The Trump movement's most telling and defining instances – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most hazardous, nor most senseless, but potentially its most enlightening – came earlier this autumn. Over the span of multiple weeks, the US president commenced revealing all observers his intentions for an ornate dance hall twice the size of the White House and then began independently demolishing the East Wing portion to build it.
He has done things 10,000 times as bad – the current estimate of casualties from his cuts to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and recently research predicted his energy policies would kill another 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No previous president would have risked – genuinely, no other president would have imagined – independently wrecking significant portions of the White House in order to erect a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the active collaboration of multiple the nation's most affluent, almost all of whom have business with federal agencies.
We transitioned from 'the meek shall inherit the world' toward 'the gentle will succumb of cholera'
As bewildering as it is to observe the chief executive attempt to overturn the traditional concept regarding democracy and exchange it with its polar opposite, there exists a significant segment of Americans who might not perceive it completely novel. That is those of us – within elder demographics a near majority – who were educated as conventional Protestant believers.
We have watched across decades while conservative evangelical congregations turned the Jesus we grew up with into exactly the opposite of our understanding of him. At its most basic, they turned a figure of love into a symbol of animosity who blesses precisely the cruelties that he condemned in scripture; this change developed more gradually, through multiple decades rather than months, yet it remains unsettling in the same ways, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground
Hence I shall explain the Savior that I grew up with, because theoretically Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and given that the fastest-growing cadre of Americans could have minimal awareness about him because they identify as atheists or uncertain individuals or nones. I have no problem with any of these traditions, nor with any other faith; however I believe that contain precious wisdom of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is unquestionably not the story of an authoritative monarch emerging; conversely, a baby is born to parents without shelter in a storage space, who must quickly flee to another nation to evade secret police. The child matures in simple surroundings, an employed craftsman; his message is about love for other people, especially for the disadvantaged – not simply tender feelings, but practical compassion, demonstrated through nourishing and housing. Christ's response to hostility is to present the other cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a method to teach the assailant; his method regarding offenses states that when a person pilfers your outer garment you ought to provide them your pullover too.
The apparent and direct fact that the Jesus from scripture advocates for a form of profound affection focused on the impoverished has consistently rendered Christianity rather a scandalous religion: attractive to the general public, but due to its natural unconventionality needing to be controlled. During the 1950s it was controlled by dilution – Protestant Christianity was so prevalent that it basically baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Finest Among Us
Hence I have become heartened to witness the determined opposition against Trump arise during the previous year. It has been significant comfort to help build the movement that has protested openly via continuous gatherings, and appears to have motivated electorate to participate in large quantities in the off-year elections. We will need to maintain it, and with identical determination, displaying national flags throughout each rally and appeals to the highest qualities in US history.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the stranger? Did you welcome them and receive them or refuse?
The country is optimally secured, in other words, by relationship to the finest within national tradition, exactly as the Christian faith is most protected through connection to elements that cause it to be distinctive and beautiful, particularly the pattern of Christ. In neither case does it imply feigning the most negative of both America and Christian faith was nonexistent; it means both meekness and conviction, a blend that committed US believers should be comfortable with.
