The Trump phenomenon's most telling and characteristic moments – not its most important, nor most harsh, nor most hazardous, nor stupidest, but possibly its most revealing – emerged earlier this harvest season. In the course of a few weeks, the US president started showing the public his intentions for an ornate dance hall double the dimensions compared to the White House and then began unilaterally ripping down the eastern section to build it.
He has committed acts 10,000 times as bad – the existing assessment of casualties from his cuts to foreign assistance stands at 600,000 and rising, and recently research predicted his petroleum strategies would result in fatalities another 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No other president would have risked – genuinely, no other president would have contemplated – unilaterally destroying major areas of the executive mansion to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of numerous the richest Americans, nearly all of which maintain dealings with public institutions.
We transitioned from 'the gentle will obtain the planet' toward 'the gentle will succumb of cholera'
As confusing as it is to watch the president try to upend the established notion regarding democracy and replace it with its direct contrary, there is one large group within America who might not perceive it totally unfamiliar. That is those of us – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were educated within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have witnessed over the years while conservative evangelical congregations converted the Savior we grew up with into exactly the opposite of our perception of his character. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of love into an icon of hate who blesses specifically the brutality that he criticized in the Gospel; this has happened more gradually, through multiple decades as opposed to months, however it is still unsettling in the same ways, a confusing personal impact for many of us.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Savior from my upbringing, because theoretically the Savior is the core of any Christian faith, and given that the fastest-growing cadre of Americans may possess limited understanding of him as they consider themselves non-believers or uncertain individuals or nones. I raise no objection with these different approaches, nor with different religions; but I do think that contain precious wisdom of substantial value within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly not the story of a powerful ruler emerging; conversely, a child comes into the world to homeless parents in a storage space, who must quickly flee to a foreign land to escape undercover officers. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his teaching focuses on affection for fellow humans, particularly for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, expressed by feeding and sheltering. Christ's response to hostility is to turn the opposite cheek – not as a demonstration of submissive tolerance, but as a way to teach the attacker; his method regarding offenses states that when an individual takes your outer garment you should give them your pullover too.
The obvious and straightforward fact that the Savior in biblical accounts advocates for a form of extreme compassion focused on the poor has perpetually caused the Christian faith somewhat of a controversial faith: attractive to the populace, but due to its natural unconventionality demanding to be contained. During the 1950s it was contained through watering down – Protestantism was so widespread that it practically sanctified existing conditions.
A Battle for the Highest Among Us
Therefore I have felt inspired to witness the persistent defiance to Trump emerge during the previous year. It has served as great solace to participate in developing the movement that has demonstrated publicly through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated voters to show up in large quantities during minor elections. We will need to continue it, and with identical determination, with American flags during all protests and calls to the highest qualities of American history.
We're going to be asked ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you welcome them and receive them or refuse?
The nation is most protected, essentially, by reference to the finest about American history, similar to Christianity is most protected through connection to what makes it special and magnificent, which is the example of Christ. In neither case does it imply acting as if the most negative of both America and Christian faith was nonexistent; it represents both humility and belief, a blend that genuine US believers should be comfortable with.
