Trumpism's most revealing and characteristic moments – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of multiple weeks, the nation's leader began displaying everyone his intentions for an ornate dance hall double the dimensions compared to the White House and subsequently started independently demolishing the eastern section to erect it.
He has done things 10,000 times as bad – the existing assessment of casualties resulting from his reductions to international aid amounts to 600,000 and growing, and this week research forecast his fossil fuel policies would kill another 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No other president would have dared – truly, no previous leader would have conceived – unilaterally destroying large sections of the presidential residence to construct a royal-themed celebration hall, with the direct cooperation of some of America's wealthiest, the majority of whom conduct transactions with public institutions.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the Earth' toward 'the meek shall die to cholera'
As disorienting as it is to observe the president attempt to overturn the established notion about democracy and replace it with its polar opposite, there remains a substantial portion within America who should not find it entirely new. This includes individuals like us – within elder demographics almost a majority – who were educated as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have observed over the years as rightwing evangelical churches converted the Savior we learned about into exactly the opposite of our perception of his character. Essentially, they converted a persona of compassion into an icon of hostility who blesses precisely the cruelties that he condemned in scripture; this transformation occurred at a slower pace, through multiple decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless disturbing through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Establishes Itself
Hence I shall explain the Christ from my childhood, since in theory the Savior is the core of Christian religion, and because the rapidly expanding group of Americans may possess limited understanding about him since they are atheists or agnostics or religiously unaffiliated. I raise no objection with these different approaches, nor with different religions; however I believe that there are pearls of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is unquestionably not the story of a mighty king arising; conversely, an infant arrives to displaced parents in an automotive shelter, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to avoid secret police. The child matures in modest conditions, an employed craftsman; his teaching is about love for others, specifically for the poor – not merely emotional affection, but a concrete one, shown by providing food and housing. Jesus' answer to aggression is to offer the additional cheek – not as an act of compliant endurance, but as a way to educate the attacker; his approach to wrongdoing indicates that whenever a person pilfers your outer garment you ought to provide them your pullover also.
The evident and clear truth that Christ in biblical accounts advocates for a form of extreme compassion focused on the needy has perpetually caused Christianity rather a provocative belief system: appealing to the masses, but because of its natural unconventionality demanding to be controlled. In the 1950s it was controlled via weakening – The Protestant faith was so prevalent that it practically blessed current circumstances.
A Conflict for the Highest of Us
Therefore I have felt inspired to see the steadfast resistance against Trump develop over the last twelve months. It has been substantial consolation to participate in developing the initiative that has taken to the streets via continuous gatherings, and appears to have motivated electorate to participate in large quantities in interim political contests. We shall require to continue it, and with identical determination, with American flags at every demonstration and requests to the finest aspects within national heritage.
We will be questioned ... regarding how you welcomed the stranger? Did you receive him and receive them or reject?
The country is optimally secured, essentially, through connection to the best in US heritage, exactly as the Christian faith is most protected by relationship to what makes it unique and magnificent, which is the example of Christ. In both situations does it mean acting as if the most negative about the nation and religious tradition was nonexistent; it represents both modesty and conviction, a mixture that serious national faithful ought to accept.
