Trumpism's most telling and distinctive instances – not its most important, nor most brutal, nor most threatening, nor stupidest, but possibly its most revealing – occurred earlier this fall. In the course of a few weeks, the nation's leader started showing the public his designs for a lavish reception room twice the size of the White House and then commenced solo dismantling the East Wing to build it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of fatalities resulting from his reductions to USAID amounts to 600,000 and rising, and recently an analysis predicted his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No former leader would have dared – genuinely, no former commander would have contemplated – unilaterally destroying major areas of the White House to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of numerous America's wealthiest, almost all of whom have business with public institutions.
We moved from 'the gentle will obtain the Earth' into 'the humble will perish to cholera'
As bewildering as it is to watch the president try to upend the old idea about democracy and substitute it with its direct contrary, there remains a substantial portion within America who should not find it completely novel. That is those of us – among senior generations almost a majority – who were raised as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have watched throughout the years as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we grew up with into exactly the opposite of our understanding of him. Essentially, they converted a persona of compassion into an icon of animosity who approves precisely the cruelties that he condemned in scripture; this change developed more gradually, across decades instead of months, however it is still disturbing in the same ways, a confusing personal impact for numerous individuals.
A Harmful Christianity Takes Hold
Hence I shall explain the Christ from my upbringing, as conceptually Jesus is the center within Christian belief, and since the fastest-growing cadre within America might have little sense regarding him since they are non-believers or doubters or nones. I take no issue with any of these traditions, nor with alternative spiritual paths; yet I maintain that there are pearls of great price within Christian narrative.
It is emphatically absolutely not the account of a mighty king emerging; conversely, an infant arrives to homeless parents in a storage space, who are forced to hastily depart to a different country to avoid undercover officers. The baby grows up in modest conditions, an employed craftsman; his teaching is about love for other people, especially for the poor – not merely emotional affection, but a concrete one, expressed by feeding and housing. Christ's response to hostility is to present the additional cheek – not as a gesture of submissive tolerance, but as a way to teach the aggressor; his approach to wrongdoing states that when someone steals your outer garment you ought to provide the person your additional clothing as well.
The apparent and direct fact that the Jesus from scripture requests a kind of radical love centered on the impoverished is what has always made Christian religion somewhat of a controversial faith: attractive to the general public, but owing to its natural unconventionality demanding to be controlled. During the 1950s it was restrained through watering down – The Protestant faith was so widespread that it essentially blessed current circumstances.
A Struggle for the Highest of Us
So I have been inspired to see the steadfast resistance against Trump emerge over the last twelve months. It has provided great solace to help build the movement that has demonstrated publicly via continuous gatherings, and appears to have motivated voters to show up in significant amounts during minor elections. We must have to continue it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags at every demonstration and requests to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you receive him and embrace them or not?
The country is optimally secured, to put it differently, through connection to the best in US heritage, similar to Christianity is best defended through connection to what makes it distinctive and magnificent, specifically the model of Christ. In neither case does it mean pretending the worst regarding America and Christianity never occurred; it represents both humility and conviction, a mixture that genuine US believers ought to accept.
