Trumpism's most telling and defining instances – not its most significant, nor most harsh, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but possibly its most revealing – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of several weeks, the nation's leader 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 performed deeds ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of deaths resulting from his reductions to foreign assistance is 600,000 and growing, and presently an analysis forecast his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities 1.3 million more. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have risked – truly, no previous leader would have contemplated – unilaterally destroying large sections of the executive mansion to build a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the active collaboration of numerous the nation's most affluent, almost all of whom maintain dealings with the government.
We transitioned from 'the humble will receive the world' to 'the meek shall die to cholera'
As confusing as it is to witness the president attempt to overturn the traditional concept about democracy and substitute it with its complete opposite, there remains a substantial portion of Americans who should not find it entirely new. That encompasses people such as ourselves – within elder demographics a near majority – who were raised within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have witnessed across decades while conservative evangelical congregations transformed the Christ we learned about into exactly the opposite of our understanding of him. Essentially, they transformed an image of affection into a symbol of hostility who approves precisely the cruelties that he condemned in the Gospel; this has happened more slowly, over decades instead of months, but it is nonetheless unsettling through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for countless people.
A Toxic Christianity Gains Ground
Hence I shall explain the Christ that I grew up with, since in theory Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and given that the fastest-growing cadre of Americans might have little sense about him because they identify as atheists or agnostics or nones. I raise no objection with any of these traditions, nor with any other faith; yet I maintain that there are pearls of substantial value within Christian narrative.
It is unquestionably not the account of a powerful ruler appearing; rather, an infant arrives to homeless parents in an automotive shelter, who must quickly flee to a foreign land to evade secret police. The baby grows up in simple surroundings, a laboring woodworker; his message concerns compassion for other people, especially for the poor – not simply tender feelings, but tangible care, expressed by feeding and housing. Christ's response to aggression is to turn the opposite cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a method to educate the attacker; his crime policy is that if someone steals your jacket you should give him your sweater also.
The apparent and clear reality that Christ from scripture requests a type of extreme compassion centered on the impoverished has consistently rendered Christianity somewhat of a controversial faith: appealing to the general public, but because of its intrinsic extremism needing to be controlled. During the 1950s it was contained via weakening – The Protestant faith was so dominant that it basically baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Highest Within Us
So I have been inspired to witness the determined opposition to Trump emerge in this past year. It has served as significant comfort to help build the movement that has protested openly via continuous gatherings, and seems to have inspired voters to participate in numbers in the off-year elections. We must have to continue it, and through comparable resolve, featuring US banners during all protests and requests to the best parts of American history.
We shall be interrogated ... regarding how you welcomed the foreigner? Did you accept these individuals and receive them or reject?
America is best defended, essentially, by relationship to the highest within national tradition, exactly as the Christian faith is most protected through connection to elements that cause it to be special and wonderful, which is the example of the Savior. In both situations does it suggest pretending the most negative about the nation and Christian faith was nonexistent; it means both modesty and conviction, a combination that serious American Christians should be comfortable with.
