The Trump movement's most illuminating and distinctive moments – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor most foolish, but possibly its most revealing – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of multiple weeks, the American president started showing everyone his designs for a lavish reception room double the dimensions compared to the White House and then began solo dismantling the eastern section to construct it.
He has performed deeds ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of casualties resulting from his reductions to foreign assistance is 600,000 and rising, and recently an analysis forecast his energy policies would kill another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have risked – really, no other president would have contemplated – solo demolishing large sections of the White House to build a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of multiple the nation's most affluent, almost all of whom have business with federal agencies.
We went from 'the humble will receive the planet' toward 'the meek shall die of cholera'
As confusing as it is to observe the chief executive attempt to overturn the traditional concept of democracy and exchange it with its direct contrary, there exists a significant segment among Americans who wouldn't consider it entirely new. This includes individuals like us – in older age cohorts close to half – who were brought up within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have watched across decades as rightwing evangelical churches transformed the Christ we learned about into exactly the opposite of our understanding of him. Essentially, they converted a persona of affection into an icon of animosity who endorses specifically the brutality that he denounced in scripture; this change developed at a slower pace, through multiple decades as opposed to months, however it is still unsettling in the same ways, a confusing personal impact for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground
So let me first describe the Savior that I grew up with, because theoretically the Savior is the core of any Christian faith, and since the quickly increasing segment of Americans may possess limited understanding regarding him because they identify as non-believers or doubters or spiritual independents. I raise no objection with these different approaches, nor with alternative spiritual paths; yet I maintain that there are pearls of great price in the Christian story.
It is decidedly absolutely not the account of a mighty king arising; instead, a child comes into the world to displaced parents in an automotive shelter, who need to rapidly escape to a foreign land to escape secret police. The child matures in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his message is about love for others, specifically for the poor – and not a sentimental love, but a concrete one, expressed by feeding and protecting. Christ's response to aggression is to turn the opposite cheek – not as an act of passive acceptance, but as a way to educate the attacker; his method regarding offenses is that if someone steals your jacket you ought to provide them your pullover as well.
The apparent and straightforward fact that Christ of the gospels calls for a kind of profound affection centered on the impoverished is what has always made Christianity something of a provocative belief system: appealing to the masses, but due to its intrinsic extremism needing to be restrained. In the fifties it was controlled through watering down – Protestant Christianity was so prevalent that it essentially sanctified existing conditions.
A Battle for the Best of Us
Therefore I have felt encouraged to see the steadfast resistance against Trump emerge in this past year. It has served as significant comfort to help build the movement that has protested openly in rally after rally, and seems to have inspired voters to turn out in significant amounts during minor elections. We shall require to persist with it, and with identical determination, featuring US banners during all protests and calls to the best parts in US history.
We will be questioned ... about how you treated the immigrant? Did you accept these individuals and welcome him or reject?
America is best defended, in other words, through connection to the finest about American history, similar to Christianity is best defended by reference to what makes it unique and beautiful, particularly the pattern of the Savior. In neither case does it suggest acting as if the worst about the nation and Christian faith never occurred; it signifies both meekness and belief, a mixture that genuine American Christians ought to accept.
