Trumpism's most illuminating and characteristic occasions – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most threatening, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of several weeks, the American president began displaying the public his intentions for a gilded ballroom twice the size of the White House and then commenced independently demolishing the East Wing to construct it.
He has done things countless times more severe – the present calculation of deaths from his cuts to foreign assistance is 600,000 and growing, and presently research projected his petroleum strategies would result in fatalities 1.3 million more. Yet nothing as characteristic. No other president would have risked – really, no previous leader would have imagined – unilaterally destroying major areas of the executive mansion in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of some of the richest Americans, almost all of whom conduct transactions with federal agencies.
We transitioned from 'the meek shall inherit the world' toward 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As confusing as it is to witness the leader attempt to overturn the established notion about democracy and replace it with its complete opposite, there is one large group of Americans who might not perceive it completely novel. That is those of us – among senior generations a near majority – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have witnessed throughout the years as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we were raised with into the complete reverse of our understanding of him. Essentially, they turned a figure of affection into a figure of hate who approves specifically the brutality that he criticized in the Gospel; this change developed more gradually, over decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless unsettling through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for numerous individuals.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Christ from my childhood, as conceptually Christ is the focus of any Christian faith, and because the fastest-growing cadre within America might have little sense regarding him since they are skeptics or agnostics or religiously unaffiliated. I raise no objection with any of these traditions, nor with alternative spiritual paths; however I believe that there are pearls of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is decidedly definitely not the narrative of a powerful ruler appearing; rather, a baby is born to parents without shelter in an automotive shelter, who need to rapidly escape to another nation to evade secret police. The child matures in simple surroundings, an employed craftsman; his message is about love for fellow humans, specifically for the poor – and not a sentimental love, but practical compassion, expressed by feeding and housing. Jesus' answer to hostility is to present the other cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a way to teach the assailant; his crime policy states that when an individual takes your jacket you should give the person your additional clothing as well.
The apparent and straightforward reality that Christ of the gospels requests a type of extreme compassion focused on the impoverished is what has always made Christian religion something of a controversial faith: attractive to the masses, but due to its inherent radicalness requiring to be controlled. In the 1950s it was restrained via weakening – Protestant Christianity was so dominant that it essentially blessed current circumstances.
A Struggle for the Highest of Us
So I have been heartened to see the determined opposition against Trump arise in this past year. It has provided substantial consolation to assist in constructing the initiative that has demonstrated publicly in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated electorate to participate in significant amounts during minor elections. We will need to maintain it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags during all protests and appeals to the finest aspects in US history.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the stranger? Did you receive him and receive them or reject?
The country is optimally secured, to put it differently, by reference to the finest in US heritage, just as Christianity is best defended by reference to what makes it special and wonderful, specifically the model of the Savior. In neither case does it imply feigning the worst regarding America and religious tradition never occurred; it means both humility and conviction, a combination that committed national faithful should be comfortable with.
