into the total contrary of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they turned a figure of love into a symbol of hostility who endorses exactly the harshness that he denounced in scripture; this change developed at a slower pace, through multiple decades rather than months, yet it remains disconcerting in the same ways, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Jesus that I grew up with, since in theory Christ is the focus within Christian belief, and because the fastest-growing cadre within America might have little sense regarding him as they consider themselves non-believers or agnostics or spiritual independents. I have no problem with these various perspectives, nor with different religions; yet I maintain that exist valuable insights of great price within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly definitely not the account of a mighty king arising; instead, an infant arrives to displaced parents in a garage, who must quickly flee to a different country to avoid undercover officers. The child matures in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his message is about love for other people, particularly for the poor – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, expressed by feeding and sheltering. Jesus' answer to violence is to offer the other cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a way to educate the aggressor; his method regarding offenses is that if a person pilfers your coat you should give the person your additional clothing also.
The evident and clear truth that the Jesus from scripture requests a kind of profound affection concentrated on the poor has perpetually caused the Christian faith rather a scandalous religion: engaging for the general public, but because of its natural unconventionality needing to be controlled. During the 1950s it was contained through watering down – Protestantism was so dominant that it basically blessed current circumstances.
A Struggle for the Best of Us
Therefore I have felt heartened to observe the determined opposition against Trump develop over the last twelve months. It has served as significant comfort to assist in constructing the campaign that has demonstrated publicly through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated citizens to show up in numbers in the off-year elections. We shall require to persist with it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags throughout each rally and appeals to the best parts in US history.
We're going to be asked ... regarding how you welcomed the foreigner? Did you receive him and welcome him or not?
The country is optimally secured, to put it differently, through connection to the best within national tradition, similar to Christianity is optimally secured by relationship to what makes it special and beautiful, which is the example of the Savior. In all circumstances does it mean pretending the most damaging about the nation and religious tradition was nonexistent; it represents both modesty and belief, a blend that committed national faithful should embrace.
