The Trump movement's most telling and characteristic occasions – not its most significant, nor most harsh, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but possibly its most revealing – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of several weeks, the nation's leader commenced revealing everyone his plans for a gilded ballroom double the dimensions of the White House and then began solo dismantling the East Wing to erect it.
He has committed acts countless times more severe – the existing assessment of fatalities resulting from his reductions to foreign assistance stands at 600,000 and increasing, and recently a study forecast his fossil fuel policies would kill 1.3 million more. Yet nothing as characteristic. No other president would have dared – truly, no previous leader would have imagined – independently wrecking significant portions of the executive mansion in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of numerous the nation's most affluent, nearly all of which have business with public institutions.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the world' into 'the humble will perish to cholera'
As confusing as it is to watch the president try to upend the established notion about democracy and substitute it with its complete opposite, there exists a significant segment within America who wouldn't consider it entirely new. That encompasses people such as ourselves – within elder demographics a near majority – who were educated as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have observed over the years as rightwing evangelical churches transformed the Christ we were raised with into the complete reverse of our understanding of him. Essentially, they converted a persona of compassion into a symbol of hostility who blesses specifically the brutality that he criticized in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred more slowly, over decades instead of months, but it is nonetheless disturbing in the same ways, a bewildering emotional blow for numerous individuals.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
Hence I shall explain the Christ that I grew up with, as conceptually Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and since the fastest-growing cadre within America might have little sense regarding him as they consider themselves atheists or uncertain individuals or nones. I have no problem with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; but I do think that contain precious wisdom of significant worth in biblical accounts.
It is decidedly absolutely not the story of a mighty king appearing; rather, an infant arrives to displaced parents in a storage space, who must quickly flee to a different country to evade covert authorities. The child matures in modest conditions, an employed craftsman; his teaching is about love for fellow humans, specifically for the poor – not simply tender feelings, but tangible care, demonstrated through nourishing and sheltering. Jesus' answer to hostility is to offer the other cheek – not as an act of passive acceptance, but as a means to instruct the aggressor; his crime policy states that when someone steals your coat you should give them your pullover as well.
The evident and direct reality that Christ from scripture requests a type of extreme compassion focused on the poor is what has always made the Christian faith rather a controversial faith: appealing to the populace, but owing to its inherent radicalness demanding to be restrained. In the 1950s it was restrained by dilution – Protestant Christianity was so dominant that it essentially blessed current circumstances.
A Battle for the Best Within Us
Therefore I have felt inspired to witness the steadfast resistance to Trump develop in this past year. It has been substantial consolation to help build the initiative that has protested openly in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated voters to participate in significant amounts in interim political contests. We will need to persist with it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags throughout each rally and appeals to the finest aspects of American history.
We're going to be asked ... how did you receive the foreigner? Did you welcome them and receive them or refuse?
America is best defended, in other words, through connection to the finest within national tradition, exactly as the Christian faith 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 acting as if the worst regarding America and Christianity never occurred; it signifies both modesty and belief, a mixture that serious American Christians ought to accept.
