Trumpism's most illuminating and characteristic occasions – not its most significant, nor most harsh, nor most threatening, nor most foolish, but possibly its most revealing – came earlier this autumn. In the course of a few weeks, the US president started showing the public his plans for a gilded ballroom double the dimensions of the White House and then began independently demolishing the eastern section to erect it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the present calculation of fatalities due to his slashing to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and rising, and presently a study predicted his fossil fuel policies would kill an additional 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No previous president would have attempted – really, no other president would have contemplated – independently wrecking large sections of the executive mansion in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of numerous the richest Americans, nearly all of which have business with public institutions.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the world' to 'the meek shall die to cholera'
As disorienting as it is to witness the president attempt to overturn the established notion regarding democracy and exchange it with its direct contrary, there is one large group of Americans who might not perceive it totally unfamiliar. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations a near majority – who were educated as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have watched across decades as politically conservative religious groups transformed the Christ we were raised with into exactly the opposite of our perception of his character. Essentially, they turned a figure of love into an icon of animosity who approves exactly the harshness that he condemned in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred more slowly, through multiple decades rather than months, however it is still disturbing through similar means, a confusing personal impact for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Takes Hold
Hence I shall explain the Savior from my upbringing, because theoretically Jesus is the center of Christian religion, and since the fastest-growing cadre within America might have little sense about him as they consider themselves skeptics or doubters or nones. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with any other faith; however I believe that contain precious wisdom of significant worth in the Christian story.
It is unquestionably not the narrative of a mighty king emerging; instead, a baby is born to parents without shelter in a garage, who need to rapidly escape to another nation to evade covert authorities. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, a laboring woodworker; his message is about love for fellow humans, especially for the impoverished – not simply tender feelings, but practical compassion, expressed by feeding and sheltering. The Savior's reaction to violence is to present the other cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a means to instruct the attacker; his approach to wrongdoing states that when an individual takes your coat you ought to provide him your sweater also.
The evident and clear truth that the Jesus in biblical accounts requests a kind of radical love focused on the needy is what has always made Christianity rather a provocative belief system: engaging for the general public, but owing to its inherent radicalness needing to be controlled. In the 1950s it was controlled via weakening – The Protestant faith was so dominant that it basically sanctified existing conditions.
A Conflict for the Highest of Us
Therefore I have felt encouraged to witness the determined opposition against Trump arise in this past year. It has been significant comfort to assist in constructing the initiative that has protested openly in rally after rally, and likely has encouraged electorate to turn out in large quantities in the off-year elections. We shall require to persist with it, and in the same spirit, with American flags throughout each rally and requests to the finest aspects within national heritage.
We're going to be asked ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you welcome them and receive them or not?
The nation is most protected, essentially, by relationship to the highest in US heritage, similar to Christianity is best defended by reference to what makes it special and magnificent, specifically the model of the Savior. In both situations does it suggest feigning the worst of both America and religious tradition never occurred; it represents both humility and faith, a combination that committed US believers should be comfortable with.
