Trumpism's most telling and defining occasions – not its most crucial, nor most brutal, nor most threatening, nor most senseless, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of a few weeks, the US president began displaying the public his plans for an ornate dance hall double the dimensions compared to the White House and subsequently started independently demolishing the East Wing to build it.
He has performed deeds ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of deaths from his cuts to foreign assistance stands at 600,000 and increasing, and recently a study predicted his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities 1.3 million more. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have attempted – truly, no other president would have imagined – unilaterally destroying significant portions of the executive mansion to build a Versailles-style party room, with the direct cooperation of multiple America's wealthiest, nearly all of which have business with federal agencies.
We went from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' toward 'the meek shall die from cholera'
As confusing as it is to observe the leader attempt to overturn the established notion regarding democracy and replace it with its complete opposite, there remains a substantial portion among Americans who wouldn't consider it totally unfamiliar. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations a near majority – who were educated as conventional Protestant believers.
We have observed across decades as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we were raised with into the total contrary of our understanding of him. At its most basic, they converted a persona of love into a figure of hate who approves exactly the harshness that he condemned in the Gospel; this transformation occurred more gradually, across decades as opposed to months, yet it remains disconcerting through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Gains Ground
Therefore allow me to outline the Jesus that I grew up with, as conceptually the Savior is the core of any Christian faith, and because the fastest-growing cadre of Americans may possess limited understanding of him since they are non-believers or agnostics or spiritual independents. I raise no objection with these different approaches, nor with different religions; but I do think that there are pearls of substantial value in biblical accounts.
It is emphatically definitely not the narrative of a powerful ruler appearing; rather, a child comes into the world to parents without shelter in a garage, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to avoid undercover officers. The infant develops in modest conditions, a working carpenter; his message concerns compassion for other people, especially for the poor – and not a sentimental love, but practical compassion, expressed by feeding and sheltering. Christ's response to violence is to present the opposite cheek – not as a gesture of passive acceptance, but as a means to educate the attacker; his crime policy is that if someone steals your coat you ought to provide the person your additional clothing also.
The apparent and direct fact that the Jesus in biblical accounts advocates for a form of radical love centered on the poor has consistently rendered the Christian faith somewhat of a scandalous religion: appealing to the general public, but due to its intrinsic extremism requiring to be restrained. In the fifties it was contained by dilution – Protestant Christianity was so widespread that it practically sanctified existing conditions.
A Conflict for the Finest of Us
Hence I have become heartened to see the determined opposition regarding Trump develop in this past year. It has provided substantial consolation to help build the campaign that has protested openly in rally after rally, and appears to have motivated electorate to turn out in large quantities during minor elections. We will need to persist with it, and through comparable resolve, with American flags during all protests and calls to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you welcome them and embrace them or not?
America is best defended, essentially, by reference to the finest in US heritage, similar to Christianity is best defended by reference to elements that cause it to be distinctive and beautiful, specifically the model of Jesus. In all circumstances does it suggest pretending the worst of both America and Christianity never occurred; it represents both meekness and conviction, a mixture that genuine US believers should embrace.
