The Trump movement's most telling and defining moments – not its most significant, nor cruelest, nor most hazardous, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. In the course of a few weeks, the American president started showing all observers his intentions for an ornate dance hall twice the size of the White House and subsequently started solo dismantling the East Wing to construct it.
He has committed acts countless times more severe – the current estimate of deaths resulting from his reductions to USAID amounts to 600,000 and growing, and recently research predicted his petroleum strategies would result in fatalities an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have dared – truly, no former commander would have conceived – solo demolishing major areas of the presidential residence in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of numerous the richest Americans, the majority of whom have business with the government.
We transitioned from 'the gentle will obtain the world' to 'the meek shall die from cholera'
As bewildering as it is to watch the leader try to upend the old idea about democracy and substitute it with its polar opposite, there is one large group among Americans who wouldn't consider it entirely new. That is those of us – within elder demographics almost a majority – who were raised within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have observed across decades as politically conservative religious groups turned the Jesus we grew up with into the total contrary of our understanding of him. Essentially, they turned a figure of affection into an icon of animosity who blesses exactly the harshness that he criticized in scripture; this has happened more gradually, across decades instead of months, but it is nonetheless unsettling via comparable methods, a disorienting gut punch for numerous individuals.
A Damaging Christianity Establishes Itself
So let me first describe the Jesus from my childhood, as conceptually Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and because the rapidly expanding group among Americans may possess limited understanding of him since they are non-believers or agnostics or spiritual independents. I take no issue with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; but I do think that exist valuable insights of substantial value within Christian narrative.
It is emphatically absolutely not the story of a powerful ruler appearing; rather, an infant arrives to homeless parents in a storage space, who must quickly flee to a foreign land to evade covert authorities. The child matures in simple surroundings, an employed craftsman; his teaching is about love for other people, especially for the disadvantaged – and not a sentimental love, but tangible care, shown by providing food and housing. Jesus' answer to violence is to offer the opposite cheek – not as an act of compliant endurance, but as a means to educate the attacker; his method regarding offenses indicates that whenever someone steals your jacket you should give them your pullover too.
The evident and straightforward truth that the Jesus in biblical accounts calls for a form of extreme compassion centered on the impoverished is what has always made Christianity something of a scandalous religion: appealing to the general public, but because of its intrinsic extremism needing to be controlled. During the 1950s it was contained through watering down – The Protestant faith was so prevalent that it essentially baptized the status quo.
A Struggle for the Highest Within Us
Hence I have become inspired to observe the steadfast resistance regarding Trump develop in this past year. It has served as significant comfort to participate in developing the initiative that has demonstrated publicly via continuous gatherings, and seems to have inspired voters to show up in large quantities in the off-year elections. We shall require to maintain it, and with identical determination, displaying national flags at every demonstration and appeals to the best parts within national heritage.
We're going to be asked ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or refuse?
America is best defended, in other words, through connection to the best within national tradition, just as Christianity is optimally secured by reference to that which renders it special and magnificent, which is the example of Christ. In all circumstances does it imply feigning the most damaging of both America and religious tradition was nonexistent; it represents both humility and faith, a blend that serious US believers should be comfortable with.
