The Trump movement's most telling and distinctive moments – not its most important, nor most brutal, nor most threatening, nor most foolish, but possibly its most revealing – emerged earlier this harvest season. In the course of multiple weeks, the US president commenced revealing the public his intentions for a gilded ballroom two times larger compared to the White House and then began solo dismantling the eastern section to erect it.
He has performed deeds 10,000 times as bad – the current estimate of fatalities from his cuts to USAID stands at 600,000 and rising, and presently an analysis forecast his energy policies would result in fatalities another 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No other president would have risked – really, no former commander would have conceived – unilaterally destroying large sections of the presidential residence to construct a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the enthusiastic participation of some of the nation's most affluent, the majority of whom have business with the government.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the world' to 'the humble will perish from cholera'
As bewildering as it is to observe the president try to upend the traditional concept about democracy and exchange it with its complete opposite, there exists a significant segment among Americans who wouldn't consider it entirely new. That is those of us – within elder demographics a near majority – who were raised within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have witnessed throughout the years while conservative evangelical congregations turned the Jesus we were raised with into exactly the opposite of our understanding of him. Essentially, they converted a persona of affection into a symbol of hostility who blesses exactly the harshness that he denounced in the Gospel; this has happened more slowly, 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 Establishes Itself
Hence I shall explain the Savior from my childhood, as conceptually the Savior is the core of Christian religion, and given that the quickly increasing segment of Americans may possess limited understanding regarding him as they consider themselves atheists or doubters or nones. I have no problem with these different approaches, nor with different religions; but I do think that exist valuable insights of significant worth within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly definitely not the story of an authoritative monarch emerging; conversely, a child comes into the world to displaced parents in an automotive shelter, who must quickly flee to another nation to escape secret police. The infant develops in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his doctrine is about love for fellow humans, specifically for the poor – not merely emotional affection, but a concrete one, shown by providing food and housing. Christ's response to hostility is to offer the additional cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a means to instruct the aggressor; his crime policy indicates that whenever someone steals your jacket you ought to provide the person your additional clothing as well.
The obvious and clear reality that the Jesus of the gospels calls for a form of radical love centered on the needy has perpetually caused Christian religion rather a provocative belief system: attractive to the masses, but owing to its inherent radicalness needing to be contained. In the fifties it was contained through watering down – Protestant Christianity was so dominant that it basically baptized the status quo.
A Conflict for the Finest Within Us
Hence I have become encouraged to observe the steadfast resistance to Trump arise in this past year. It has served as substantial consolation to assist in constructing the campaign that has taken to the streets in rally after rally, and seems to have inspired electorate to show up in large quantities in the off-year elections. We shall require to maintain it, and in the same spirit, featuring US banners during all protests and appeals to the highest qualities of American history.
We're going to be asked ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you accept these individuals and receive them or refuse?
America is best defended, to put it differently, by reference to the best in US heritage, just as Christianity is best defended through connection to that which renders it distinctive and magnificent, specifically the model of the Savior. In both situations does it suggest pretending the most damaging about the nation and Christianity did not happen; it represents both meekness and belief, a blend that serious US believers should embrace.
