Trumpism's most revealing and defining moments – not its most crucial, nor cruelest, nor most threatening, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of several weeks, the US president commenced revealing the public his plans for a gilded ballroom two times larger compared to the White House and subsequently started independently demolishing the East Wing portion to build it.
He has performed deeds ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of deaths resulting from his reductions to international aid stands at 600,000 and increasing, and presently an analysis predicted his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities an additional 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No former leader would have dared – really, no previous leader would have imagined – independently wrecking large sections of the presidential residence to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of multiple the nation's most affluent, the majority of whom maintain dealings with the government.
We moved from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' to 'the meek shall die from cholera'
As confusing as it is to observe the leader try to upend the established notion regarding democracy and substitute it with its polar opposite, there is one large group of Americans who should not find it totally unfamiliar. This includes individuals like us – in older age cohorts close to half – who were brought up as conventional Protestant believers.
We have witnessed throughout the years as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we learned about into the complete reverse of our understanding of him. Essentially, they turned a figure of affection into a figure of hate who blesses exactly the harshness that he condemned in scripture; this change developed more gradually, through multiple decades rather than months, yet it remains unsettling in the same ways, a disorienting gut punch for countless people.
A Toxic Christianity Gains Ground
Therefore allow me to outline the Jesus that I grew up with, as conceptually Jesus is the center of any Christian faith, and because the quickly increasing segment of Americans might have little sense about him because they identify as skeptics or uncertain individuals or spiritual independents. I take no issue with any of these traditions, nor with any other faith; however I believe that contain precious wisdom of significant worth in biblical accounts.
It is decidedly not the story of an authoritative monarch arising; conversely, an infant arrives to displaced parents in a garage, who are forced to hastily depart to another nation to escape undercover officers. The child matures in modest conditions, an employed craftsman; his teaching is about love for others, particularly for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but a concrete one, expressed by feeding and protecting. Jesus' answer to aggression is to offer the opposite cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a means to educate the assailant; his approach to wrongdoing states that when someone steals your coat you ought to provide them your pullover also.
The obvious and direct truth that the Savior in biblical accounts requests a type of extreme compassion focused on the poor has consistently rendered the Christian faith somewhat of a provocative belief system: attractive to the general public, but owing to its inherent radicalness requiring to be controlled. During the 1950s it was restrained through watering down – Protestantism was so prevalent that it basically sanctified existing conditions.
A Struggle for the Finest Within Us
Therefore I have felt encouraged to witness the steadfast resistance to Trump emerge over the last twelve months. It has served as great solace to help build the initiative that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and likely has encouraged citizens to show up in large quantities in interim political contests. We must have to continue it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags during all protests and appeals to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We're going to be asked ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you welcome them and embrace them or refuse?
America is best defended, in other words, by relationship to the highest in US heritage, just as Christianity is best defended by reference to that which renders it special and magnificent, which is the example of the Savior. In all circumstances does it suggest acting as if the worst regarding America and Christian faith was nonexistent; it signifies both meekness and faith, a combination that genuine US believers should be comfortable with.
