The Trump phenomenon's most illuminating and distinctive moments – not its most important, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor most foolish, but possibly its most revealing – emerged earlier this harvest season. During the period of a few weeks, the US president commenced revealing everyone his designs for an ornate dance hall twice the size of the White House and subsequently started independently demolishing the East Wing portion to build it.
He has performed deeds 10,000 times as bad – the present calculation of casualties due to his slashing to foreign assistance stands at 600,000 and rising, and presently a study forecast his petroleum strategies would result in fatalities an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No former leader would have attempted – truly, no previous leader would have imagined – independently wrecking large sections of the executive mansion to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of some of the nation's most affluent, nearly all of which maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the world' into 'the humble will perish from cholera'
As disorienting as it is to observe the chief executive attempt to overturn the traditional concept about democracy and replace 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 raised as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have watched over the years while conservative evangelical congregations converted the Savior we were raised with into the total contrary of our perception of his character. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of love into an icon of hate who endorses precisely the cruelties that he denounced in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred more slowly, through multiple decades instead of months, however it is still disturbing in the same ways, a bewildering emotional blow for countless people.
A Toxic Christianity Establishes Itself
Hence I shall explain the Savior from my upbringing, as conceptually Christ is the focus within Christian belief, and given that the rapidly expanding group within America might have little sense regarding him since they are skeptics or uncertain individuals or spiritual independents. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with any other faith; but I do think that there are pearls of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is unquestionably definitely not the story of a powerful ruler appearing; instead, a baby is born to displaced parents in a storage space, who must quickly flee to another nation to escape secret police. The infant develops in humble circumstances, a laboring woodworker; his doctrine is about love for fellow humans, specifically for the poor – not merely emotional affection, but practical compassion, expressed by feeding and protecting. Jesus' answer to hostility is to present the opposite cheek – not as a demonstration of submissive tolerance, but as a way to teach the attacker; his approach to wrongdoing indicates that whenever a person pilfers your outer garment you must offer them your pullover too.
The evident and straightforward truth that the Jesus in biblical accounts calls for a kind of extreme compassion centered on the poor is what has always made Christianity something of a controversial faith: engaging for the general public, but owing to its inherent radicalness needing to be contained. During the 1950s it was contained through watering down – Protestantism was so widespread that it practically sanctified existing conditions.
A Struggle for the Highest Among Us
Hence I have become encouraged to observe the determined opposition regarding Trump emerge in this past year. It has provided great solace to help build the movement that has demonstrated publicly in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated voters to turn out in significant amounts in interim political contests. We must have to persist with it, and in the same spirit, featuring US banners at every demonstration and calls to the finest aspects of American history.
We're going to be asked ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you welcome them and embrace them or refuse?
America is best defended, essentially, by reference to the best in US heritage, exactly as the Christian faith is optimally secured by reference to what makes it unique and magnificent, specifically the model of the Savior. In both situations does it imply acting as if the worst about the nation and Christianity never occurred; it means both modesty and faith, a mixture that genuine US believers should be comfortable with.