The Trump phenomenon's most telling and characteristic moments – not its most significant, nor cruelest, nor most hazardous, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. During the period of a few weeks, the American president started showing all observers his plans for an ornate dance hall twice the size than the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the East Wing portion to build it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of casualties due to his slashing to USAID stands at 600,000 and growing, and this week a study predicted his fossil fuel policies would cause deaths another 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No other president would have dared – truly, no previous leader would have conceived – unilaterally destroying significant portions of the executive mansion to build a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of numerous the richest Americans, almost all of whom maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We went from 'the gentle will obtain the planet' to 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the president try to upend the old idea of democracy and exchange it with its polar opposite, there exists a significant segment among Americans who should not find it totally unfamiliar. This includes individuals like us – among senior generations a near majority – who were educated within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have witnessed across decades as politically conservative religious groups transformed the Christ we were raised with into the total contrary of our understanding of him. Essentially, they transformed an image of love into a symbol of animosity who blesses precisely the cruelties that he condemned in scripture; this change developed at a slower pace, over decades as opposed to months, however it is still unsettling through similar means, a bewildering emotional blow for countless people.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Christ that I grew up with, since in theory Jesus is the center of any Christian faith, and since the rapidly expanding group among Americans could have minimal awareness of him as they consider themselves skeptics or doubters or nones. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with any other faith; but I do think that contain precious wisdom of substantial value within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly definitely not the account of a mighty king emerging; instead, a baby is born to parents without shelter in a garage, who must quickly flee to a foreign land to avoid undercover officers. The baby grows up in modest conditions, a working carpenter; his doctrine is about love for others, particularly for the poor – not simply tender feelings, but practical compassion, shown by providing food and sheltering. Christ's response to hostility is to present the other cheek – not as a demonstration of passive acceptance, but as a way to teach the assailant; his approach to wrongdoing states that when a person pilfers your coat you should give them your pullover as well.
The evident and clear reality that the Savior from scripture calls for a form of radical love concentrated on the poor has perpetually caused the Christian faith rather a scandalous religion: appealing to the masses, but owing to its natural unconventionality requiring to be contained. During the 1950s it was controlled via weakening – The Protestant faith was so dominant that it essentially baptized the status quo.
A Conflict for the Best Within Us
Hence I have become heartened to witness the steadfast resistance to Trump arise during the previous year. It has been significant comfort to participate in developing the movement that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and likely has encouraged electorate to participate in numbers 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 of American history.
We shall be interrogated ... regarding how you welcomed the stranger? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or not?
The nation is most protected, essentially, through connection to the best within national tradition, similar to Christianity is most protected through connection to that which renders it distinctive and beautiful, particularly the pattern of Christ. In neither case does it imply pretending the most negative of both America and religious tradition was nonexistent; it signifies both modesty and faith, a mixture that committed American Christians ought to accept.
