The Trump movement's most telling and distinctive moments – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most threatening, nor stupidest, but possibly its most revealing – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of several weeks, the US president began displaying all observers his plans for a gilded ballroom two times larger than the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the eastern section to construct it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe – the existing assessment of deaths resulting from his reductions to foreign assistance stands at 600,000 and rising, and this week a study forecast his fossil fuel policies would kill another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have attempted – truly, no former commander would have conceived – solo demolishing large sections of the presidential residence to build a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of some of America's wealthiest, almost all of whom have business with the government.
We moved from 'the meek shall inherit the world' into 'the meek shall die from cholera'
As confusing as it is to witness the president attempt to overturn the established notion about democracy and substitute it with its polar opposite, there is one large group of Americans who wouldn't consider it totally unfamiliar. This includes individuals like us – within elder demographics a near majority – who were raised as conventional Protestant believers.
We have observed over the years while conservative evangelical congregations turned the Jesus we grew up with into exactly the opposite of our perception of his character. At its most basic, they turned a figure of love into an icon of hostility who approves precisely the cruelties that he denounced in the Gospel; this change developed more slowly, across decades as opposed to months, but it is nonetheless unsettling via comparable methods, a confusing personal impact for countless people.
A Damaging Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Jesus that I grew up with, since in theory the Savior is the core of any Christian faith, and because the fastest-growing cadre among Americans may possess limited understanding regarding him as they consider themselves skeptics or agnostics or spiritual independents. I take no issue with these various perspectives, nor with different religions; but I do think that there are pearls of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is decidedly not the narrative of an authoritative monarch arising; rather, an infant arrives to homeless parents in a garage, who must quickly flee to a different country to avoid covert authorities. The baby grows up in modest conditions, a laboring woodworker; his teaching is about love for other people, specifically for the poor – not merely emotional affection, but tangible care, expressed by feeding and sheltering. Christ's response to hostility is to offer the additional cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a way to teach the aggressor; his crime policy is that if a person pilfers your coat you should give the person your additional clothing also.
The apparent and straightforward fact that the Jesus from scripture calls for a type of radical love centered on the poor has consistently rendered Christianity somewhat of a provocative belief system: appealing to the general public, but because of its natural unconventionality requiring to be contained. During the 1950s it was restrained through watering down – Protestantism was so dominant that it basically blessed current circumstances.
A Battle for the Best Among Us
Hence I have become encouraged to observe the determined opposition regarding Trump arise during the previous year. It has served as significant comfort to help build the campaign that has protested openly via continuous gatherings, and likely has encouraged electorate to show up in large quantities in the off-year elections. We shall require to continue it, and in the same spirit, with American flags at every demonstration and requests to the finest aspects of American history.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you accept these individuals and welcome him or refuse?
America is best defended, in other words, by relationship to the highest within national tradition, just as Christianity is optimally secured by relationship to that which renders it unique and wonderful, which is the example of the Savior. In neither case does it mean pretending the most damaging regarding America and Christian faith never occurred; it signifies both meekness and faith, a combination that genuine national faithful should embrace.
