Trumpism's most telling and distinctive moments – not its most important, nor most brutal, nor most hazardous, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of multiple weeks, the US president commenced revealing everyone his plans for a lavish reception room twice the size than the White House and then began unilaterally ripping down the East Wing to erect it.
He has performed deeds ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of casualties due to his slashing to USAID amounts to 600,000 and rising, and recently research forecast his petroleum strategies would kill an additional 1.3 million. Yet nothing as characteristic. No other president would have attempted – genuinely, no other president would have conceived – independently wrecking significant portions of the executive mansion in order to erect a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the direct cooperation of multiple the richest Americans, almost all of whom conduct transactions with public institutions.
We transitioned from 'the meek shall inherit the planet' to 'the meek shall die of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the president seek to颠覆 the traditional concept regarding democracy and replace it with its polar opposite, there exists a significant segment within America who wouldn't consider it totally unfamiliar. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations a near majority – who were brought up within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have witnessed across decades while conservative evangelical congregations turned the Jesus we learned about into the complete reverse of our perception of his character. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of affection into an icon of animosity who blesses specifically the brutality that he denounced in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred more slowly, over decades instead of months, yet it remains unsettling through similar means, a confusing personal impact for numerous individuals.
A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground
Hence I shall explain the Savior that I grew up with, as conceptually the Savior is the core of Christian religion, and since the quickly increasing segment of Americans might have little sense about him because they identify as skeptics or agnostics or nones. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with any other faith; yet I maintain that contain precious wisdom of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is unquestionably absolutely not the account of a mighty king arising; rather, a child comes into the world to displaced parents in a storage space, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to avoid undercover officers. The child matures in modest conditions, a laboring woodworker; his doctrine is about love for fellow humans, especially for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but tangible care, expressed by feeding and sheltering. Jesus' answer to aggression is to offer the additional cheek – not as a demonstration of compliant endurance, but as a means to instruct the aggressor; his crime policy indicates that whenever someone steals your coat you must offer him your sweater as well.
The evident and direct fact that the Jesus of the gospels calls for a type of radical love centered on the impoverished is what has always made the Christian faith rather a provocative belief system: appealing to the masses, but owing to its natural unconventionality requiring to be restrained. During the 1950s it was controlled through watering down – The Protestant faith was so prevalent that it basically baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Highest of Us
So I have been encouraged to see the persistent defiance regarding Trump develop in this past year. It has provided significant comfort to assist in constructing the movement that has demonstrated publicly in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated voters to turn out in numbers during minor elections. We will need to persist with it, and with identical determination, displaying national flags during all protests and appeals to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We're going to be asked ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you welcome them and embrace them or not?
The nation is most protected, essentially, through connection to the highest in US heritage, similar to Christianity is best defended by relationship to what makes it special and beautiful, specifically the model of Christ. In neither case does it imply pretending the worst of both America and Christianity never occurred; it represents both humility and belief, a mixture that genuine US believers should be comfortable with.
