Trumpism's most revealing and characteristic moments – not its most crucial, nor most brutal, nor most threatening, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – came earlier this autumn. In the course of a few weeks, the US president started showing everyone his intentions for a gilded ballroom double the dimensions of the White House and then commenced independently demolishing the eastern section to erect it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe – the present calculation of casualties due to his slashing to international aid amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and presently a study projected his fossil fuel policies would cause deaths an additional 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No former leader would have attempted – genuinely, no former commander would have contemplated – solo demolishing large sections of the presidential residence to construct a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the direct cooperation of some of America's wealthiest, almost all of whom have business with the government.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the world' to 'the meek shall die from cholera'
As bewildering as it is to observe the chief executive attempt to overturn the traditional concept of democracy and substitute it with its complete opposite, there exists a significant segment of Americans who wouldn't consider it entirely new. This includes individuals like us – in older age cohorts close to half – who were educated as conventional Protestant believers.
We have witnessed across decades as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we learned about into the complete reverse of our understanding of him. Essentially, they turned a figure of compassion into a symbol of animosity who blesses precisely the cruelties that he condemned in scripture; this change developed more gradually, through multiple decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless disturbing through similar means, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Gains Ground
Therefore allow me to outline the Jesus that I grew up with, since in theory Christ is the focus within Christian belief, and given that the fastest-growing cadre of Americans could have minimal awareness about him because they identify as skeptics or doubters or spiritual independents. I have no problem with these various perspectives, nor with different religions; but I do think that exist valuable insights of great price within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly absolutely not the narrative of a powerful ruler emerging; rather, an infant arrives to homeless parents in a storage space, who must quickly flee to a foreign land to evade secret police. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his doctrine concerns compassion for fellow humans, specifically for the poor – not simply tender feelings, but tangible care, expressed by feeding and protecting. Jesus' answer to aggression is to offer the other cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a method to educate the aggressor; his crime policy states that when someone steals your jacket you ought to provide the person your additional clothing as well.
The apparent and straightforward reality that the Savior in biblical accounts requests a form of radical love centered on the impoverished is what has always made Christianity somewhat of a scandalous religion: attractive to the populace, but because of its inherent radicalness demanding to be restrained. In the 1950s it was controlled through watering down – Protestantism was so prevalent that it basically sanctified existing conditions.
A Conflict for the Finest of Us
Therefore I have felt inspired to witness the steadfast resistance to Trump emerge during the previous year. It has served as great solace to assist in constructing the movement that has demonstrated publicly through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated electorate to turn out in large quantities in the off-year elections. We will need to persist with it, and with identical determination, featuring US banners at every demonstration and calls to the best parts in US history.
We shall be interrogated ... how did you receive the immigrant? Did you welcome them and welcome him or reject?
The country is optimally secured, essentially, by relationship to the highest within national tradition, just as Christianity is most protected by relationship to elements that cause it to be distinctive and beautiful, which is the example of Jesus. In both situations does it imply pretending the worst regarding America and religious tradition was nonexistent; it means both meekness and faith, a combination that committed national faithful should embrace.
