The Trump movement's most telling and distinctive moments – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of multiple weeks, the American president began displaying the public his intentions for a lavish reception room two times larger compared to the White House and then began unilaterally ripping down the eastern section to build it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of deaths resulting from his reductions to foreign assistance is 600,000 and rising, and presently a study predicted his fossil fuel policies would cause deaths another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No former leader would have dared – genuinely, no previous leader would have imagined – unilaterally destroying major areas of the executive mansion to build a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of multiple America's wealthiest, the majority of whom maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We moved from 'the gentle will obtain the world' toward 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the president seek to颠覆 the old idea of democracy and substitute it with its polar opposite, there exists a significant segment within America who should not find it totally unfamiliar. That is those of us – within elder demographics a near majority – who were educated as conventional Protestant believers.
We have observed over the years while conservative evangelical congregations converted the Savior we grew up with into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. At its most basic, they transformed an image of love into an icon of hate who blesses exactly the harshness that he condemned in scripture; this change developed more slowly, across decades as opposed to months, however it is still disconcerting in the same ways, a disorienting gut punch for countless people.
A Damaging Christianity Establishes Itself
Hence I shall explain the Jesus that I grew up with, since in theory Jesus is the center within Christian belief, and since the quickly increasing segment among Americans could have minimal awareness of him because they identify as atheists or agnostics or religiously unaffiliated. I raise no objection with any of these traditions, nor with different religions; but I do think that there are pearls of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is decidedly not the narrative of an authoritative monarch arising; instead, a baby is born to parents without shelter in an automotive shelter, who are forced to hastily depart to a different country to evade covert authorities. The child matures in modest conditions, a working carpenter; his doctrine is about love for fellow humans, especially for the disadvantaged – not simply tender feelings, but tangible care, shown by providing food and sheltering. The Savior's reaction to hostility is to turn the opposite cheek – not as an act of submissive tolerance, but as a method to instruct the assailant; his method regarding offenses indicates that whenever someone steals your outer garment you must offer them your pullover as well.
The obvious and straightforward truth that the Jesus in biblical accounts calls for a type of radical love concentrated on the needy has consistently rendered Christianity rather a provocative belief system: engaging for the masses, but due to its natural unconventionality needing to be contained. In the 1950s it was contained by dilution – Protestantism was so prevalent that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Best of Us
Hence I have become encouraged to observe the determined opposition against Trump emerge over the last twelve months. It has provided substantial consolation to participate in developing the movement that has taken to the streets through repeated demonstrations, and likely has encouraged voters to show up in significant amounts in interim political contests. We will need to continue it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags during all protests and calls to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We're going to be asked ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you receive him and embrace them or refuse?
The nation is most protected, to put it differently, through connection to the best within national tradition, similar to Christianity is best defended by relationship to that which renders it distinctive and wonderful, specifically the model of Jesus. In neither case does it suggest pretending the most negative about the nation and Christianity did not happen; it signifies both humility and faith, a blend that serious US believers should embrace.
