The Trump phenomenon's most illuminating and distinctive instances – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most hazardous, nor most senseless, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. During the period of multiple weeks, the nation's leader started showing everyone his intentions for a gilded ballroom double the dimensions of the White House and then commenced independently demolishing the East Wing to build it.
He has committed acts ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of deaths due to his slashing to USAID stands at 600,000 and increasing, and presently a study projected his fossil fuel policies would kill another 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No other president would have attempted – genuinely, no other president would have contemplated – solo demolishing large sections of the executive mansion to build a royal-themed celebration hall, with the direct cooperation of multiple America's wealthiest, almost all of whom have business with the government.
We transitioned from 'the humble will receive the planet' toward 'the gentle will succumb of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to watch the leader try to upend the established notion regarding democracy and substitute it with its direct contrary, there is one large group among Americans who might not perceive it entirely new. That is those of us – within elder demographics a near majority – who were educated as conventional Protestant believers.
We have observed over the years as rightwing evangelical churches transformed the Christ we were raised with into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they turned a figure of love into a figure of animosity who blesses specifically the brutality that he condemned in the Gospel; this transformation occurred more slowly, over decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless disconcerting through similar means, a confusing personal impact for numerous individuals.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Christ that I grew up with, because theoretically Jesus is the center of any Christian faith, and because the fastest-growing cadre among Americans might have little sense about him as they consider themselves non-believers or doubters or nones. I have no problem with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; yet I maintain that contain precious wisdom of significant worth in the Christian story.
It is decidedly not the story of a mighty king emerging; conversely, a baby is born to parents without shelter in an automotive shelter, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to avoid secret police. The child matures in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his doctrine is about love for others, particularly for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but tangible care, expressed by feeding and housing. Jesus' answer to aggression is to offer the opposite cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a way to educate the assailant; his approach to wrongdoing indicates that whenever a person pilfers your coat you should give them your pullover also.
The obvious and direct truth that Christ from scripture calls for a kind of profound affection concentrated on the needy is what has always made Christianity somewhat of a provocative belief system: engaging for the general public, but because of its intrinsic extremism needing to be restrained. During the 1950s it was contained through watering down – The Protestant faith was so dominant that it essentially sanctified existing conditions.
A Struggle for the Highest Within Us
So I have been inspired to observe the determined opposition regarding Trump emerge during the previous year. It has been substantial consolation to assist in constructing the initiative that has demonstrated publicly via continuous gatherings, and appears to have motivated electorate to participate in significant amounts in interim political contests. We will need to continue it, and in the same spirit, featuring US banners at every demonstration and requests to the best parts of American history.
We're going to be asked ... how did you receive the immigrant? Did you receive him and welcome him or not?
The country is optimally secured, to put it differently, through connection to the best within national tradition, just as Christianity is most protected through connection to that which renders it special and wonderful, particularly the pattern of Jesus. In both situations does it suggest pretending the worst regarding America and Christian faith was nonexistent; it signifies both humility and belief, a blend that serious national faithful ought to accept.
