Trumpism's most illuminating and defining moments – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor most foolish, but perhaps its most illuminating – emerged earlier this harvest season. In the course of a few weeks, the US president commenced revealing everyone his designs for a lavish reception room double the dimensions than the White House and then began unilaterally ripping down the eastern section to construct it.
He has performed deeds ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of fatalities from his cuts to international aid is 600,000 and growing, and this week a study predicted his fossil fuel policies would cause deaths an additional 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No previous president would have dared – really, no previous leader would have conceived – independently wrecking large sections of the executive mansion in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of numerous America's wealthiest, nearly all of which conduct transactions with federal agencies.
We went from 'the gentle will obtain the planet' to 'the meek shall die to cholera'
As bewildering as it is to observe the president attempt to overturn the established notion of democracy and substitute it with its complete opposite, there is one large group among Americans who wouldn't consider it totally unfamiliar. This includes individuals like us – among senior generations a near majority – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have observed over the years as politically conservative religious groups converted the Savior we learned about into exactly the opposite of our perception of his character. At its most basic, they transformed an image of love into a figure of animosity who blesses specifically the brutality that he condemned in the Gospel; this has happened more slowly, over decades as opposed to months, however it is still disturbing through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground
So let me first describe the Jesus from my upbringing, since in theory Jesus is the center within Christian belief, and given that the rapidly expanding group of Americans could have minimal awareness regarding him because they identify as atheists or uncertain individuals or spiritual independents. I take no issue with these different approaches, nor with alternative spiritual paths; but I do think that there are pearls of significant worth within Christian narrative.
It is unquestionably not the account of a powerful ruler arising; conversely, a child comes into the world to parents without shelter in a storage space, who must quickly flee to a foreign land to evade secret police. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his message is about love for others, particularly for the disadvantaged – not simply tender feelings, but practical compassion, shown by providing food and housing. Christ's response to hostility is to turn the opposite cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a means to instruct the aggressor; his crime policy is that if an individual takes your outer garment you ought to provide him your sweater as well.
The apparent and direct fact that the Jesus of the gospels calls for a type of extreme compassion concentrated on the impoverished has perpetually caused Christian religion something of a provocative belief system: attractive to the general public, but because of its intrinsic extremism needing to be contained. During the 1950s it was controlled by dilution – Protestantism was so prevalent that it practically blessed current circumstances.
A Conflict for the Best Within Us
So I have been inspired to witness the determined opposition against Trump arise over the last twelve months. It has been great solace to participate in developing the movement that has demonstrated publicly through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated citizens to participate in large quantities during minor elections. We must have to persist with it, and with identical determination, featuring US banners throughout each rally and requests to the best parts in US history.
We will be questioned ... how did you receive the immigrant? Did you accept these individuals and welcome him or reject?
The country is optimally secured, essentially, through connection to the highest in US heritage, exactly as the Christian faith is best defended by relationship to elements that cause it to be distinctive and wonderful, specifically the model of Jesus. In neither case does it mean acting as if the worst of both America and Christianity was nonexistent; it means both meekness and faith, a combination that genuine US believers ought to accept.
