Trumpism's most illuminating and characteristic moments – not its most crucial, nor cruelest, nor most dangerous, nor most senseless, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of multiple weeks, the US president commenced revealing all observers his designs for an ornate dance hall twice the size of the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the East Wing to build it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of deaths from his cuts to USAID stands at 600,000 and increasing, and presently an analysis forecast his energy policies would kill an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have risked – truly, no former commander would have imagined – unilaterally destroying large sections of the White House to construct a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the enthusiastic participation of some of America's wealthiest, the majority of whom conduct transactions with public institutions.
We transitioned from 'the humble will receive the Earth' toward 'the gentle will succumb to cholera'
As disorienting as it is to observe the president attempt to overturn the old idea of democracy and substitute it with its direct contrary, there exists a significant segment of Americans who wouldn't consider it totally unfamiliar. That encompasses people such as ourselves – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were brought up as conventional Protestant believers.
We have observed across decades while conservative evangelical congregations converted the Savior we were raised with into the complete reverse of our understanding of him. Essentially, they converted a persona of compassion into an icon of animosity who blesses exactly the harshness that he denounced in the Gospel; this transformation occurred more gradually, through multiple decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless unsettling via comparable methods, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground
So let me first describe the Christ from my childhood, as conceptually Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and given that the quickly increasing segment within America might have little sense regarding him because they identify as skeptics or doubters or spiritual independents. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with any other faith; however I believe that contain precious wisdom of substantial value within Christian narrative.
It is emphatically definitely not the account of an authoritative monarch emerging; conversely, an infant arrives to displaced parents in an automotive shelter, who need to rapidly escape to a different country to avoid covert authorities. The child matures in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his message is about love for fellow humans, particularly for the poor – and not a sentimental love, but practical compassion, expressed by feeding and protecting. Christ's response to violence is to turn the opposite cheek – not as a demonstration of passive acceptance, but as a means to educate the aggressor; his method regarding offenses indicates that whenever a person pilfers your coat you should give him your sweater also.
The obvious and clear truth that the Jesus of the gospels requests a type of extreme compassion focused on the poor is what has always made the Christian faith something of a controversial faith: engaging for the populace, but owing to its inherent radicalness demanding to be restrained. During the 1950s it was contained via weakening – Protestantism was so widespread that it essentially sanctified existing conditions.
A Battle for the Finest Among Us
Therefore I have felt inspired to observe the steadfast resistance to Trump emerge over the last twelve months. It has served as great solace to participate in developing the movement that has demonstrated publicly in rally after rally, and seems to have inspired citizens to show up in large quantities in interim political contests. We will need to continue it, and through comparable resolve, featuring US banners throughout each rally and appeals to the best parts of American history.
We shall be interrogated ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you welcome them and embrace them or refuse?
America is best defended, essentially, through connection to the highest in US heritage, just as Christianity is best defended through connection to elements that cause it to be distinctive and magnificent, which is the example of Jesus. In both situations does it mean pretending the most negative regarding America and Christian faith never occurred; it signifies both meekness and faith, a mixture that committed national faithful ought to accept.
