The Trump movement's most telling and distinctive moments – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor most senseless, but perhaps its most illuminating – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of multiple weeks, the American president started showing all observers his intentions for an ornate dance hall double the dimensions than the White House and then commenced unilaterally ripping down the East Wing portion to build it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe – the existing assessment of casualties resulting from his reductions to USAID stands at 600,000 and growing, and presently research predicted his energy policies would cause deaths 1.3 million more. However nothing as distinctive. No previous president would have risked – truly, no other president would have imagined – solo demolishing significant portions of the White House to build a royal-themed celebration hall, with the active collaboration of numerous the richest Americans, nearly all of which maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the planet' toward 'the meek shall die of cholera'
As confusing as it is to witness the president attempt to overturn the established notion about democracy and replace it with its complete opposite, there remains a substantial portion within America who should not find it completely novel. That encompasses people such as ourselves – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were raised as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have witnessed throughout the years while conservative evangelical congregations turned the Jesus we grew up with into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. At its most basic, they converted a persona of affection into a figure of hostility who approves specifically the brutality that he criticized in scripture; this transformation occurred more slowly, through multiple decades rather than months, however it is still disturbing through similar means, a confusing personal impact for countless people.
A Harmful Christianity Gains Ground
So let me first describe the Jesus from my childhood, since in theory Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and since the rapidly expanding group of Americans may possess limited understanding about him since they are non-believers or uncertain individuals or religiously unaffiliated. I take no issue with any of these traditions, nor with any other faith; yet I maintain that there are pearls of great price within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly not the account of a powerful ruler emerging; rather, a baby is born to parents without shelter in a storage space, who must quickly flee to a different country to escape secret police. The child matures in simple surroundings, an employed craftsman; his message concerns compassion for fellow humans, especially for the disadvantaged – not simply tender feelings, but tangible care, expressed by feeding and housing. Jesus' answer to aggression is to turn the other cheek – not as a demonstration of compliant endurance, but as a method to teach the attacker; his approach to wrongdoing is that if a person pilfers your outer garment you ought to provide him your sweater also.
The obvious and clear reality that the Jesus of the gospels advocates for a type of profound affection centered on the needy has perpetually caused Christian religion rather a provocative belief system: attractive to the general public, but due to its natural unconventionality needing to be restrained. During the 1950s it was controlled through watering down – Protestant Christianity was so dominant that it essentially blessed current circumstances.
A Conflict for the Best Within Us
So I have been heartened to observe the steadfast resistance regarding Trump develop during the previous year. It has served as substantial consolation to help build the movement that has protested openly in rally after rally, and seems to have inspired voters to show up in numbers during minor elections. We must have to continue it, and with identical determination, displaying national flags during all protests and calls to the finest aspects in US history.
We shall be interrogated ... how did you receive the foreigner? Did you welcome them and embrace them or refuse?
America is best defended, essentially, by relationship to the highest in US heritage, just as Christianity is optimally secured through connection to elements that cause it to be special and wonderful, specifically the model of the Savior. In neither case does it imply pretending the most damaging regarding America and Christianity did not happen; it means both meekness and belief, a mixture that committed American Christians should be comfortable with.
