Trumpism's most revealing and distinctive occasions – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most threatening, nor most senseless, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of several weeks, the US president commenced revealing everyone his intentions for a gilded ballroom twice the size compared to the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the East Wing portion to construct it.
He has performed deeds 10,000 times as bad – the current estimate of fatalities due to his slashing to international aid is 600,000 and rising, and this week research forecast his fossil fuel policies would cause deaths 1.3 million more. But nothing as definitional. No former leader would have dared – genuinely, no other president would have contemplated – solo demolishing significant portions of the White House to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of some of the richest Americans, the majority of whom conduct transactions with public institutions.
We moved from 'the meek shall inherit the world' into 'the gentle will succumb to cholera'
As disorienting as it is to witness the chief executive attempt to overturn the old idea about democracy and substitute it with its polar opposite, there exists a significant segment within America who wouldn't consider it totally unfamiliar. That is those of us – among senior generations almost a majority – who were raised as conventional Protestant believers.
We have witnessed throughout the years as politically conservative religious groups turned the Jesus we learned about into the complete reverse of our perception of his character. Essentially, they turned a figure of compassion into a symbol of hostility who blesses precisely the cruelties that he denounced in biblical teachings; this change developed more gradually, over decades rather than months, yet it remains disconcerting in the same ways, a confusing personal impact for many of us.
A Toxic Christianity Gains Ground
Hence I shall explain the Savior from my childhood, since in theory Christ is the focus within Christian belief, and given that the fastest-growing cadre of Americans may possess limited understanding regarding him since they are non-believers or agnostics or nones. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; but I do think that there are pearls of great price in the Christian story.
It is decidedly not the story of a powerful ruler appearing; rather, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in a storage space, who must quickly flee to another nation to escape secret police. The infant develops in simple surroundings, an employed craftsman; his message is about love for fellow humans, specifically for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but tangible care, expressed by feeding and sheltering. Christ's response to aggression is to offer the other cheek – not as a demonstration of passive acceptance, but as a way to educate the assailant; his crime policy is that if someone steals your coat you must offer them your pullover as well.
The apparent and direct reality that the Jesus of the gospels calls for a form of extreme compassion focused on the impoverished has perpetually caused Christianity rather a provocative belief system: appealing to the general public, but owing to its natural unconventionality demanding to be controlled. In the fifties it was restrained via weakening – The Protestant faith was so dominant that it basically baptized the status quo.
A Struggle for the Highest Within Us
So I have been inspired to see the steadfast resistance regarding Trump emerge over the last twelve months. It has served as substantial consolation to participate in developing the movement that has demonstrated publicly via continuous gatherings, and likely has encouraged citizens to turn out in numbers in interim political contests. We will need to continue it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags throughout each rally and calls to the finest aspects within national heritage.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or reject?
The nation is most protected, in other words, by reference to the finest about American history, just as Christianity is best defended by reference to what makes it distinctive and magnificent, specifically the model of the Savior. In all circumstances does it mean acting as if the worst about the nation and Christian faith was nonexistent; it signifies both humility and faith, a blend that committed national faithful should be comfortable with.
