The Trump movement's most illuminating and distinctive instances – not its most important, nor most brutal, nor most hazardous, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. During the period of multiple weeks, the US president commenced revealing everyone his designs for a gilded ballroom double the dimensions than the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the East Wing portion to erect it.
He has performed deeds ten thousand times worse – the present calculation of casualties due to his slashing to international aid is 600,000 and rising, and this week a study predicted his energy policies would cause deaths another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have attempted – really, no former commander would have imagined – unilaterally destroying significant portions of the presidential residence in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of multiple the nation's most affluent, almost all of whom have business with the government.
We moved from 'the meek shall inherit the planet' to 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the president attempt to overturn the old idea about democracy and exchange it with its complete opposite, there is one large group of Americans who should not find it completely novel. That encompasses people such as ourselves – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have observed across decades as politically conservative religious groups converted the Savior we were raised with into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they converted a persona of compassion into a symbol of animosity who approves precisely the cruelties that he criticized in scripture; this has happened at a slower pace, across decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless disturbing in the same ways, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Establishes Itself
Therefore allow me to outline the Savior from my childhood, as conceptually Christ is the focus of Christian religion, and because the rapidly expanding group within America could have minimal awareness of him since they are skeptics or agnostics or nones. I take no issue with these various perspectives, nor with different religions; but I do think that exist valuable insights of great price within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly definitely not the narrative of a mighty king appearing; instead, a baby is born to parents without shelter in a storage space, who must quickly flee to another nation to escape secret police. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, a laboring woodworker; his teaching is about love for fellow humans, specifically for the disadvantaged – not simply tender feelings, but tangible care, expressed by feeding and protecting. Christ's response to violence is to turn the additional cheek – not as a demonstration of passive acceptance, but as a way to instruct the attacker; his method regarding offenses indicates that whenever an individual takes your coat you must offer them your pullover also.
The evident and direct reality that the Savior from scripture requests a form of extreme compassion centered on the impoverished has perpetually caused Christianity somewhat of a controversial faith: engaging for the populace, but due to its inherent radicalness needing to be controlled. During the 1950s it was restrained via weakening – Protestant Christianity was so dominant that it essentially blessed current circumstances.
A Battle for the Highest of Us
Therefore I have felt encouraged to witness the steadfast resistance regarding Trump arise over the last twelve months. It has been great solace to help build the movement that has demonstrated publicly via continuous gatherings, and seems to have inspired electorate to show up in significant amounts during minor elections. We will need to persist with it, and with identical determination, displaying national flags throughout each rally and calls to the highest qualities in US history.
We're going to be asked ... about how you treated the stranger? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or reject?
America is best defended, in other words, through connection to the best within national tradition, similar to Christianity is best defended by reference to what makes it unique and beautiful, which is the example of Christ. In all circumstances does it mean feigning the worst about the nation and Christian faith never occurred; it signifies both modesty and conviction, a blend that committed national faithful should embrace.
