The Trump phenomenon's most illuminating and distinctive instances – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most dangerous, nor most senseless, but perhaps its most illuminating – emerged earlier this harvest season. In the course of a few weeks, the nation's leader began displaying all observers his intentions for an ornate dance hall two times larger of the White House and then commenced independently demolishing the East Wing to build it.
He has performed deeds 10,000 times as bad – the current estimate of deaths resulting from his reductions to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and rising, and presently an analysis forecast his fossil fuel policies would kill an additional 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No previous president would have risked – genuinely, no previous leader would have contemplated – unilaterally destroying major areas of the presidential residence to construct a royal-themed celebration hall, with the direct cooperation of numerous America's wealthiest, almost all of whom have business with the government.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the world' to 'the gentle will succumb from cholera'
As confusing as it is to observe the president try to upend the traditional concept of democracy and substitute it with its direct contrary, there exists a significant segment of Americans who might not perceive it completely novel. This includes individuals like us – among senior generations almost a majority – who were raised as conventional Protestant believers.
We have watched across decades as politically conservative religious groups transformed the Christ we were raised with into the total contrary of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they converted a persona of love into a symbol of hate who approves precisely the cruelties that he criticized in biblical teachings; this has happened at a slower pace, over decades instead of months, but it is nonetheless unsettling in the same ways, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Takes Hold
Therefore allow me to outline the Savior from my upbringing, since in theory the Savior is the core within Christian belief, and given that the rapidly expanding group among Americans might have little sense of him as they consider themselves atheists or agnostics or nones. I raise no objection with these different approaches, nor with alternative spiritual paths; but I do think that there are pearls of significant worth in biblical accounts.
It is emphatically not the account of an authoritative monarch appearing; conversely, a baby is born to parents without shelter in a storage space, who must quickly flee to a foreign land to avoid undercover officers. The child matures in modest conditions, a working carpenter; his message concerns compassion for others, especially for the poor – not merely emotional affection, but tangible care, shown by providing food and sheltering. Jesus' answer to violence is to offer the opposite cheek – not as a demonstration of passive acceptance, but as a way to instruct the assailant; his method regarding offenses is that if someone steals your jacket you ought to provide him your sweater as well.
The evident and clear fact that the Savior in biblical accounts advocates for a form of radical love concentrated on the needy is what has always made the Christian faith rather a provocative belief system: appealing to the general public, but because of its natural unconventionality needing to be contained. During the 1950s it was restrained through watering down – Protestant Christianity was so widespread that it essentially baptized the status quo.
A Conflict for the Highest Within Us
So I have been encouraged to see the persistent defiance regarding Trump arise over the last twelve months. It has served as significant comfort to assist in constructing the movement that has demonstrated publicly in rally after rally, and likely has encouraged voters to participate in numbers in the off-year elections. We will need to persist with it, and with identical determination, with American flags at every demonstration and appeals to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We shall be interrogated ... regarding how you welcomed the foreigner? Did you welcome them and receive them or reject?
The country is optimally secured, in other words, through connection to the highest within national tradition, just as Christianity is best defended by reference to what makes it special and magnificent, particularly the pattern of the Savior. In neither case does it imply acting as if the most damaging regarding America and Christianity never occurred; it signifies both humility and belief, a combination that serious national faithful should be comfortable with.
