The Trump movement's most telling and characteristic occasions – not its most significant, nor cruelest, nor most threatening, nor most foolish, but perhaps its most illuminating – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of several weeks, the nation's leader commenced revealing all observers his intentions for a lavish reception room two times larger than the White House and subsequently started independently demolishing the East Wing to construct it.
He has committed acts countless times more severe – the present calculation of fatalities due to his slashing to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and presently research forecast his petroleum strategies would result in fatalities another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have attempted – genuinely, no other president would have imagined – independently wrecking major areas of the executive mansion to build a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of multiple the richest Americans, almost all of whom have business with federal agencies.
We moved from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' toward 'the gentle will succumb from cholera'
As bewildering as it is to observe the president attempt to overturn the old idea regarding democracy and replace it with its polar opposite, there is one large group within America who should not find it completely novel. That is those of us – within elder demographics almost a majority – who were educated within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have witnessed across decades as politically conservative religious groups converted the Savior we grew up with into exactly the opposite of our perception of his character. Essentially, they turned a figure of compassion into a symbol of hostility who blesses precisely the cruelties that he criticized in the Gospel; this change developed more gradually, through multiple decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless disconcerting in the same ways, a disorienting gut punch for countless people.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
Hence I shall explain the Savior from my childhood, as conceptually Jesus is the center within Christian belief, and given that the rapidly expanding group of Americans could have minimal awareness regarding him as they consider themselves atheists or uncertain individuals or spiritual independents. I have no problem with these different approaches, nor with different religions; yet I maintain that exist valuable insights of significant worth in the Christian story.
It is decidedly not the narrative of a mighty king appearing; rather, a baby is born to displaced parents in a garage, who are forced to hastily depart to a different country to escape covert authorities. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his teaching concerns compassion for other people, particularly for the poor – not merely emotional affection, but a concrete one, demonstrated through nourishing and sheltering. Christ's response to violence is to turn the other cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a means to teach the assailant; his crime policy indicates that whenever someone steals your outer garment you must offer the person your additional clothing too.
The obvious and straightforward truth that Christ from scripture advocates for a form of radical love focused on the poor is what has always made Christian religion somewhat of a provocative belief system: engaging for the populace, but owing to its inherent radicalness needing to be controlled. In the fifties it was controlled through watering down – Protestant Christianity was so widespread that it essentially sanctified existing conditions.
A Battle for the Best Within Us
So I have been encouraged to see the determined opposition against Trump arise during the previous year. It has served as great solace to assist in constructing the movement that has protested openly through repeated demonstrations, and seems to have inspired electorate to turn out in numbers during minor elections. We will need to continue it, and through comparable resolve, displaying national flags during all protests and requests to the highest qualities of American history.
We will be questioned ... how did you receive the immigrant? Did you receive him and welcome him or refuse?
The nation is most protected, to put it differently, by reference to the highest within national tradition, similar to Christianity is most protected through connection to what makes it special and magnificent, specifically the model of Christ. In neither case does it suggest pretending the most negative of both America and religious tradition never occurred; it means both modesty and faith, a mixture that committed US believers should be comfortable with.
