The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and defining moments – not its most crucial, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor most foolish, but perhaps its most illuminating – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of multiple weeks, the US president started showing the public his plans for a gilded ballroom twice the size of the White House and then commenced solo dismantling the East Wing to construct it.
He has done things ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of fatalities resulting from his reductions to international aid stands at 600,000 and growing, and presently research projected his petroleum strategies would result in fatalities another 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No other president would have dared – really, no previous leader would have imagined – independently wrecking large sections of the executive mansion in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of some of the nation's most affluent, nearly all of which have business with public institutions.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the world' to 'the meek shall die to cholera'
As confusing as it is to watch the chief executive attempt to overturn the established notion about democracy and replace it with its direct contrary, there exists a significant segment among Americans who wouldn't consider it completely novel. That is those of us – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have witnessed across decades as rightwing evangelical churches transformed the Christ we learned about into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. At its most basic, they transformed an image of compassion into a symbol of animosity who blesses precisely the cruelties that he condemned in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred at a slower pace, over decades instead of months, but it is nonetheless disturbing through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for numerous individuals.
A Harmful Christianity Takes Hold
Therefore allow me to outline the Christ from my childhood, since in theory Christ is the focus of Christian religion, and given that the rapidly expanding group of Americans could have minimal awareness about him as they consider themselves atheists or agnostics or nones. I take no issue with these various perspectives, nor with any other faith; however I believe that exist valuable insights of substantial value in biblical accounts.
It is unquestionably not the account of a powerful ruler appearing; rather, a child comes into the world to parents without shelter in a garage, who must quickly flee to a different country to avoid secret police. The child matures in modest conditions, a laboring woodworker; his doctrine concerns compassion for others, especially for the poor – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, demonstrated through nourishing and protecting. The Savior's reaction to hostility is to offer the opposite cheek – not as an act of passive acceptance, but as a method to teach the assailant; his approach to wrongdoing is that if a person pilfers your outer garment you must offer the person your additional clothing as well.
The apparent and clear truth that Christ of the gospels requests a kind of profound affection focused on the impoverished is what has always made Christianity something of a controversial faith: attractive to the general public, but because of its intrinsic extremism demanding to be controlled. In the 1950s it was controlled by dilution – The Protestant faith was so widespread that it basically blessed current circumstances.
A Conflict for the Finest Within Us
Therefore I have felt heartened to see the persistent defiance against Trump emerge during the previous year. It has been great solace to assist in constructing the initiative that has demonstrated publicly in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated citizens to participate in numbers in the off-year elections. We shall require to continue it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags during all protests and appeals to the best parts of American history.
We will be questioned ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you accept these individuals and receive them or reject?
The nation is most protected, essentially, through connection to the best about American history, just as Christianity is optimally secured by reference to that which renders it special and magnificent, which is the example of Christ. In all circumstances does it mean feigning the worst regarding America and Christianity did not happen; it means both modesty and faith, a blend that genuine American Christians ought to accept.
