The Trump phenomenon's most telling and characteristic moments – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most hazardous, nor most senseless, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. During the period of several weeks, the American president commenced revealing everyone his designs for a gilded ballroom two times larger than the White House and then began solo dismantling the East Wing to erect it.
He has committed acts countless times more severe – the current estimate of fatalities resulting from his reductions to foreign assistance is 600,000 and growing, and recently research predicted his petroleum strategies would result in fatalities an additional 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No other president would have dared – really, no other president would have imagined – unilaterally destroying significant portions of the presidential residence in order to erect a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the active collaboration of numerous America's wealthiest, nearly all of which maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We transitioned from 'the humble will receive the world' to 'the gentle will succumb from cholera'
As confusing as it is to observe the leader try to upend the old idea about democracy and exchange it with its direct contrary, there remains a substantial portion of Americans who might not perceive it entirely new. That is those of us – in older age cohorts almost a majority – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have observed across decades while conservative evangelical congregations transformed the Christ we grew up with into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of compassion into a symbol of animosity who endorses exactly the harshness that he denounced in scripture; this transformation occurred at a slower pace, through multiple decades rather than months, however it is still disconcerting via comparable methods, a disorienting gut punch for countless people.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Christ from my upbringing, since in theory Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and since the rapidly expanding group within America may possess limited understanding of him since they are atheists or agnostics or nones. I have no problem with these different approaches, nor with different religions; however I believe that contain precious wisdom of significant worth in biblical accounts.
It is unquestionably absolutely not the narrative of a powerful ruler appearing; rather, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in an automotive shelter, who must quickly flee to a foreign land to avoid secret police. The infant develops in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his teaching concerns compassion for others, particularly for the disadvantaged – not merely emotional affection, but tangible care, shown by providing food and sheltering. Christ's response to violence is to turn the additional cheek – not as an act of passive acceptance, but as a method to teach the attacker; his method regarding offenses is that if someone steals your coat you ought to provide the person your additional clothing too.
The obvious and straightforward truth that the Savior of the gospels calls for a type of extreme compassion centered on the poor is what has always made Christianity somewhat of a provocative belief system: attractive to the masses, but because of its natural unconventionality demanding to be contained. During the 1950s it was restrained by dilution – Protestant Christianity was so dominant that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Best Among Us
So I have been inspired to see the persistent defiance to Trump arise in this past year. It has served as great solace to help build the initiative that has taken to the streets through repeated demonstrations, and seems to have inspired citizens to turn out in large quantities during minor elections. We will need to continue it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags during all protests and appeals to the finest aspects of American history.
We will be questioned ... regarding how you welcomed the stranger? Did you receive him and embrace them or not?
The nation is most protected, in other words, through connection to the finest about American history, just as Christianity is optimally secured by relationship to what makes it special and wonderful, which is the example of Jesus. In neither case does it imply feigning the most negative of both America and Christian faith was nonexistent; it represents both humility and conviction, a mixture that genuine national faithful should be comfortable with.
