Trumpism's most illuminating and characteristic occasions – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most hazardous, nor stupidest, but perhaps its most illuminating – came earlier this autumn. In the course of a few weeks, the American president commenced revealing the public his designs for a lavish reception room double the dimensions of the White House and then commenced solo dismantling the eastern section to erect it.
He has done things ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of deaths from his cuts to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and rising, and presently research projected his fossil fuel policies would cause deaths another 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No former leader would have attempted – really, no former commander would have conceived – independently wrecking major areas of the presidential residence to build a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of multiple America's wealthiest, almost all of whom maintain dealings with the government.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the world' into 'the humble will perish from cholera'
As confusing 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 among Americans who should not find it totally unfamiliar. This includes individuals like us – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were educated as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have observed over the years while conservative evangelical congregations converted the Savior we learned about into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they transformed an image of compassion into a figure of hate who endorses precisely the cruelties that he criticized in the Gospel; this has happened more slowly, through multiple decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless disconcerting via comparable methods, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Establishes Itself
Hence I shall explain the Christ from my upbringing, since in theory the Savior is the core within Christian belief, and because the fastest-growing cadre of Americans may possess limited understanding about him since they are atheists or uncertain individuals or religiously unaffiliated. I take no issue with these various perspectives, nor with any other faith; yet I maintain that contain precious wisdom of significant worth in the Christian story.
It is decidedly absolutely not the account of an authoritative monarch appearing; rather, a child comes into the world to displaced parents in a storage space, who are forced to hastily depart to a different country to avoid covert authorities. The infant develops in simple surroundings, a laboring woodworker; his doctrine concerns compassion for others, particularly for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but a concrete one, expressed by feeding and sheltering. Jesus' answer to violence is to present the opposite cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a way to instruct the aggressor; his crime policy is that if an individual takes your coat you ought to provide the person your additional clothing as well.
The evident and clear truth that the Savior from scripture requests a kind of extreme compassion concentrated on the needy has consistently rendered the Christian faith somewhat of a provocative belief system: appealing to the general public, but due to its inherent radicalness demanding to be restrained. In the 1950s it was restrained by dilution – Protestant Christianity was so widespread that it practically sanctified existing conditions.
A Struggle for the Highest Within Us
Hence I have become heartened to observe the determined opposition to Trump develop in this past year. It has been significant comfort to participate in developing the movement that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and seems to have inspired citizens to turn out in significant amounts in the off-year elections. We will need to continue it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags throughout each rally and requests to the highest qualities in US history.
We're going to be asked ... how did you receive the immigrant? Did you welcome them and welcome him or not?
America is best defended, in other words, through connection to the highest within national tradition, similar to Christianity is optimally secured through connection to that which renders it unique and wonderful, which is the example of Christ. In neither case does it imply feigning the most negative about the nation and religious tradition was nonexistent; it represents both meekness and faith, a blend that committed American Christians should be comfortable with.
