Trumpism's most telling and characteristic occasions – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most threatening, nor most senseless, but possibly its most revealing – occurred earlier this fall. In the course of multiple weeks, the nation's leader began displaying the public his designs for an ornate dance hall twice the size compared to the White House and then commenced independently demolishing the eastern section to build it.
He has performed deeds ten thousand times worse – the current estimate of deaths due to his slashing to international aid amounts to 600,000 and increasing, and presently research forecast his petroleum strategies would kill 1.3 million more. But nothing as definitional. No previous president would have dared – truly, no other president would have conceived – solo demolishing large sections of the executive mansion in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of multiple the nation's most affluent, the majority of whom conduct transactions with public institutions.
We moved from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' into 'the humble will perish to cholera'
As bewildering as it is to observe the leader attempt to overturn the traditional concept of democracy and replace it with its direct contrary, there exists a significant segment of Americans who wouldn't consider it totally unfamiliar. That is those of us – among senior generations a near majority – who were brought up as mainline Protestant Christians.
We have witnessed over the years as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we learned about into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be. At its most basic, they converted a persona of love into an icon of hostility who approves precisely the cruelties that he criticized in scripture; this transformation occurred more gradually, across decades as opposed to months, however it is still disturbing through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Damaging Christianity Takes Hold
Hence I shall explain the Christ from my childhood, because theoretically Christ is the focus within Christian belief, and given that the fastest-growing cadre of Americans might have little sense of him as they consider themselves skeptics or doubters or religiously unaffiliated. I have no problem with these different approaches, nor with alternative spiritual paths; but I do think that there are pearls of substantial value in biblical accounts.
It is unquestionably not the account of a mighty king arising; rather, an infant arrives to homeless parents in an automotive shelter, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to avoid secret police. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, a working carpenter; his teaching concerns compassion for other people, specifically for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but practical compassion, shown by providing food and sheltering. Christ's response to violence is to turn the other cheek – not as a demonstration of submissive tolerance, but as a way to educate the attacker; his crime policy states that when a person pilfers your outer garment you should give them your pullover as well.
The apparent and clear fact that the Jesus in biblical accounts advocates for a form of extreme compassion focused on the poor is what has always made Christianity rather a controversial faith: engaging for the masses, but because of its natural unconventionality demanding to be restrained. During the 1950s it was contained via weakening – Protestant Christianity was so dominant that it essentially baptized the status quo.
A Battle for the Highest of Us
Hence I have become heartened to see the determined opposition against Trump emerge over the last twelve months. It has provided great solace to assist in constructing the movement that has taken to the streets through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated electorate to turn out in large quantities in the off-year elections. We must have to continue it, and in the same spirit, displaying national flags during all protests and appeals to the highest qualities within national heritage.
We shall be interrogated ... regarding how you welcomed the stranger? Did you receive him and welcome him or reject?
The country is optimally secured, to put it differently, by reference to the finest in US heritage, similar to Christianity is best defended by relationship to elements that cause it to be special and magnificent, specifically the model of Christ. In both situations does it imply pretending the worst regarding America and religious tradition was nonexistent; it represents both humility and belief, a combination that genuine US believers should be comfortable with.
