The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and characteristic moments – not its most crucial, nor cruelest, nor most threatening, nor most senseless, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. During the period of multiple weeks, the American president began displaying everyone his designs for a lavish reception room double the dimensions compared to the White House and then commenced unilaterally ripping down the eastern section to construct it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe – the current estimate of fatalities resulting from his reductions to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and this week research forecast his petroleum strategies would result in fatalities another 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No previous president would have risked – truly, no former commander would have imagined – solo demolishing significant portions of the presidential residence to construct a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the active collaboration of some of America's wealthiest, nearly all of which have business with the government.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the world' to 'the humble will perish to cholera'
As disorienting as it is to observe the leader try to upend the established notion about democracy and replace it with its complete opposite, there exists a significant segment within America who might not perceive it entirely new. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations close to half – who were educated as conventional Protestant believers.
We have witnessed throughout the years as politically conservative religious groups turned the Jesus we learned about into exactly the opposite of our perception of his character. Fundamentally, they transformed an image of love into an icon of hate who endorses precisely the cruelties that he condemned in scripture; this change developed more gradually, across decades rather than months, however it is still disturbing in the same ways, a confusing personal impact for countless people.
A Harmful Christianity Gains Ground
Therefore allow me to outline the Christ from my childhood, because theoretically Christ is the focus of Christian religion, and given that the rapidly expanding group within America may possess limited understanding about him since they are skeptics or agnostics or nones. I raise no objection with any of these traditions, nor with alternative spiritual paths; yet I maintain that there are pearls of great price within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly not the account of a mighty king arising; instead, an infant arrives to homeless parents in a storage space, who are forced to hastily depart to a different country to escape covert authorities. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, a laboring woodworker; his doctrine focuses on affection for other people, specifically for the poor – not simply tender feelings, but a concrete one, shown by providing food and protecting. Jesus' answer to violence is to turn the opposite cheek – not as a demonstration of passive acceptance, but as a method to educate the attacker; his approach to wrongdoing states that when an individual takes your coat you should give them your pullover too.
The apparent and straightforward fact that the Savior from scripture requests a type of radical love focused on the impoverished is what has always made Christian religion somewhat of a scandalous religion: engaging for the masses, but because of its intrinsic extremism demanding to be controlled. During the 1950s it was controlled via weakening – The Protestant faith was so prevalent that it basically blessed current circumstances.
A Battle for the Finest Among Us
Therefore I have felt encouraged to observe the persistent defiance against Trump emerge in this past year. It has provided great solace to help build the movement that has taken to the streets in rally after rally, and likely has encouraged citizens to participate in significant amounts in interim political contests. We will need to maintain it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags during all protests and appeals to the highest qualities of American history.
We will be questioned ... regarding how you welcomed the immigrant? Did you welcome them and welcome him or reject?
The country is optimally secured, essentially, by relationship to the highest within national tradition, just as Christianity is optimally secured by relationship to what makes it unique and wonderful, which is the example of Jesus. In both situations does it mean pretending the most negative of both America and Christianity was nonexistent; it means both meekness and conviction, a combination that committed national faithful ought to accept.
