The Trump movement's most telling and characteristic instances – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – came earlier this autumn. In the course of several weeks, the US president began displaying the public his intentions for a lavish reception room double the dimensions of the White House and then commenced solo dismantling the East Wing to construct it.
He has performed deeds 10,000 times as bad – the current estimate of fatalities from his cuts to international aid is 600,000 and increasing, and presently a study projected his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities 1.3 million more. But nothing as definitional. No former leader would have risked – truly, no other president would have conceived – solo demolishing significant portions of the White House to build a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of multiple the richest Americans, almost all of whom have business with the government.
We went from 'the humble will receive the planet' into 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to observe the chief executive try to upend the traditional concept about democracy and exchange it with its direct contrary, there remains a substantial portion within America who might not perceive it totally unfamiliar. This includes individuals like us – in older age cohorts close to half – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have watched throughout the years as rightwing evangelical churches converted the Savior we grew up with into the complete reverse of our understanding of him. Essentially, they converted a persona of affection into a figure of hate who blesses precisely the cruelties that he criticized in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred more gradually, through multiple decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless disconcerting via comparable methods, a confusing personal impact for numerous individuals.
A Damaging Christianity Establishes Itself
Therefore allow me to outline the Christ from my childhood, since in theory Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and given that the fastest-growing cadre among Americans might have little sense regarding him as they consider themselves non-believers or agnostics or religiously unaffiliated. I raise no objection with these different approaches, nor with different religions; but I do think that there are pearls of significant worth in biblical accounts.
It is emphatically not the narrative of an authoritative monarch arising; instead, a child comes into the world to parents without shelter in a storage space, who are forced to hastily depart to a different country to escape covert authorities. The baby grows up in simple surroundings, a laboring woodworker; his message focuses on affection for others, specifically for the impoverished – not simply tender feelings, but tangible care, expressed by feeding and sheltering. Christ's response to hostility is to turn the opposite cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a method to instruct the assailant; his approach to wrongdoing states that when a person pilfers your outer garment you ought to provide the person your additional clothing as well.
The obvious and straightforward reality that Christ of the gospels calls for a type of radical love centered on the needy has perpetually caused the Christian faith somewhat of a controversial faith: attractive to the general public, but due to its natural unconventionality needing to be controlled. In the fifties it was controlled via weakening – Protestantism was so widespread that it essentially sanctified existing conditions.
A Struggle for the Best Within Us
Therefore I have felt heartened to observe the determined opposition against Trump develop during the previous year. It has served as significant comfort to help build the movement that has taken to the streets through repeated demonstrations, and likely has encouraged citizens to turn out in large quantities in interim political contests. We will need to maintain it, and with identical determination, featuring US banners throughout each rally and calls to the finest aspects within national heritage.
We're going to be asked ... how did you receive the foreigner? Did you receive him and embrace them or refuse?
The country is optimally secured, in other words, through connection to the finest in US heritage, just as Christianity is best defended by relationship to that which renders it special and beautiful, specifically the model of Christ. In both situations does it imply feigning the worst about the nation and Christian faith never occurred; it means both modesty and conviction, a blend that genuine US believers should be comfortable with.
