The Trump movement's most illuminating and characteristic moments – not its most important, nor most harsh, nor most threatening, nor most senseless, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of several weeks, the American president started showing the public his plans for a lavish reception room twice the size compared to the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the eastern section to erect it.
He has committed acts 10,000 times as bad – the existing assessment of casualties from his cuts to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and growing, and this week an analysis predicted his fossil fuel policies would kill an additional 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No previous president would have dared – genuinely, no former commander would have contemplated – independently wrecking significant portions of the White House to build a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the enthusiastic participation of multiple the richest Americans, the majority of whom conduct transactions with public institutions.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the world' toward 'the humble will perish from cholera'
As bewildering as it is to watch the chief executive attempt to overturn the established notion of democracy and substitute it with its direct contrary, there is one large group within America who might not perceive it completely novel. This includes individuals like us – among senior generations close to half – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have observed over the years while conservative evangelical congregations turned the Jesus we learned about into the total contrary of our understanding of him. Essentially, they converted a persona of love into a figure of hostility who endorses exactly the harshness that he denounced in scripture; this change developed more gradually, over decades rather than months, yet it remains disconcerting through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for numerous individuals.
A Toxic Christianity Establishes Itself
Hence I shall explain the Jesus from my upbringing, because theoretically Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and given that the rapidly expanding group within America may possess limited understanding about him because they identify as non-believers or doubters or religiously unaffiliated. I take no issue with these different approaches, nor with any other faith; yet I maintain that contain precious wisdom of great price in biblical accounts.
It is decidedly definitely not the story of a powerful ruler appearing; rather, a child comes into the world to parents without shelter in an automotive shelter, who must quickly flee to another nation to escape secret police. The child matures in simple surroundings, a laboring woodworker; his message concerns compassion for others, particularly for the poor – and not a sentimental love, but tangible care, shown by providing food and housing. Jesus' answer to violence is to turn the other cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a way to educate the attacker; his method regarding offenses states that when someone steals your coat you must offer them your pullover too.
The evident and direct truth that the Jesus from scripture calls for a type of extreme compassion concentrated on the poor has consistently rendered Christian religion rather a controversial faith: appealing to the populace, but because of its intrinsic extremism demanding to be controlled. In the 1950s it was controlled by dilution – Protestantism was so prevalent that it essentially blessed current circumstances.
A Conflict for the Highest of Us
So I have been heartened to witness the persistent defiance against Trump emerge in this past year. It has served as great solace to help build the campaign that has demonstrated publicly via continuous gatherings, and appears to have motivated voters to participate in significant amounts during minor elections. We must have to maintain it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags throughout each rally and requests to the best parts within national heritage.
We shall be interrogated ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you receive him and welcome him or not?
The nation is most protected, essentially, by reference to the finest about American history, similar to Christianity is optimally secured by reference to elements that cause it to be unique and magnificent, which is the example of the Savior. In neither case does it imply pretending the most negative regarding America and Christian faith did not happen; it represents both modesty and belief, a combination that committed US believers ought to accept.
