The Trump phenomenon's most revealing and characteristic moments – not its most important, nor most brutal, nor most hazardous, nor most foolish, but possibly its most revealing – emerged earlier this harvest season. During the period of several weeks, the nation's leader began displaying all observers his intentions for a lavish reception room twice the size than the White House and then commenced solo dismantling the East Wing to build it.
He has done things 10,000 times as bad – the existing assessment of fatalities resulting from his reductions to USAID is 600,000 and rising, and this week a study predicted his petroleum strategies would cause deaths 1.3 million more. Yet nothing as characteristic. No former leader would have risked – truly, no other president would have conceived – unilaterally destroying significant portions of the presidential residence in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of numerous the nation's most affluent, nearly all of which have business with the government.
We moved from 'the humble will receive the world' toward 'the meek shall die from cholera'
As confusing as it is to witness the chief executive attempt to overturn the old idea about democracy and exchange it with its direct contrary, there remains a substantial portion among Americans who should not find it entirely new. That is those of us – within elder demographics almost a majority – who were raised as conventional Protestant believers.
We have watched throughout the years as politically conservative religious groups transformed the Christ we grew up with into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. At its most basic, they transformed an image of love into a figure of hostility who approves precisely the cruelties that he criticized in biblical teachings; this transformation occurred more slowly, across decades rather than months, yet it remains unsettling through similar means, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Toxic Christianity Establishes Itself
So let me first describe the Christ from my upbringing, since in theory Jesus is the center within Christian belief, and since the fastest-growing cadre within America could have minimal awareness of him as they consider themselves atheists or doubters or nones. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with alternative spiritual paths; yet I maintain that exist valuable insights of great price within Christian narrative.
It is decidedly not the account of a powerful ruler appearing; rather, a baby is born to parents without shelter in an automotive shelter, who are forced to hastily depart to a different country to escape covert authorities. The child matures in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his message concerns compassion for others, especially for the disadvantaged – not merely emotional affection, but practical compassion, demonstrated through nourishing and housing. The Savior's reaction to violence is to present the opposite cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a means to teach the aggressor; his method regarding offenses indicates that whenever an individual takes your outer garment you should give them your pullover too.
The apparent and direct fact that Christ from scripture advocates for a kind of extreme compassion centered on the poor has consistently rendered Christianity somewhat of a provocative belief system: attractive to the masses, but because of its intrinsic extremism requiring to be contained. In the 1950s it was restrained via weakening – Protestantism was so dominant that it essentially blessed current circumstances.
A Struggle for the Highest Within Us
Therefore I have felt heartened to see the determined opposition regarding Trump develop in this past year. It has served as significant comfort to assist in constructing the campaign that has demonstrated publicly in rally after rally, and likely has encouraged citizens to participate in numbers during minor elections. We will need to continue it, and with identical determination, displaying national flags at every demonstration and requests to the finest aspects in US history.
We will be questioned ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you welcome them and embrace them or refuse?
The nation is most protected, in other words, by relationship to the best within national tradition, exactly as the Christian faith is best defended through connection to elements that cause it to be distinctive and beautiful, specifically the model of the Savior. In all circumstances does it imply feigning the worst of both America and Christian faith did not happen; it represents both humility and belief, a combination that committed US believers ought to accept.
