Trumpism's most telling and characteristic moments – not its most important, nor most brutal, nor most hazardous, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – came earlier this autumn. During the period of several weeks, the US president started showing the public his plans for an ornate dance hall twice the size than the White House and then commenced unilaterally ripping down the East Wing portion to construct it.
He has done things countless times more severe – the current estimate of fatalities resulting from his reductions to international aid stands at 600,000 and growing, and presently an analysis forecast his fossil fuel policies would kill another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have risked – really, no previous leader would have conceived – solo demolishing large sections of the executive mansion in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of numerous the richest Americans, nearly all of which maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the world' toward 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to observe the president attempt to overturn the old idea about democracy and exchange it with its complete opposite, there remains a substantial portion within America who wouldn't consider it totally unfamiliar. That is those of us – among senior generations a near majority – who were brought up as conventional Protestant believers.
We have watched over the years as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we were raised with into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they transformed an image of compassion into a symbol of hostility who approves exactly the harshness that he criticized in scripture; this transformation occurred more gradually, over decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless disturbing through similar means, a confusing personal impact for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Savior that I grew up with, since in theory the Savior is the core of any Christian faith, and because the fastest-growing cadre of Americans might have little sense of him as they consider themselves atheists or uncertain individuals or nones. I take no issue with any of these traditions, nor with different religions; however I believe that there are pearls of substantial value within Christian narrative.
It is emphatically not the account of a powerful ruler appearing; rather, a baby is born to homeless parents in an automotive shelter, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to escape covert authorities. The child matures in simple surroundings, a working carpenter; his teaching focuses on affection for other people, particularly for the poor – not simply tender feelings, but tangible care, demonstrated through nourishing and sheltering. Jesus' answer to violence is to turn the opposite cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a method to instruct the aggressor; his approach to wrongdoing indicates that whenever an individual takes your coat you must offer him your sweater too.
The obvious and clear fact that the Jesus from scripture calls for a form of radical love focused on the impoverished has perpetually caused Christian religion somewhat of a controversial faith: engaging for the populace, but because of its intrinsic extremism needing to be contained. During the 1950s it was controlled through watering down – The Protestant faith was so dominant that it basically blessed current circumstances.
A Battle for the Best of Us
Hence I have become encouraged to observe the determined opposition to Trump develop in this past year. It has served as great solace to assist in constructing the movement that has demonstrated publicly via continuous gatherings, and likely has encouraged voters to show up in large quantities in the off-year elections. We will need to persist with it, and in the same spirit, with American flags at every demonstration and appeals to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We will be questioned ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you receive him and embrace them or reject?
The country is optimally secured, essentially, through connection to the best about American history, similar to Christianity is most protected through connection to what makes it special and wonderful, specifically the model of the Savior. In neither case does it mean acting as if the worst about the nation and Christianity never occurred; it signifies both meekness and conviction, a mixture that committed US believers should be comfortable with.
