Trumpism's most telling and defining moments – not its most important, nor most brutal, nor most threatening, nor most senseless, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. During the period of multiple weeks, the American president commenced revealing the public his designs for an ornate dance hall double the dimensions of the White House and then began solo dismantling the East Wing to build it.
He has done things countless times more severe – the present calculation of casualties from his cuts to foreign assistance stands at 600,000 and growing, and this week a study projected his petroleum strategies would kill an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have dared – really, no previous leader would have imagined – solo demolishing major areas of the presidential residence to build a royal-themed celebration hall, with the enthusiastic participation of some of the richest Americans, almost all of whom maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the world' into 'the humble will perish to cholera'
As bewildering as it is to watch the leader try to upend the traditional concept regarding democracy and exchange it with its polar opposite, there exists a significant segment among Americans who might not perceive it totally unfamiliar. That encompasses people such as ourselves – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were raised as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have watched across decades as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we grew up with into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they converted a persona of love into an icon of hostility who approves exactly the harshness that he condemned in the Gospel; this change developed at a slower pace, through multiple decades instead of months, but it is nonetheless disconcerting via comparable methods, a confusing personal impact for many of us.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Savior from my childhood, because theoretically Jesus is the center within Christian belief, and since the rapidly expanding group among Americans could have minimal awareness of him since they are atheists or agnostics or spiritual independents. I raise no objection with these different approaches, nor with different religions; however I believe that exist valuable insights of significant worth in biblical accounts.
It is decidedly not the narrative of an authoritative monarch emerging; instead, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in a storage space, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to avoid undercover officers. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, a laboring woodworker; his message concerns compassion for fellow humans, specifically for the poor – not simply tender feelings, but practical compassion, shown by providing food and housing. Jesus' answer to aggression is to offer the opposite cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a method to educate the attacker; his approach to wrongdoing indicates that whenever someone steals your coat you ought to provide him your sweater also.
The evident and direct truth that the Savior from scripture calls for a type of extreme compassion concentrated on the impoverished has consistently rendered Christian religion rather a scandalous religion: engaging for the populace, but because of its inherent radicalness requiring to be restrained. During the 1950s it was restrained by dilution – The Protestant faith was so widespread that it essentially sanctified existing conditions.
A Battle for the Highest Among Us
Hence I have become heartened to observe the persistent defiance to Trump emerge in this past year. It has been great solace to participate in developing the initiative that has demonstrated publicly through repeated demonstrations, and likely has encouraged electorate to turn out in large quantities in the off-year elections. We shall require to maintain it, and with identical determination, featuring US banners during all protests and requests to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We shall be interrogated ... how did you receive the foreigner? Did you accept these individuals and welcome him or not?
America is best defended, essentially, by relationship to the highest about American history, exactly as the Christian faith is most protected by reference to what makes it special and beautiful, particularly the pattern of the Savior. In all circumstances does it suggest feigning the worst regarding America and religious tradition was nonexistent; it means both meekness and belief, a blend that genuine American Christians should be comfortable with.
