The Trump movement's most illuminating and distinctive moments – not its most important, nor most harsh, nor most threatening, nor most foolish, but possibly its most revealing – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of several weeks, the American president began displaying all observers his intentions for an ornate dance hall two times larger than the White House and then commenced unilaterally ripping down the East Wing to build it.
He has done things 10,000 times as bad – the current estimate of casualties resulting from his reductions to USAID stands at 600,000 and increasing, and recently a study predicted his petroleum strategies would cause deaths another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have attempted – really, no previous leader would have imagined – solo demolishing significant portions of the executive mansion to build a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of multiple America's wealthiest, almost all of whom have business with the government.
We moved from 'the gentle will obtain the Earth' into 'the meek shall die of cholera'
As confusing as it is to watch the president attempt to overturn the old idea of democracy and substitute it with its polar opposite, there exists a significant segment among Americans who wouldn't consider it totally unfamiliar. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations a near majority – who were educated as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have observed over the years while conservative evangelical congregations converted the Savior we learned about into the total contrary of who we understood him to be. At its most basic, they transformed an image of affection into an icon of hostility who approves precisely the cruelties that he condemned in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred more gradually, over decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless unsettling via comparable methods, a bewildering emotional blow for countless people.
A Damaging Christianity Establishes Itself
Hence I shall explain the Savior from my upbringing, since in theory Christ is the focus of Christian religion, and since the quickly increasing segment among Americans may possess limited understanding of him because they identify as non-believers or uncertain individuals or nones. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with any other faith; but I do think that there are pearls of substantial value in biblical accounts.
It is unquestionably not the narrative of a mighty king arising; rather, a baby is born to parents without shelter in a garage, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to avoid secret police. The infant develops in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his message focuses on affection for other people, especially for the disadvantaged – not simply tender feelings, but a concrete one, expressed by feeding and housing. Jesus' answer to violence is to offer the opposite cheek – not as a demonstration of submissive tolerance, but as a means to teach the aggressor; his method regarding offenses indicates that whenever an individual takes your coat you should give him your sweater also.
The evident and straightforward reality that Christ of the gospels requests a form of profound affection focused on the needy has consistently rendered the Christian faith rather a provocative belief system: appealing to the populace, but owing to its intrinsic extremism demanding to be restrained. During the 1950s it was contained through watering down – The Protestant faith was so dominant that it practically sanctified existing conditions.
A Conflict for the Highest of Us
Therefore I have felt encouraged to see the steadfast resistance against Trump arise in this past year. It has provided substantial consolation to help build the campaign that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and seems to have inspired citizens to participate in numbers in the off-year elections. We shall require to continue it, and in the same spirit, with American flags throughout each rally and calls to the highest qualities of American history.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or refuse?
The country is optimally secured, essentially, by relationship to the best in US heritage, just as Christianity is best defended by reference to that which renders it distinctive and wonderful, particularly the pattern of the Savior. In neither case does it suggest feigning the most damaging about the nation and Christian faith did not happen; it represents both meekness and faith, a mixture that committed US believers should embrace.
