The Trump movement's most revealing and characteristic moments – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most threatening, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – came earlier this autumn. During the period of multiple weeks, the American president began displaying everyone his intentions for a lavish reception room twice the size than the White House and subsequently started independently demolishing the East Wing to build it.
He has done things countless times more severe – the current estimate of casualties due to his slashing to international aid amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and recently an analysis projected his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities 1.3 million more. Yet nothing as characteristic. No previous president would have dared – truly, no previous leader would have conceived – independently wrecking large sections of the executive mansion to build a royal-themed celebration hall, with the active collaboration of multiple the nation's most affluent, nearly all of which conduct transactions with public institutions.
We went from 'the gentle will obtain the Earth' toward 'the gentle will succumb of cholera'
As confusing as it is to watch the chief executive try to upend the established notion of democracy and replace it with its complete opposite, there is one large group within America who wouldn't consider it entirely new. This includes individuals like us – in older age cohorts almost a majority – who were educated within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have witnessed over the years while conservative evangelical congregations transformed the Christ we grew up with into the complete reverse of our understanding of him. Essentially, they transformed an image of affection into an icon of hostility who approves exactly the harshness that he condemned in biblical teachings; this change developed more gradually, over decades rather than months, yet it remains unsettling in the same ways, a confusing personal impact for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Gains Ground
So let me first describe the Jesus that I grew up with, since in theory the Savior is the core of any Christian faith, and given that the fastest-growing cadre within America may possess limited understanding about him because they identify as skeptics or agnostics or religiously unaffiliated. I raise no objection with any of these traditions, nor with different religions; however I believe that there are pearls of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is unquestionably absolutely not the account of an authoritative monarch emerging; rather, a child comes into the world to homeless parents in an automotive shelter, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to avoid covert authorities. The baby grows up in modest conditions, an employed craftsman; his teaching focuses on affection for other people, specifically for the disadvantaged – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, demonstrated through nourishing and housing. Christ's response to hostility is to present the additional cheek – not as a demonstration of submissive tolerance, but as a means to teach the attacker; his approach to wrongdoing states that when an individual takes your jacket you must offer the person your additional clothing as well.
The apparent and direct reality that the Jesus from scripture advocates for a form of profound affection centered on the impoverished is what has always made Christianity somewhat of a controversial faith: engaging for the populace, but owing to its inherent radicalness demanding to be contained. In the fifties it was contained through watering down – Protestantism was so prevalent that it essentially sanctified existing conditions.
A Conflict for the Best Within Us
Therefore I have felt encouraged to see the persistent defiance regarding Trump emerge during the previous year. It has been substantial consolation to help build the initiative that has demonstrated publicly in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated citizens to participate in significant amounts in the off-year elections. We must have to continue it, and through comparable resolve, displaying national flags at every demonstration and calls 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 not?
America is best defended, in other words, through connection to the highest in US heritage, just as Christianity is best defended by relationship to elements that cause it to be unique and magnificent, particularly the pattern of Christ. In all circumstances does it imply pretending the most damaging of both America and Christian faith never occurred; it means both humility and faith, a mixture that serious US believers should embrace.
