The Trump movement's most revealing and defining instances – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor most senseless, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. In the course of several weeks, the US president started showing the public his intentions for an ornate dance hall double the dimensions of the White House and subsequently started independently demolishing the East Wing to construct it.
He has committed acts countless times more severe – the existing assessment of casualties from his cuts to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and recently a study forecast his petroleum strategies would kill 1.3 million more. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have attempted – really, no other president would have conceived – independently wrecking major areas of the presidential residence in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of multiple the nation's most affluent, almost all of whom have business with federal agencies.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the planet' to 'the humble will perish from cholera'
As disorienting as it is to observe the president attempt to overturn the old idea regarding democracy and replace it with its complete opposite, there is one large group of Americans who wouldn't consider it completely novel. That encompasses people such as ourselves – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were raised within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have watched across decades as politically conservative religious groups turned the Jesus we were raised with into exactly the opposite of our perception of his character. At its most basic, they turned a figure of affection into a symbol of animosity who approves exactly the harshness that he criticized in scripture; this has happened at a slower pace, over decades instead of months, however it is still unsettling through similar means, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Gains Ground
So let me first describe the Christ that I grew up with, because theoretically Jesus is the center of Christian religion, and since the quickly increasing segment of Americans might have little sense of him since they are skeptics or doubters or nones. I have no problem with any of these traditions, nor with different religions; yet I maintain that there are pearls of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is emphatically definitely not the narrative of an authoritative monarch arising; rather, a baby is born to homeless parents in a garage, who must quickly flee to a foreign land to evade undercover officers. The infant develops in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his doctrine concerns compassion for other people, specifically for the poor – not merely emotional affection, but a concrete one, shown by providing food and housing. Jesus' answer to hostility is to offer the additional cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a way to instruct the assailant; his method regarding offenses states that when a person pilfers your jacket you must offer them your pullover too.
The obvious and direct fact that the Jesus of the gospels calls for a kind of profound affection centered on the poor has consistently rendered Christian religion something of a provocative belief system: appealing to the populace, but due to its intrinsic extremism demanding to be restrained. In the fifties it was restrained through watering down – The Protestant faith was so prevalent that it practically sanctified existing conditions.
A Struggle for the Highest Within Us
Therefore I have felt encouraged to witness the determined opposition against Trump develop during the previous year. It has served as great solace to help build the initiative that has demonstrated publicly via continuous gatherings, and appears to have motivated citizens to show up in large quantities in interim political contests. We will need to maintain it, and with identical determination, with American flags at every demonstration and calls to the best parts of American history.
We will be questioned ... regarding how you welcomed the foreigner? Did you receive him and welcome him or reject?
The nation is most protected, essentially, through connection to the finest within national tradition, similar to Christianity is most protected through connection to that which renders it unique and magnificent, particularly the pattern of Christ. In both situations does it imply pretending the worst of both America and Christianity did not happen; it signifies both modesty and conviction, a mixture that committed US believers should be comfortable with.
