Trumpism's most illuminating and distinctive instances – not its most crucial, nor most harsh, nor most threatening, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. In the course of several weeks, the American president began displaying all observers his plans for a lavish reception room double the dimensions compared to the White House and subsequently started unilaterally ripping down the East Wing to erect it.
He has performed deeds countless times more severe – the current estimate of casualties from his cuts to international aid is 600,000 and growing, and presently a study forecast his fossil fuel policies would kill 1.3 million more. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have risked – really, no former commander would have contemplated – solo demolishing major areas of the presidential residence to construct a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the enthusiastic participation of numerous the richest Americans, almost all of whom have business with public institutions.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the planet' toward 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As confusing as it is to watch the president attempt to overturn the old idea about democracy and substitute it with its polar opposite, there exists a significant segment among Americans who should not find it completely novel. This includes individuals like us – in older age cohorts a near majority – who were educated as conventional Protestant believers.
We have observed throughout the years as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we learned about into exactly the opposite of our perception of his character. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of compassion into an icon of hostility who blesses precisely the cruelties that he criticized in biblical teachings; this has happened more gradually, over decades instead of months, but it is nonetheless disturbing via comparable methods, a disorienting gut punch for numerous individuals.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
Hence I shall explain the Savior from my upbringing, because theoretically Jesus is the center of Christian religion, and given that the rapidly expanding group within America could have minimal awareness about him because they identify as non-believers or agnostics or religiously unaffiliated. I have no problem with these different approaches, nor with different religions; yet I maintain that contain precious wisdom of great price within Christian narrative.
It is unquestionably absolutely not the narrative of a mighty king emerging; instead, a child comes into the world to parents without shelter in a garage, who need to rapidly escape to a different country to avoid covert authorities. The infant develops in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his doctrine is about love for others, specifically for the disadvantaged – and not a sentimental love, but practical compassion, demonstrated through nourishing and sheltering. Christ's response to hostility is to present the other cheek – not as a gesture of submissive tolerance, but as a means to instruct the assailant; his crime policy states that when a person pilfers your jacket you ought to provide the person your additional clothing also.
The obvious and direct fact that the Savior of the gospels requests a type of radical love focused on the impoverished is what has always made Christianity somewhat of a controversial faith: attractive to the populace, but due to its intrinsic extremism needing to be controlled. During the 1950s it was restrained through watering down – Protestant Christianity was so prevalent that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Conflict for the Highest Within Us
Hence I have become encouraged to witness the persistent defiance against Trump emerge in this past year. It has served as substantial consolation to help build the campaign that has protested openly via continuous gatherings, and appears to have motivated citizens to participate in significant amounts in interim political contests. We must have to maintain it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags during all protests and requests to the finest aspects in US history.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you receive him and embrace them or not?
America is best defended, in other words, through connection to the finest in US heritage, similar to Christianity is optimally secured by reference to that which renders it special and magnificent, specifically the model of Jesus. In neither case does it mean pretending the most damaging regarding America and Christianity was nonexistent; it means both modesty and faith, a mixture that serious US believers should embrace.
