The Trump movement's most illuminating and distinctive moments – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most hazardous, nor stupidest, but perhaps its most illuminating – occurred earlier this fall. During the period of multiple weeks, the US president began displaying the public his plans for a gilded ballroom two times larger compared to the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the East Wing portion to erect it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of deaths due to his slashing to international aid stands at 600,000 and increasing, and recently a study forecast his energy policies would result in fatalities an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No former leader would have dared – genuinely, no former commander would have imagined – solo demolishing significant portions of the presidential residence in order to erect a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the direct cooperation of multiple America's wealthiest, the majority of whom conduct transactions with federal agencies.
We transitioned from 'the gentle will obtain the Earth' to 'the meek shall die of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to witness the leader attempt to overturn the old idea regarding democracy and replace it with its direct contrary, there remains a substantial portion within America who might not perceive it entirely new. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations a near majority – who were educated within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have witnessed across decades as politically conservative religious groups converted the Savior we learned about into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they converted a persona of compassion into a figure of animosity who approves precisely the cruelties that he condemned in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred at a slower pace, through multiple decades rather than months, yet it remains unsettling through similar means, a confusing personal impact for numerous individuals.
A Harmful Christianity Takes Hold
Therefore allow me to outline the Savior from my childhood, as conceptually the Savior is the core of any Christian faith, and since the rapidly expanding group among Americans may possess limited understanding about him since they are skeptics or doubters or nones. I take no issue with these different approaches, nor with any other faith; however I believe that contain precious wisdom of significant worth within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly not the narrative of an authoritative monarch emerging; instead, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in a storage space, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to escape undercover officers. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his teaching focuses on affection for other people, specifically for the disadvantaged – and not a sentimental love, but tangible care, expressed by feeding and housing. The Savior's reaction to hostility is to turn the opposite cheek – not as an act of passive acceptance, but as a method to instruct the aggressor; his crime policy is that if an individual takes your jacket you ought to provide the person your additional clothing as well.
The apparent and straightforward fact that the Jesus in biblical accounts calls for a kind of radical love focused on the poor is what has always made the Christian faith something of a controversial faith: appealing to the masses, but because of its intrinsic extremism demanding to be controlled. In the 1950s it was contained by dilution – Protestant Christianity was so prevalent that it basically sanctified existing conditions.
A Battle for the Highest of Us
Hence I have become encouraged to see the steadfast resistance against Trump arise in this past year. It has served as great solace to participate in developing the campaign that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and seems to have inspired electorate to turn out in significant amounts during minor elections. We will need to persist with it, and with identical determination, displaying national flags during all protests and calls to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We will be questioned ... about how you treated the stranger? Did you accept these individuals and welcome him or refuse?
America is best defended, to put it differently, by reference to the highest within national tradition, similar to Christianity is optimally secured through connection to what makes it distinctive and beautiful, specifically the model of the Savior. In both situations does it suggest acting as if the most negative about the nation and religious tradition never occurred; it signifies both modesty and faith, a combination that committed American Christians should be comfortable with.