The Trump movement's most revealing and distinctive instances – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor most senseless, but perhaps its most illuminating – occurred earlier this fall. In the course of several weeks, the American president started showing all observers his plans for a gilded ballroom twice the size compared to the White House and then commenced solo dismantling the East Wing portion to build it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe – the present calculation of deaths due to his slashing to USAID amounts to 600,000 and rising, and this week an analysis projected his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have attempted – really, no other president would have imagined – independently wrecking large sections of the presidential residence 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 went from 'the gentle will obtain the world' to 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As bewildering as it is to observe the president attempt to overturn the old idea about democracy and replace it with its direct contrary, there is one large group among Americans who wouldn't consider it totally unfamiliar. That is those of us – among senior generations almost a majority – who were raised within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have watched across decades while conservative evangelical congregations converted the Savior we learned about into exactly the opposite of our understanding of him. Essentially, they turned a figure of love into an icon of hate who blesses exactly the harshness that he condemned in biblical teachings; this change developed at a slower pace, over decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless disturbing via comparable methods, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Takes Hold
Therefore allow me to outline the Savior from my childhood, as conceptually the Savior is the core of Christian religion, and given that the quickly increasing segment within America could have minimal awareness about him because they identify as non-believers or agnostics or religiously unaffiliated. I have no problem with any of these traditions, nor with any other faith; yet I maintain that there are pearls of significant worth in biblical accounts.
It is decidedly absolutely not the story of a mighty king emerging; conversely, an infant arrives to homeless parents in a storage space, who must quickly flee to a different country to avoid secret police. The infant develops in simple surroundings, an employed craftsman; his message focuses on affection for others, specifically for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but practical compassion, demonstrated through nourishing and sheltering. Christ's response to hostility is to present the opposite cheek – not as a demonstration of passive acceptance, but as a means to teach the attacker; his method regarding offenses is that if someone steals your jacket you must offer them your pullover as well.
The apparent and straightforward truth that Christ in biblical accounts advocates for a type of extreme compassion concentrated on the impoverished has consistently rendered Christian religion somewhat of a controversial faith: attractive to the general public, but owing to its inherent radicalness needing to be restrained. In the 1950s it was controlled through watering down – The Protestant faith was so widespread that it practically sanctified existing conditions.
A Struggle for the Best of Us
Hence I have become encouraged to see the steadfast resistance to Trump develop in this past year. It has provided great solace to help build the initiative that has demonstrated publicly through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated citizens to show up in numbers in interim political contests. We will need to maintain it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags throughout each rally and appeals to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We shall be interrogated ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you welcome them and receive them or refuse?
The country is optimally secured, essentially, by reference to the best within national tradition, similar to Christianity is optimally secured through connection to that which renders it distinctive and beautiful, specifically the model of Jesus. In all circumstances does it imply pretending the most negative regarding America and religious tradition never occurred; it means both humility and conviction, a mixture that committed US believers should embrace.
