The Trump movement's most illuminating and characteristic moments – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but perhaps its most illuminating – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of a few weeks, the nation's leader began displaying the public his designs for a gilded ballroom twice the size than the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the East Wing to erect it.
He has committed acts 10,000 times as bad – the current estimate of fatalities from his cuts to international aid stands at 600,000 and growing, and this week research forecast his petroleum strategies would cause deaths another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have risked – truly, no previous leader would have imagined – independently wrecking large sections of the executive mansion to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of some of America's wealthiest, almost all of whom maintain dealings with public institutions.
We moved from 'the gentle will obtain the planet' into 'the humble will perish from cholera'
As disorienting as it is to observe the president attempt to overturn the established notion of democracy and exchange it with its polar opposite, there exists a significant segment among Americans who wouldn't consider it entirely new. This includes individuals like us – among senior generations almost a majority – who were brought up as conventional Protestant believers.
We have witnessed over the years as politically conservative religious groups transformed the Christ we grew up with into the complete reverse of our understanding of him. Fundamentally, they turned a figure of affection into a figure of hostility who blesses specifically the brutality that he denounced in scripture; this transformation occurred more slowly, across decades instead of months, however it is still unsettling in the same ways, a disorienting gut punch for countless people.
A Toxic Christianity Establishes Itself
Hence I shall explain the Jesus that I grew up with, because theoretically Christ is the focus within Christian belief, and because the quickly increasing segment within America may possess limited understanding about him since they are skeptics 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 there are pearls of substantial value within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly definitely not the narrative of a mighty king arising; conversely, a child comes into the world to parents without shelter in an automotive shelter, who must quickly flee to another nation to evade covert authorities. The infant develops in humble circumstances, a laboring woodworker; his message focuses on affection for fellow humans, particularly for the disadvantaged – not simply tender feelings, but tangible care, demonstrated through nourishing and sheltering. Christ's response to violence is to present the additional cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a way to instruct the attacker; his approach to wrongdoing indicates that whenever someone steals your jacket you should give the person your additional clothing as well.
The obvious and direct reality that Christ of the gospels requests a kind of extreme compassion concentrated on the needy is what has always made the Christian faith something of a controversial faith: attractive to the general public, but due to its intrinsic extremism needing to be restrained. In the 1950s it was restrained through watering down – Protestantism was so widespread that it basically sanctified existing conditions.
A Conflict for the Best Within Us
Hence I have become inspired to witness the persistent defiance to Trump emerge in this past year. It has served as significant comfort to participate in developing the initiative that has demonstrated publicly in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated electorate to turn out in numbers in the off-year elections. We must have to persist with it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags at every demonstration and appeals to the best parts of American history.
We're going to be asked ... how did you receive the immigrant? Did you welcome them and welcome him or refuse?
America is best defended, to put it differently, through connection to the best within national tradition, similar to Christianity is optimally secured through connection to elements that cause it to be unique and magnificent, particularly the pattern of Jesus. In both situations does it imply feigning the most damaging of both America and religious tradition did not happen; it represents both meekness and faith, a combination that serious national faithful should be comfortable with.
