Trumpism's most illuminating and defining moments – not its most crucial, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of a few weeks, the US president started showing everyone his designs for an ornate dance hall double the dimensions of the White House and then began independently demolishing the East Wing to construct it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of deaths from his cuts to foreign assistance amounts to 600,000 and rising, and this week a study forecast his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities 1.3 million more. However nothing as distinctive. No former leader would have dared – genuinely, no former commander would have imagined – solo demolishing significant portions of the executive mansion to build a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of numerous America's wealthiest, nearly all of which conduct transactions with the government.
We transitioned from 'the humble will receive the world' toward 'the humble will perish to cholera'
As bewildering as it is to watch the president attempt to overturn the established notion regarding democracy and exchange it with its direct contrary, there remains a substantial portion of Americans who might not perceive it entirely new. This includes individuals like us – among senior generations almost a majority – who were educated as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have watched across decades as rightwing evangelical churches converted the Savior we were raised with into the complete reverse of our perception of his character. At its most basic, they turned a figure of compassion into an icon of animosity who approves exactly the harshness that he criticized in scripture; this change developed more slowly, across decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless unsettling through similar means, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground
Therefore allow me to outline the Jesus from my childhood, as conceptually the Savior is the core of Christian religion, and given that the rapidly expanding group among Americans may possess limited understanding regarding him as they consider themselves non-believers or uncertain individuals or spiritual independents. I have no problem with these different approaches, nor with different religions; however I believe that contain precious wisdom of substantial value within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly not the story of a powerful ruler appearing; rather, an infant arrives to displaced parents in a garage, who are forced to hastily depart to another nation to evade covert authorities. The infant develops in modest conditions, a laboring woodworker; his message concerns compassion for other people, especially for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but practical compassion, expressed by feeding and sheltering. The Savior's reaction to hostility is to present the additional cheek – not as a gesture of submissive tolerance, but as a method to teach the assailant; his approach to wrongdoing is that if someone steals your outer garment you ought to provide him your sweater too.
The obvious and clear fact that Christ of the gospels calls for a form of radical love centered on the needy is what has always made the Christian faith somewhat of a controversial faith: appealing to the general public, but because of its inherent radicalness demanding to be contained. In the fifties it was controlled via weakening – Protestant Christianity was so widespread that it basically sanctified existing conditions.
A Struggle for the Best Within Us
Hence I have become inspired to witness the steadfast resistance against Trump emerge during the previous year. It has served as substantial consolation to assist in constructing the initiative that has taken to the streets in rally after rally, and seems to have inspired electorate to participate in numbers in the off-year elections. We must have to continue it, and in the same spirit, featuring US banners during all protests and calls to the highest qualities of American history.
We will be questioned ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or reject?
The country is optimally secured, to put it differently, through connection to the highest in US heritage, similar to Christianity is most protected by reference to what makes it distinctive and beautiful, specifically the model of Christ. In neither case does it mean pretending the most damaging of both America and Christian faith never occurred; it means both humility and belief, a blend that serious US believers should embrace.
