The Trump phenomenon's most illuminating and distinctive moments – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor most senseless, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. During the period of a few weeks, the American president started showing the public his intentions for a lavish reception room double the dimensions than the White House and then began solo dismantling the eastern section to erect it.
He has done things countless times more severe – the present calculation of deaths due to his slashing to foreign assistance is 600,000 and rising, and this week a study forecast his energy policies would kill 1.3 million more. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have risked – genuinely, no previous leader would have contemplated – unilaterally destroying major areas of the presidential residence to construct a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the direct cooperation of numerous the nation's most affluent, nearly all of which maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We transitioned from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' into 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As bewildering as it is to witness the chief executive attempt to overturn the traditional concept of democracy and exchange it with its complete opposite, there exists a significant segment among Americans who should not find it totally unfamiliar. That is those of us – within elder demographics close to half – who were educated as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have observed over the years as rightwing evangelical churches transformed the Christ we learned about into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they transformed an image of compassion into a figure of hostility who endorses specifically the brutality that he criticized in the Gospel; this transformation occurred more slowly, across decades instead of months, but it is nonetheless disconcerting in the same ways, a disorienting gut punch for numerous individuals.
A Toxic Christianity Establishes Itself
So let me first describe the Savior from my upbringing, as conceptually the Savior is the core of any Christian faith, and given that the quickly increasing segment within America could have minimal awareness about him as they consider themselves non-believers or agnostics or spiritual independents. I have no problem with any of these traditions, nor with any other faith; however I believe that exist valuable insights of substantial value in biblical accounts.
It is decidedly not the account of a powerful ruler appearing; instead, a child comes into the world to homeless parents in an automotive shelter, who are forced to hastily depart to another nation to avoid secret police. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his teaching is about love for others, specifically for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but practical compassion, shown by providing food and sheltering. Christ's response to violence is to present the opposite cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a way to teach the assailant; his method regarding offenses is that if an individual takes your outer garment you ought to provide them your pullover as well.
The obvious and direct reality that the Savior of the gospels requests a type of radical love centered on the needy is what has always made the Christian faith rather a provocative belief system: attractive to the masses, but owing to its inherent radicalness needing to be contained. During the 1950s it was controlled by dilution – Protestantism was so dominant that it practically blessed current circumstances.
A Battle for the Finest of Us
Therefore I have felt heartened to witness the steadfast resistance to Trump develop over the last twelve months. It has provided significant comfort to help build the movement that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated citizens to turn out in large quantities in the off-year elections. We will need to maintain it, and through comparable resolve, featuring US banners at every demonstration and appeals to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you receive him and receive them or not?
The nation is most protected, to put it differently, by relationship to the highest about American history, similar to Christianity is most protected by reference to what makes it unique and wonderful, particularly the pattern of Christ. In both situations does it imply acting as if the worst about the nation and religious tradition did not happen; it means both meekness and belief, a mixture that serious national faithful should be comfortable with.
