The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and defining moments – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most threatening, nor most foolish, but perhaps its most illuminating – came earlier this autumn. During the period of multiple weeks, the US president started showing everyone his plans for a gilded ballroom twice the size compared to the White House and then commenced solo dismantling the East Wing to erect it.
He has committed acts countless times more severe – the current estimate of fatalities from his cuts to USAID is 600,000 and increasing, and this week an analysis projected his energy policies would kill an additional 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No other president would have attempted – genuinely, no other president would have conceived – unilaterally destroying major areas of the presidential residence to construct a royal-themed celebration hall, with the enthusiastic participation of some of America's wealthiest, nearly all of which maintain dealings with public institutions.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the world' to 'the meek shall die to cholera'
As confusing as it is to watch the president try to upend the traditional concept regarding democracy and exchange it with its direct contrary, there is one large group of Americans who might not perceive it completely novel. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations a near majority – who were educated as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have witnessed over the years while conservative evangelical congregations transformed the Christ we grew up with into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. At its most basic, they converted a persona of affection into a symbol of hostility who approves specifically the brutality that he denounced in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred more gradually, across decades rather than months, yet it remains unsettling through similar means, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Savior from my childhood, since in theory Christ is the focus within Christian belief, and since the fastest-growing cadre within America might have little sense about him since they are non-believers or uncertain individuals or nones. I take no issue with these various perspectives, nor with any other faith; but I do think that contain precious wisdom of substantial value in biblical accounts.
It is emphatically not the account of a powerful ruler appearing; conversely, a child comes into the world to displaced parents in an automotive shelter, who must quickly flee to a foreign land to avoid undercover officers. The child matures in modest conditions, an employed craftsman; his doctrine concerns compassion for fellow humans, specifically for the disadvantaged – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, shown by providing food and sheltering. The Savior's reaction to hostility is to offer the other cheek – not as a demonstration of submissive tolerance, but as a way to teach the aggressor; his approach to wrongdoing is that if an individual takes your outer garment you ought to provide him your sweater as well.
The evident and direct reality that the Jesus from scripture requests a form of radical love centered on the poor has consistently rendered Christian religion somewhat of a scandalous religion: attractive to the populace, but because of its natural unconventionality demanding to be restrained. During the 1950s it was restrained through watering down – Protestantism was so widespread that it practically sanctified existing conditions.
A Struggle for the Finest Among Us
Hence I have become heartened to see the persistent defiance against Trump develop during the previous year. It has served as substantial consolation to participate in developing the campaign that has demonstrated publicly via continuous gatherings, and likely has encouraged citizens to participate in numbers in interim political contests. We will need to continue it, and through comparable resolve, featuring US banners at every demonstration and requests to the best parts of American history.
We will be questioned ... regarding how you welcomed the stranger? Did you welcome them and receive them or not?
The nation is most protected, in other words, by relationship to the best within national tradition, exactly as the Christian faith is optimally secured by reference to that which renders it special and beautiful, particularly the pattern of Christ. In neither case does it suggest feigning the most negative of both America and Christian faith was nonexistent; it represents both modesty and faith, a blend that genuine American Christians should be comfortable with.
