The Trump movement's most revealing and characteristic moments – not its most crucial, nor most brutal, nor most hazardous, nor stupidest, but perhaps its most illuminating – occurred earlier this fall. During the period of a few weeks, the American president began displaying the public his plans for a lavish reception room two times larger than the White House and subsequently started solo dismantling the East Wing to build it.
He has done things countless times more severe – the current estimate of fatalities due to his slashing to international aid stands at 600,000 and increasing, and this week research predicted his energy policies would result in fatalities an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have attempted – really, no other president would have contemplated – solo demolishing large sections of the White House to build a royal-themed celebration hall, with the active collaboration of multiple America's wealthiest, nearly all of which have business with public institutions.
We moved from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' to 'the humble will perish to cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the president try to upend the traditional concept of democracy and replace it with its polar opposite, there is one large group of Americans who should not find it completely novel. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations a near majority – who were raised within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have watched across decades as politically conservative religious groups turned the Jesus we learned about into the complete reverse of our understanding of him. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of love into an icon of hate who blesses exactly the harshness that he criticized in the Gospel; this change developed more gradually, over decades instead of months, yet it remains disconcerting in the same ways, a confusing personal impact for countless people.
A Harmful Christianity Establishes Itself
So let me first describe the Jesus from my childhood, since in theory the Savior is the core of any Christian faith, and since the rapidly expanding group within America might have little sense of him because they identify as non-believers or doubters or nones. I have no problem 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 unquestionably definitely not the account of an authoritative monarch appearing; instead, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in a garage, who need to rapidly escape to a different country to avoid undercover officers. The child matures in simple surroundings, a laboring woodworker; his teaching focuses on affection for fellow humans, specifically for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but practical compassion, demonstrated through nourishing and housing. Christ's response to aggression is to turn the additional cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a method to educate the attacker; his method regarding offenses indicates that whenever a person pilfers your jacket you should give him your sweater too.
The evident and clear truth that the Jesus from scripture advocates for a type of radical love focused on the needy is what has always made Christianity something of a controversial faith: appealing to the general public, but because of its natural unconventionality requiring to be controlled. During the 1950s it was restrained via weakening – Protestant Christianity was so prevalent that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Struggle for the Highest Among Us
Hence I have become heartened to observe the determined opposition against Trump arise in this past year. It has been substantial consolation to help build the initiative that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and seems to have inspired voters to show up in large quantities in the off-year elections. We will need to continue it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags during all protests and requests to the highest qualities in US history.
We will be questioned ... about how you treated the stranger? Did you receive him and welcome him or refuse?
The country is optimally secured, in other words, by relationship to the highest in US heritage, exactly as the Christian faith is best defended through connection to that which renders it distinctive and beautiful, specifically the model of Jesus. In both situations does it suggest acting as if the most damaging regarding America and religious tradition was nonexistent; it signifies both modesty and belief, a combination that committed American Christians should embrace.
