The Trump phenomenon's most telling and distinctive instances – not its most significant, nor most harsh, nor most hazardous, nor most senseless, but potentially its most enlightening – came earlier this autumn. In the course of several weeks, the nation's leader commenced revealing everyone his plans for an ornate dance hall double the dimensions than the White House and then began unilaterally ripping down the eastern section to build it.
He has done things countless times more severe – the present calculation of deaths from his cuts to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and recently research projected his petroleum strategies would kill an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have attempted – genuinely, no previous leader would have contemplated – unilaterally destroying significant portions of the White House to build a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the enthusiastic participation of numerous the nation's most affluent, the majority of whom have business with federal agencies.
We went from 'the humble will receive the world' to 'the gentle will succumb to cholera'
As bewildering as it is to observe the president try to upend the established notion of democracy and replace it with its complete opposite, there exists a significant segment of Americans who should not find it entirely new. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations a near majority – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have witnessed over the years while conservative evangelical congregations transformed the Christ we grew up with into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they turned a figure of love into an icon of hate who approves specifically the brutality that he condemned in the Gospel; this change developed more gradually, through multiple decades as opposed to months, but it is nonetheless disturbing via comparable methods, a disorienting gut punch for numerous individuals.
A Damaging Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Christ that I grew up with, as conceptually Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and because the rapidly expanding group among Americans could have minimal awareness about him as they consider themselves atheists or agnostics or nones. I take no issue with any of these traditions, nor with any other faith; yet I maintain that exist valuable insights of significant worth in biblical accounts.
It is decidedly not the account of a powerful ruler arising; rather, a child comes into the world to homeless parents in a garage, who must quickly flee to a foreign land to escape secret police. The infant develops in simple surroundings, a working carpenter; his message is about love for fellow humans, especially for the disadvantaged – and not a sentimental love, but tangible care, demonstrated through nourishing and protecting. The Savior's reaction to aggression is to present the additional cheek – not as an act of passive acceptance, but as a way to educate the attacker; his crime policy states that when someone steals your outer garment you ought to provide them your pullover as well.
The apparent and clear truth that the Jesus of the gospels requests a kind of extreme compassion concentrated on the impoverished has consistently rendered Christianity rather a provocative belief system: attractive to the general public, but owing to its inherent radicalness demanding to be restrained. During the 1950s it was restrained by dilution – The Protestant faith was so prevalent that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Conflict for the Finest Within Us
Therefore I have felt encouraged to see the determined opposition regarding Trump arise in this past year. It has provided substantial consolation to help build the campaign that has taken to the streets through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated electorate to turn out in significant amounts during minor elections. We must have to continue it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags throughout each rally and calls to the finest aspects of American history.
We will be questioned ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you receive him and receive them or reject?
America is best defended, in other words, by relationship to the best about American history, exactly as the Christian faith is optimally secured through connection to that which renders it unique and beautiful, which is the example of Jesus. In neither case does it imply feigning the most negative about the nation and Christian faith never occurred; it signifies both modesty and belief, a combination that genuine national faithful should embrace.
