The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and characteristic instances – not its most crucial, nor cruelest, nor most threatening, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – came earlier this autumn. Over the span of multiple weeks, the American president began displaying all observers his designs for an ornate dance hall twice the size of the White House and then began independently demolishing the eastern section to build it.
He has done things ten thousand times worse – the present calculation of fatalities resulting from his reductions to foreign assistance is 600,000 and rising, and presently an analysis projected his fossil fuel policies would cause deaths 1.3 million more. Yet nothing as characteristic. No previous president would have risked – really, no other president would have contemplated – unilaterally destroying significant portions of the presidential residence in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of some of the richest Americans, almost all of whom maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We moved from 'the gentle will obtain the Earth' toward 'the meek shall die of cholera'
As bewildering as it is to witness the president attempt to overturn the traditional concept about democracy and substitute it with its direct contrary, there is one large group among Americans who might not perceive it completely novel. That is those of us – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were educated within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have witnessed across decades as politically conservative religious groups converted the Savior we learned about into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. At its most basic, they converted a persona of compassion into an icon of hostility who blesses exactly the harshness that he criticized in the Gospel; this has happened more slowly, over decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless unsettling in the same ways, a confusing personal impact for countless people.
A Harmful Christianity Takes Hold
Hence I shall explain the Savior from my childhood, because theoretically Jesus is the center of Christian religion, and since the rapidly expanding group within America might have little sense about him as they consider themselves non-believers or doubters or religiously unaffiliated. I have no problem with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; but I do think that contain precious wisdom of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is emphatically not the narrative of a powerful ruler arising; conversely, a baby is born to homeless parents in an automotive shelter, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to avoid covert authorities. The child matures in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his doctrine concerns compassion for others, specifically for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, shown by providing food and sheltering. Christ's response to aggression is to offer the additional cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a means to educate the attacker; his crime policy states that when a person pilfers your coat you ought to provide the person your additional clothing too.
The obvious and direct fact that Christ from scripture calls for a form of radical love concentrated on the poor is what has always made the Christian faith somewhat of a provocative belief system: appealing to the masses, but due to its natural unconventionality demanding to be contained. In the 1950s it was contained through watering down – The Protestant faith was so widespread that it essentially blessed current circumstances.
A Conflict for the Best of Us
So I have been encouraged to witness the steadfast resistance to Trump develop in this past year. It has served as significant comfort to assist in constructing the campaign that has protested openly via continuous gatherings, and appears to have motivated voters to turn out in large quantities during minor elections. We shall require to persist with it, and with identical determination, displaying national flags throughout each rally and calls to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We're going to be asked ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or refuse?
The nation is most protected, essentially, by reference to the best within national tradition, exactly as the Christian faith is best defended through connection to that which renders it unique and magnificent, particularly the pattern of Christ. In both situations does it imply pretending the worst about the nation and Christian faith never occurred; it means both modesty and conviction, a mixture that committed American Christians should be comfortable with.
