Trumpism's most revealing and distinctive instances – not its most significant, nor most harsh, nor most threatening, nor most foolish, but perhaps its most illuminating – came earlier this autumn. In the course of a few weeks, the American president commenced revealing the public his intentions for a lavish reception room double the dimensions compared to the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the eastern section to build it.
He has performed deeds ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of casualties resulting from his reductions to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and growing, and recently research forecast his energy policies would kill an additional 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No former leader would have attempted – truly, no previous leader would have imagined – solo demolishing large sections of the presidential residence to construct a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the active collaboration of some of the nation's most affluent, almost all of whom have business with public institutions.
We transitioned from 'the gentle will obtain the planet' toward 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the leader attempt to overturn the traditional concept of democracy and exchange it with its direct contrary, there exists a significant segment among Americans who should not find it totally unfamiliar. That is those of us – among senior generations close to half – who were raised as conventional Protestant believers.
We have observed throughout the years while conservative evangelical congregations turned the Jesus we grew up with into the complete reverse of our understanding of him. Fundamentally, they transformed an image of love into an icon of animosity who blesses exactly the harshness that he criticized in the Gospel; this has happened more slowly, through multiple decades rather than months, yet it remains unsettling via comparable methods, a disorienting gut punch for numerous individuals.
A Toxic Christianity Gains Ground
Hence I shall explain the Jesus that I grew up with, because theoretically Jesus is the center of Christian religion, and because the rapidly expanding group within America may possess limited understanding of him as they consider themselves skeptics or uncertain individuals or spiritual independents. I take no issue with any of these traditions, nor with different religions; but I do think that there are pearls of great price within Christian narrative.
It is emphatically absolutely not the story of an authoritative monarch appearing; conversely, a baby is born to homeless parents in a garage, who must quickly flee to a different country to escape secret police. The child matures in modest conditions, a working carpenter; his doctrine focuses on affection for other people, especially for the disadvantaged – not simply tender feelings, but a concrete one, demonstrated through nourishing and sheltering. The Savior's reaction to aggression is to offer the other cheek – not as a demonstration of passive acceptance, but as a means to instruct the assailant; his crime policy states that when a person pilfers your outer garment you should give him your sweater as well.
The obvious and straightforward reality that the Jesus of the gospels calls for a form of radical love centered on the needy has consistently rendered Christian religion something of a provocative belief system: appealing to the general public, but because of its inherent radicalness demanding to be contained. During the 1950s it was contained through watering down – The Protestant faith was so widespread that it basically sanctified existing conditions.
A Struggle for the Best Within Us
Hence I have become encouraged to witness the persistent defiance regarding Trump develop during the previous year. It has been significant comfort to assist in constructing the movement that has demonstrated publicly through repeated demonstrations, and seems to have inspired voters to turn out in numbers in interim political contests. We shall require to continue it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags during all protests and calls to the finest aspects within national heritage.
We're going to be asked ... regarding how you welcomed the stranger? Did you welcome them and receive them or refuse?
America is best defended, to put it differently, by relationship to the best about American history, exactly as the Christian faith is best defended by reference to that which renders it unique and beautiful, specifically the model of Jesus. In both situations does it mean pretending the most damaging of both America and religious tradition never occurred; it signifies both modesty and belief, a blend that serious American Christians should be comfortable with.
