The Trump phenomenon's most illuminating and defining moments – not its most crucial, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor most senseless, but potentially its most enlightening – came earlier this autumn. In the course of a few weeks, the US president commenced revealing everyone his intentions for an ornate dance hall two times larger of the White House and then commenced solo dismantling the East Wing portion to construct it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe – the current estimate of casualties from his cuts to USAID amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and presently an analysis predicted his petroleum strategies would result in fatalities another 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No previous president would have dared – genuinely, no previous leader would have contemplated – solo demolishing large sections of the presidential residence to construct a royal-themed celebration hall, with the enthusiastic participation of multiple the richest Americans, almost all of whom have business with public institutions.
We went from 'the humble will receive the world' toward 'the gentle will succumb to cholera'
As confusing as it is to watch the president attempt to overturn the established notion about democracy and exchange it with its direct contrary, there remains a substantial portion within America who should not find it totally unfamiliar. That is those of us – within elder demographics a near majority – who were brought up as conventional Protestant believers.
We have observed across decades as politically conservative religious groups turned the Jesus we grew up with into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they converted a persona of love into an icon of animosity who endorses precisely the cruelties that he condemned in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred at a slower pace, across decades as opposed to months, but it is nonetheless disconcerting through similar means, a bewildering emotional blow for countless people.
A Damaging Christianity Takes Hold
Hence I shall explain the Savior from my childhood, since in theory Christ is the focus of Christian religion, and because the rapidly expanding group within America may possess limited understanding about him since they are skeptics or agnostics or religiously unaffiliated. I have no problem with these different approaches, nor with different religions; yet I maintain that there are pearls of significant worth in biblical accounts.
It is decidedly definitely not the narrative of a mighty king appearing; instead, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in a storage space, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to avoid secret police. The infant develops in simple surroundings, an employed craftsman; his teaching is about love for others, especially for the poor – not simply tender feelings, but tangible care, expressed by feeding and housing. Jesus' answer to violence is to turn the other cheek – not as a demonstration of submissive tolerance, but as a means to instruct the aggressor; his approach to wrongdoing indicates that whenever someone steals your coat you must offer him your sweater as well.
The obvious and direct fact that the Jesus of the gospels calls for a kind of extreme compassion centered on the needy has perpetually caused Christianity somewhat of a provocative belief system: engaging for the masses, but because of its intrinsic extremism needing to be contained. In the fifties it was controlled through watering down – Protestantism was so widespread that it essentially blessed current circumstances.
A Conflict for the Highest Among Us
So I have been heartened to see the persistent defiance against Trump arise during the previous year. It has served as significant comfort to help build the initiative that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and likely has encouraged voters to participate in significant amounts in the off-year elections. We shall require to persist with it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags throughout each rally and requests to the highest qualities of American history.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the stranger? Did you receive him and receive them or reject?
The nation is most protected, essentially, by reference to the highest within national tradition, similar to Christianity is best defended by reference to what makes it unique and wonderful, specifically the model of Jesus. In neither case does it imply pretending the most negative of both America and Christian faith did not happen; it means both modesty and faith, a combination that committed US believers should be comfortable with.
