The Trump movement's most illuminating and distinctive moments – not its most significant, nor cruelest, nor most hazardous, nor most senseless, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of a few weeks, the US president commenced revealing the public his plans for an ornate dance hall double the dimensions compared to the White House and then commenced unilaterally ripping down the eastern section to construct it.
He has performed deeds 10,000 times as bad – the present calculation of casualties from his cuts to international aid stands at 600,000 and increasing, and this week a study projected his energy policies would kill an additional 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No previous president would have dared – genuinely, no other president would have conceived – independently wrecking significant portions of the executive mansion to construct a royal-themed celebration hall, with the active collaboration of numerous the richest Americans, nearly all of which have business with federal agencies.
We went from 'the gentle will obtain the Earth' into 'the meek shall die to cholera'
As bewildering as it is to witness the chief executive try to upend the old idea about democracy and replace it with its polar opposite, there is one large group among Americans who wouldn't consider it completely novel. This includes individuals like us – among senior generations almost a majority – who were educated as conventional Protestant believers.
We have observed over the years as rightwing evangelical churches converted the Savior we learned about into the total contrary of our understanding of him. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of compassion into a symbol of animosity who blesses exactly the harshness that he condemned in scripture; this has happened more gradually, through multiple decades rather than months, however it is still disconcerting through similar means, a bewildering emotional blow for countless people.
A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground
So let me first describe the Christ that I grew up with, since in theory Jesus is the center of Christian religion, and given that the fastest-growing cadre within America could have minimal awareness regarding him because they identify as atheists or agnostics or spiritual independents. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; but I do think that exist valuable insights of significant worth in biblical accounts.
It is emphatically absolutely not the story of an authoritative monarch appearing; conversely, a baby is born to displaced parents in a storage space, who are forced to hastily depart to a different country to avoid undercover officers. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his doctrine concerns compassion for fellow humans, especially for the disadvantaged – and not a sentimental love, but practical compassion, expressed by feeding and housing. Christ's response to aggression is to present the additional cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a means to instruct the attacker; his method regarding offenses states that when an individual takes your jacket you must offer the person your additional clothing as well.
The evident and straightforward reality that the Jesus from scripture advocates for a kind of extreme compassion focused on the needy is what has always made Christian religion rather a controversial faith: attractive to the populace, but because of its inherent radicalness requiring to be restrained. During the 1950s it was contained by dilution – Protestantism was so dominant that it practically sanctified existing conditions.
A Battle for the Highest Among Us
Hence I have become encouraged to observe the steadfast resistance against Trump develop over the last twelve months. It has been significant comfort to assist in constructing the movement that has protested openly via continuous gatherings, and seems to have inspired voters to participate in significant amounts in interim political contests. We must have to persist with it, and in the same spirit, with American flags at every demonstration and calls to the highest qualities in US history.
We will be questioned ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you accept these individuals and receive them or reject?
America is best defended, in other words, by relationship to the best in US heritage, similar to Christianity is optimally secured by relationship to what makes it unique and wonderful, particularly the pattern of Jesus. In neither case does it suggest pretending the most damaging regarding America and religious tradition was nonexistent; it means both meekness and faith, a mixture that genuine national faithful should embrace.
