Trumpism's most illuminating and characteristic instances – not its most crucial, nor most harsh, nor most hazardous, nor most foolish, but perhaps its most illuminating – occurred earlier this fall. During the period of a few weeks, the US president started showing the public his intentions for a gilded ballroom double the dimensions of the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the eastern section to construct it.
He has performed deeds ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of deaths due to his slashing to USAID stands at 600,000 and increasing, and this week research forecast his petroleum strategies would kill an additional 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No previous president would have attempted – really, no other president would have imagined – solo demolishing large sections of the presidential residence to build a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the enthusiastic participation of some of America's wealthiest, nearly all of which maintain dealings with public institutions.
We transitioned from 'the humble will receive the world' to 'the gentle will succumb of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the leader try to upend the traditional concept regarding democracy and substitute it with its direct contrary, there is one large group of Americans who wouldn't consider it entirely new. This includes individuals like us – within elder demographics close to half – who were raised as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have watched across decades as politically conservative religious groups transformed the Christ we learned about into exactly the opposite of our perception of his character. At its most basic, they transformed an image of compassion into a symbol of hate who endorses precisely the cruelties that he condemned in scripture; this has happened more slowly, across decades rather than months, yet it remains unsettling through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Toxic Christianity Gains Ground
Hence I shall explain the Savior from my childhood, because theoretically Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and given that the fastest-growing cadre within America may possess limited understanding of him since they are non-believers or doubters or religiously unaffiliated. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with different religions; but I do think that contain precious wisdom of significant worth in biblical accounts.
It is decidedly not the account of an authoritative monarch arising; instead, a child comes into the world to displaced parents in a storage space, who are forced to hastily depart to a different country to evade undercover officers. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his doctrine concerns compassion for fellow humans, especially for the impoverished – and not a sentimental love, but tangible care, expressed by feeding and housing. Christ's response to hostility is to turn the other cheek – not as a demonstration of passive acceptance, but as a method to teach the attacker; his method regarding offenses states that when someone steals your outer garment you must offer them your pullover also.
The evident and clear reality that Christ of the gospels advocates for a type of radical love concentrated on the poor is what has always made Christianity something of a provocative belief system: attractive to the masses, but because of its intrinsic extremism needing to be contained. In the fifties it was restrained via weakening – The Protestant faith was so widespread that it basically sanctified existing conditions.
A Struggle for the Finest of Us
Therefore I have felt encouraged to see the persistent defiance regarding Trump arise over the last twelve months. It has served as great solace to participate in developing the movement that has demonstrated publicly via continuous gatherings, and likely has encouraged citizens to participate in significant amounts during minor elections. We will need to continue it, and with identical determination, with American flags at every demonstration and requests to the finest aspects within national heritage.
We will be questioned ... regarding how you welcomed the foreigner? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or refuse?
America is best defended, to put it differently, through connection to the highest about American history, just as Christianity is optimally secured by relationship to elements that cause it to be unique and magnificent, specifically the model of Jesus. In neither case does it mean acting as if the worst regarding America and religious tradition never occurred; it means both humility and conviction, a combination that serious national faithful should be comfortable with.
