Trumpism's most telling and characteristic moments – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most hazardous, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of multiple weeks, the nation's leader started showing the public his plans for an ornate dance hall two times larger than the White House and then began solo dismantling the eastern section to build it.
He has performed deeds ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of fatalities from his cuts to foreign assistance is 600,000 and growing, and this week an analysis projected his fossil fuel policies would cause deaths 1.3 million more. However nothing as distinctive. No former leader would have attempted – really, no former commander would have imagined – solo demolishing large sections of the executive mansion in order to erect a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the active collaboration of numerous America's wealthiest, almost all of whom have business with public institutions.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the planet' toward 'the gentle will succumb of cholera'
As confusing as it is to observe the leader attempt to overturn the old idea regarding democracy and replace 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 – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were brought up within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have watched over the years while conservative evangelical congregations turned the Jesus we learned about into the total contrary of our perception of his character. Essentially, they converted a persona of compassion into an icon of hate who approves exactly the harshness that he criticized in scripture; this transformation occurred more slowly, over decades rather than months, however it is still unsettling via comparable methods, a disorienting gut punch for countless people.
A Harmful Christianity Gains Ground
Therefore allow me to outline the Christ from my childhood, since in theory Christ is the focus within Christian belief, and because the rapidly expanding group of Americans may possess limited understanding of him as they consider themselves non-believers or uncertain individuals or nones. I have no problem with these different approaches, nor with any other faith; but I do think that there are pearls of substantial value in biblical accounts.
It is emphatically absolutely not the narrative of a powerful ruler emerging; conversely, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in a storage space, who must quickly flee to another nation to escape secret police. The infant develops in simple surroundings, an employed craftsman; his teaching focuses on affection for fellow humans, specifically for the disadvantaged – not simply tender feelings, but a concrete one, demonstrated through nourishing and protecting. Christ's response to aggression is to present the additional cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a way to educate the attacker; his method regarding offenses is that if someone steals your jacket you must offer him your sweater also.
The obvious and straightforward reality that the Savior from scripture calls for a kind of extreme compassion concentrated on the impoverished has consistently rendered Christian religion something of a scandalous religion: attractive to the masses, but because of its natural unconventionality needing to be restrained. In the 1950s it was controlled via weakening – Protestant Christianity was so widespread that it basically blessed current circumstances.
A Struggle for the Finest Within Us
Hence I have become encouraged to witness the determined opposition regarding Trump develop in this past year. It has provided significant comfort to assist in constructing the campaign that has demonstrated publicly through repeated demonstrations, and likely has encouraged voters to show up in numbers in interim political contests. We will need to continue it, and in the same spirit, with American flags during all protests and calls to the best parts of American history.
We're going to be asked ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you welcome them and receive them or reject?
The country is optimally secured, in other words, through connection to the highest within national tradition, just as Christianity is best defended by reference to that which renders it special and wonderful, specifically the model of Christ. In neither case does it suggest feigning the worst about the nation and religious tradition was nonexistent; it means both meekness and faith, a combination that serious American Christians ought to accept.
