Trumpism's most revealing and defining instances – not its most important, nor most brutal, nor most hazardous, nor stupidest, but perhaps its most illuminating – occurred earlier this fall. During the period of multiple weeks, the nation's leader began displaying all observers his designs for an ornate dance hall twice the size compared to the White House and subsequently started independently demolishing the East Wing to build it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of fatalities due to his slashing to foreign assistance stands at 600,000 and growing, and presently an analysis forecast his fossil fuel policies would cause deaths an additional 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No other president would have dared – really, no previous leader would have conceived – independently wrecking significant portions of the presidential residence to build a royal-themed celebration hall, with the enthusiastic participation of numerous the richest Americans, almost all of whom maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We transitioned from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' to 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As confusing as it is to watch the president attempt to overturn the traditional concept about democracy and replace it with its polar opposite, there remains a substantial portion among Americans who wouldn't consider it entirely new. That is those of us – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were brought up within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have witnessed across decades as politically conservative religious groups transformed the Christ we were raised with into the complete reverse of our understanding of him. Fundamentally, they turned a figure of love into a figure of hostility who blesses exactly the harshness that he criticized in biblical teachings; this has happened at a slower pace, across decades instead of months, yet it remains disturbing through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for countless people.
A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground
So let me first describe the Christ that I grew up with, as conceptually the Savior is the core 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 have no problem with these various perspectives, nor with different religions; however I believe that there are pearls of significant worth in the Christian story.
It is unquestionably absolutely not the story of a powerful ruler arising; conversely, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in a garage, who need to rapidly escape to another nation to evade undercover officers. The baby grows up in simple surroundings, a laboring woodworker; his teaching concerns compassion for other people, especially for the disadvantaged – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, expressed by feeding and sheltering. The Savior's reaction to violence is to turn the opposite cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a way to instruct the aggressor; his method regarding offenses is that if an individual takes your jacket you must offer them your pullover also.
The evident and clear truth that the Savior of the gospels advocates for a form of extreme compassion centered on the impoverished is what has always made the Christian faith something of a provocative belief system: engaging for the masses, but because of its inherent radicalness demanding to be controlled. During the 1950s it was controlled through watering down – Protestant Christianity was so prevalent that it basically baptized the status quo.
A Conflict for the Highest Within Us
Therefore I have felt encouraged to observe the steadfast resistance against Trump emerge during the previous year. It has served as significant comfort to help build the campaign that has demonstrated publicly in rally after rally, and likely has encouraged electorate to show up in numbers in interim political contests. We must have to persist with it, and with identical determination, featuring US banners during all protests and requests to the finest aspects of American history.
We will be questioned ... regarding how you welcomed the foreigner? Did you receive him and embrace them or reject?
The nation is most protected, in other words, through connection to the finest about American history, similar to Christianity is best defended by reference to that which renders it distinctive and magnificent, which is the example of Christ. In all circumstances does it imply pretending the most negative regarding America and Christianity did not happen; it represents both humility and belief, a mixture that genuine American Christians ought to accept.
