The Trump phenomenon's most telling and characteristic occasions – not its most significant, nor most harsh, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of a few weeks, the nation's leader began displaying everyone his designs for an ornate dance hall twice the size than the White House and then commenced independently demolishing the eastern section to erect it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe – the existing assessment of fatalities due to his slashing to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and rising, and presently research forecast his petroleum strategies would result in fatalities 1.3 million more. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have attempted – truly, no previous leader would have conceived – unilaterally destroying significant portions of the presidential residence to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of numerous America's wealthiest, nearly all of which conduct transactions with federal agencies.
We moved from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' toward 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to witness the president try to upend the traditional concept regarding democracy and substitute it with its polar opposite, there exists a significant segment of Americans who should not find it totally unfamiliar. This includes individuals like us – within elder demographics a near majority – who were educated within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have observed across decades as rightwing evangelical churches converted the Savior we learned about into exactly the opposite of our understanding of him. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of compassion into an icon of animosity who blesses exactly the harshness that he denounced in scripture; this transformation occurred more slowly, through multiple decades rather than months, yet it remains unsettling via comparable methods, a bewildering emotional blow for countless people.
A Harmful Christianity Gains Ground
Hence I shall explain the Jesus from my childhood, as conceptually Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and since the fastest-growing cadre among Americans could have minimal awareness regarding him since they are skeptics or uncertain individuals or religiously unaffiliated. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; however I believe that exist valuable insights of great price in the Christian story.
It is unquestionably definitely not the story of a powerful ruler arising; rather, a child comes into the world to displaced parents in a storage space, who must quickly flee to a different country to avoid undercover officers. The baby grows up in modest conditions, a working carpenter; his doctrine focuses on affection for fellow humans, specifically for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but practical compassion, shown by providing food and sheltering. The Savior's reaction to hostility is to turn the other cheek – not as an act of compliant endurance, but as a way to instruct the aggressor; his method regarding offenses states that when an individual takes your outer garment you must offer the person your additional clothing too.
The apparent and clear reality that the Savior from scripture calls for a type of radical love concentrated on the needy has consistently rendered Christian religion somewhat of a controversial faith: engaging for the masses, but owing to its inherent radicalness needing to be contained. In the 1950s it was contained by dilution – The Protestant faith was so prevalent that it practically sanctified existing conditions.
A Battle for the Highest Within Us
So I have been encouraged to observe the determined opposition to Trump develop in this past year. It has served as great solace to help build the campaign that has taken to the streets in rally after rally, and seems to have inspired electorate to participate in large quantities in interim political contests. We must have to continue it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags throughout each rally and appeals to the highest qualities in US history.
We will be questioned ... regarding how you welcomed the immigrant? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or reject?
The country is optimally secured, in other words, through connection to the highest within national tradition, just as Christianity is best defended by relationship to that which renders it unique and beautiful, particularly the pattern of Jesus. In both situations does it suggest acting as if the worst about the nation and religious tradition did not happen; it signifies both modesty and conviction, a mixture that committed national faithful should be comfortable with.
