The Trump movement's most telling and characteristic moments – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most threatening, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – came earlier this autumn. During the period of a few weeks, the nation's leader commenced revealing the public his intentions for an ornate dance hall twice the size of the White House and subsequently started independently demolishing the East Wing to construct it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of casualties due to his slashing to USAID is 600,000 and rising, and recently research projected his energy policies would kill 1.3 million more. But nothing as definitional. No former leader would have attempted – genuinely, no previous leader would have imagined – independently wrecking significant portions of the executive mansion to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of some of the richest Americans, almost all of whom conduct transactions with the government.
We transitioned from 'the humble will receive the planet' toward 'the humble will perish to cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the president attempt to overturn the established notion about democracy and replace it with its polar opposite, there is one large group within America who should not find it completely novel. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations close to half – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have watched throughout the years as politically conservative religious groups turned the Jesus we grew up with into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they turned a figure of love into a figure of hostility who approves precisely the cruelties that he criticized in scripture; this change developed more gradually, across decades rather than months, however it is still unsettling in the same ways, a confusing personal impact for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Takes Hold
Therefore allow me to outline the Christ that I grew up with, as conceptually the Savior is the core within Christian belief, and because the rapidly expanding group of Americans may possess limited understanding about him because they identify as non-believers or doubters or nones. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with any other faith; but I do think that there are pearls of significant worth in biblical accounts.
It is unquestionably absolutely not the story of a mighty king arising; rather, a baby is born to displaced parents in a garage, who must quickly flee to a foreign land to evade secret police. The child matures in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his message is about love for other people, particularly for the disadvantaged – not simply tender feelings, but tangible care, shown by providing food and sheltering. The Savior's reaction to hostility is to offer the other cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a way to instruct the aggressor; his method regarding offenses is that if an individual takes your outer garment you ought to provide the person your additional clothing as well.
The apparent and direct reality that the Savior of the gospels calls for a kind of radical love focused on the poor is what has always made the Christian faith rather a provocative belief system: attractive to the general public, but owing to its natural unconventionality needing to be controlled. In the fifties it was contained by dilution – Protestant Christianity was so widespread that it basically baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Best Within Us
Therefore I have felt encouraged to witness the steadfast resistance regarding Trump emerge during the previous year. It has been significant comfort to assist in constructing the campaign that has taken to the streets through repeated demonstrations, and seems to have inspired voters to participate in large quantities in interim political contests. We must have to maintain it, and in the same spirit, with American flags throughout each rally and calls to the finest aspects in US history.
We will be questioned ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you accept these individuals and receive them or reject?
The nation is most protected, in other words, by reference to the highest about American history, just as Christianity is most protected by relationship to elements that cause it to be distinctive and wonderful, particularly the pattern of the Savior. In all circumstances does it mean pretending the worst about the nation and Christianity did not happen; it means both meekness and belief, a combination that serious US believers should be comfortable with.
