The Trump phenomenon's most illuminating and defining instances – not its most important, nor most harsh, nor most hazardous, nor stupidest, but possibly its most revealing – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of several weeks, the US president began displaying all observers his intentions for a lavish reception room two times larger than the White House and subsequently started solo dismantling the eastern section to erect it.
He has done things 10,000 times as bad – the existing assessment of deaths from his cuts to USAID is 600,000 and rising, and recently research forecast his petroleum strategies would cause deaths 1.3 million more. However nothing as distinctive. No former leader would have dared – really, no previous leader would have conceived – unilaterally destroying large sections of the White House in order to erect a royal-themed celebration hall, with the active collaboration of some of the richest Americans, almost all of whom conduct transactions with the government.
We moved from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' into 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As bewildering as it is to witness the president try to upend the established notion regarding democracy and exchange it with its complete opposite, there remains a substantial portion within America who might not perceive it totally unfamiliar. That is those of us – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were educated within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have watched over the years as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we grew up with into the total contrary of our perception of his character. Fundamentally, they transformed an image of affection into a figure of hostility who blesses specifically the brutality that he criticized in the Gospel; this transformation occurred more slowly, over decades instead of months, but it is nonetheless disturbing via comparable methods, a disorienting gut punch for countless people.
A Toxic Christianity Establishes Itself
So let me first describe the Christ from my childhood, since in theory Jesus is the center of Christian religion, and because the rapidly expanding group among Americans could have minimal awareness of him as they consider themselves non-believers or agnostics or spiritual independents. I have no problem with these various perspectives, nor with any other faith; but I do think that contain precious wisdom of great price within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly absolutely not the account of an authoritative monarch emerging; instead, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in an automotive shelter, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to escape undercover officers. The child matures in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his message is about love for fellow humans, specifically for the disadvantaged – and not a sentimental love, but practical compassion, shown by providing food and housing. Christ's response to hostility is to offer the other cheek – not as a demonstration of submissive tolerance, but as a means to teach the assailant; his approach to wrongdoing indicates that whenever someone steals your outer garment you ought to provide the person your additional clothing also.
The obvious and straightforward truth that the Jesus of the gospels calls for a kind of extreme compassion concentrated on the poor has perpetually caused Christian religion rather a provocative belief system: attractive to the masses, but owing to its natural unconventionality needing to be controlled. In the fifties it was restrained through watering down – Protestantism was so widespread that it practically sanctified existing conditions.
A Struggle for the Best Among Us
So I have been heartened to witness the persistent defiance to Trump develop during the previous year. It has provided substantial consolation to help build the movement that has demonstrated publicly through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated citizens to turn out in numbers in the off-year elections. We shall require to maintain it, and in the same spirit, featuring US banners throughout each rally and appeals to the highest qualities in US history.
We will be questioned ... how did you receive the immigrant? Did you receive him and embrace them or reject?
America is best defended, to put it differently, by relationship to the best about American history, exactly as the Christian faith is best defended by reference to what makes it unique and magnificent, which is the example of Jesus. In both situations does it suggest pretending the most damaging about the nation and Christian faith never occurred; it signifies both modesty and faith, a combination that genuine US believers should be comfortable with.
