The Trump phenomenon's most telling and distinctive moments – not its most crucial, nor cruelest, nor most threatening, nor most foolish, but perhaps its most illuminating – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of a few weeks, the nation's leader started showing the public his plans for an ornate dance hall double the dimensions compared to the White House and then commenced unilaterally ripping down the eastern section to construct it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the present calculation of casualties due to his slashing to international aid stands at 600,000 and increasing, and recently a study predicted his fossil fuel policies would kill an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No former leader would have risked – truly, no former commander would have imagined – solo demolishing large sections of the executive mansion in order to erect a royal-themed celebration hall, with the active collaboration of multiple the richest Americans, the majority of whom conduct transactions with public institutions.
We went from 'the humble will receive the world' into 'the meek shall die of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to observe the leader seek to颠覆 the old idea regarding democracy and substitute it with its direct contrary, there remains a substantial portion among Americans who should not find it totally unfamiliar. This includes individuals like us – within elder demographics a near majority – who were brought up as conventional Protestant believers.
We have witnessed across decades as politically conservative religious groups transformed the Christ we learned about into the complete reverse of our understanding of him. Essentially, they turned a figure of love into a symbol of hate who blesses specifically the brutality that he denounced in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred more slowly, over decades instead of months, yet it remains disturbing through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for countless people.
A Toxic Christianity Gains Ground
Therefore allow me to outline the Christ from my childhood, because theoretically Christ is the focus of Christian religion, and because the fastest-growing cadre among Americans may possess limited understanding about him because they identify as skeptics or agnostics or nones. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with different religions; yet I maintain that there are pearls of significant worth within Christian narrative.
It is emphatically definitely not the narrative of an authoritative monarch emerging; conversely, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in a garage, who are forced to hastily depart to another nation to avoid undercover officers. The baby grows up in modest conditions, a laboring woodworker; his message is about love for fellow humans, particularly for the impoverished – not simply tender feelings, but a concrete one, expressed by feeding and protecting. Christ's response to hostility is to offer the other cheek – not as a demonstration of submissive tolerance, but as a method to educate the attacker; his approach to wrongdoing is that if someone steals your jacket you must offer them your pullover too.
The obvious and direct fact that Christ of the gospels requests a form of radical love centered on the needy has perpetually caused Christianity rather a provocative belief system: engaging for the masses, but due to its inherent radicalness needing to be contained. In the 1950s it was contained through watering down – Protestantism was so widespread that it essentially baptized the status quo.
A Struggle for the Best Within Us
So I have been encouraged to witness the steadfast resistance to Trump arise in this past year. It has been great solace to help build the movement that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and likely has encouraged voters to turn out in significant amounts during minor elections. We shall require to persist with it, and in the same spirit, with American flags during all protests and requests to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We're going to be asked ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you receive him and welcome him or not?
The nation is most protected, in other words, through connection to the highest about American history, similar to Christianity is optimally secured by relationship to what makes it unique and beautiful, which is the example of Christ. In both situations does it suggest pretending the worst regarding America and Christian faith did not happen; it signifies both humility and conviction, a blend that serious national faithful ought to accept.
