Trumpism's most revealing and defining moments – not its most significant, nor cruelest, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of several weeks, the US president began displaying everyone his plans for a lavish reception room twice the size compared to the White House and then commenced independently demolishing the East Wing to build it.
He has performed deeds ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of casualties from his cuts to international aid is 600,000 and growing, and presently research projected his energy policies would kill an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have risked – genuinely, no former commander would have imagined – independently wrecking significant portions of the presidential residence to build a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of some of America's wealthiest, almost all of whom have business with the government.
We moved from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' toward 'the humble will perish to cholera'
As bewildering as it is to witness the president attempt to overturn the established notion about democracy and substitute it with its complete opposite, there remains a substantial portion among Americans who wouldn't consider it totally unfamiliar. That is those of us – among senior generations close to half – who were educated as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have watched over the years as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we were raised with into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they turned a figure of love into an icon of animosity who endorses precisely the cruelties that he denounced in the Gospel; this transformation occurred at a slower pace, across decades rather than months, yet it remains disturbing via comparable methods, a disorienting gut punch for numerous individuals.
A Damaging Christianity Establishes Itself
So let me first describe the Jesus from my upbringing, because theoretically the Savior is the core within Christian belief, and given that the fastest-growing cadre within America may possess limited understanding of him since they are non-believers or uncertain individuals or spiritual independents. I raise no objection with any of these traditions, nor with any other faith; but I do think that exist valuable insights of great price in the Christian story.
It is emphatically absolutely not the account of a powerful ruler emerging; conversely, a baby is born to displaced parents in an automotive shelter, who need to rapidly escape to a different country to avoid undercover officers. The child matures in humble circumstances, a laboring woodworker; his message concerns compassion for others, especially for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but a concrete one, shown by providing food and protecting. Christ's response to hostility is to offer the opposite cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a means to teach the assailant; his method regarding offenses indicates that whenever a person pilfers your outer garment you ought to provide him your sweater as well.
The obvious and clear truth that the Jesus of the gospels calls for a form of profound affection centered on the poor is what has always made Christian religion rather a controversial faith: appealing to the masses, but owing to its intrinsic extremism demanding to be controlled. During the 1950s it was restrained by dilution – The Protestant faith was so widespread that it practically sanctified existing conditions.
A Conflict for the Finest Within Us
So I have been encouraged to observe the steadfast resistance against Trump arise in this past year. It has served as significant comfort to assist in constructing the campaign that has taken to the streets in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated voters to turn out in numbers in the off-year elections. We will need to maintain it, and with identical determination, displaying national flags throughout each rally and appeals to the highest qualities in US history.
We're going to be asked ... about how you treated the stranger? Did you receive him and welcome him or reject?
America is best defended, to put it differently, by relationship to the finest about American history, just as Christianity is optimally secured by relationship to what makes it unique and beautiful, particularly the pattern of the Savior. In both situations does it imply pretending the most negative about the nation and Christianity was nonexistent; it means both meekness and belief, a blend that committed American Christians should be comfortable with.
