The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and defining instances – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. During the period of a few weeks, the US president began displaying everyone his intentions for a lavish reception room twice the size than the White House and then commenced independently demolishing the East Wing portion to construct it.
He has done things 10,000 times as bad – the current estimate of fatalities due to his slashing to international aid is 600,000 and increasing, and presently a study predicted his energy policies would result in fatalities an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have attempted – really, no former commander would have imagined – independently wrecking major areas of the executive mansion in order to erect a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the active collaboration of numerous America's wealthiest, the majority of whom have business with the government.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' into 'the gentle will succumb to cholera'
As bewildering as it is to witness the president seek to颠覆 the established notion about democracy and substitute it with its complete opposite, there is one large group within America who should not find it entirely new. That is those of us – within elder demographics a near majority – who were raised within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have observed over the years while conservative evangelical congregations converted the Savior we learned about into the complete reverse of our understanding of him. At its most basic, they transformed an image of affection into a symbol of animosity who approves specifically the brutality that he denounced in the Gospel; this has happened at a slower pace, through multiple decades instead of months, but it is nonetheless unsettling through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Toxic Christianity Gains Ground
Hence I shall explain the Savior from my childhood, since in theory Christ is the focus of Christian religion, and given that the quickly increasing segment among Americans may possess limited understanding of him since they are non-believers or doubters or religiously unaffiliated. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; yet I maintain that there are pearls of significant worth in biblical accounts.
It is unquestionably absolutely not the narrative of a powerful ruler appearing; instead, an infant arrives to displaced parents in a storage space, who must quickly flee to a different country to evade secret police. The child matures in modest conditions, an employed craftsman; his message is about love for other people, particularly for the disadvantaged – not merely emotional affection, but practical compassion, expressed by feeding and protecting. The Savior's reaction to aggression is to offer the other cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a means to instruct the attacker; his approach to wrongdoing is that if someone steals your jacket you should give them your pullover as well.
The obvious and straightforward truth that the Jesus in biblical accounts requests a kind of extreme compassion focused on the impoverished has perpetually caused the Christian faith somewhat of a scandalous religion: attractive to the masses, but because of its inherent radicalness requiring to be contained. During the 1950s it was contained through watering down – Protestantism was so widespread that it practically blessed current circumstances.
A Conflict for the Highest of Us
Therefore I have felt heartened to see the steadfast resistance against Trump arise over the last twelve months. It has served as great solace to help build the initiative that has protested openly via continuous gatherings, and appears to have motivated citizens to participate in significant amounts in interim political contests. We must have to continue it, and through comparable resolve, displaying national flags at every demonstration and calls to the finest aspects in US history.
We're going to be asked ... regarding how you welcomed the immigrant? Did you accept these individuals and receive them or refuse?
America is best defended, to put it differently, through connection to the finest in US heritage, just as Christianity is best defended by reference to that which renders it unique and wonderful, specifically the model of the Savior. In both situations does it imply acting as if the most negative of both America and Christian faith did not happen; it means both modesty and faith, a mixture that committed American Christians ought to accept.
