The Trump phenomenon's most telling and distinctive occasions – not its most important, nor most harsh, nor most hazardous, nor stupidest, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of several weeks, the nation's leader began displaying the public his plans for a lavish reception room twice the size than the White House and then began unilaterally ripping down the eastern section to build it.
He has done things 10,000 times as bad – the current estimate of deaths resulting from his reductions to international aid stands at 600,000 and increasing, and presently research projected his petroleum strategies would result in fatalities another 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No former leader would have risked – really, no other president would have imagined – unilaterally destroying large sections of the White House in order to erect a royal-themed celebration hall, with the enthusiastic participation of numerous the nation's most affluent, nearly all of which maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We transitioned from 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' to 'the meek shall die from cholera'
As bewildering as it is to observe the president attempt to overturn the traditional concept regarding democracy and exchange it with its direct contrary, there exists a significant segment among Americans who should not find it entirely new. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations a near majority – who were educated within mainstream Protestant traditions.
We have witnessed across decades as rightwing evangelical churches transformed the Christ we were raised with into the total contrary of our perception of his character. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of love into a figure of hate who endorses specifically the brutality that he criticized in scripture; this has happened more gradually, across decades as opposed to months, however it is still unsettling through similar means, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
So let me first describe the Christ from my childhood, since in theory Christ is the focus of Christian religion, and since the rapidly expanding group among Americans could have minimal awareness about him since they are skeptics or uncertain individuals or nones. I have no problem with these various perspectives, nor with different religions; yet I maintain that exist valuable insights of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is decidedly not the narrative of an authoritative monarch arising; instead, an infant arrives to parents without shelter in a garage, who are forced to hastily depart to a foreign land to avoid covert authorities. The infant develops in simple surroundings, an employed craftsman; his doctrine is about love for fellow humans, particularly for the poor – not simply tender feelings, but tangible care, demonstrated through nourishing and housing. Christ's response to hostility is to turn the additional cheek – not as a demonstration of passive acceptance, but as a way to instruct the attacker; his approach to wrongdoing is that if an individual takes your jacket you should give him your sweater also.
The evident and direct fact that Christ from scripture advocates for a kind of extreme compassion concentrated on the needy has consistently rendered Christian religion somewhat of a controversial faith: engaging for the masses, but owing to its inherent radicalness needing to be contained. In the fifties it was restrained by dilution – The Protestant faith was so prevalent that it practically sanctified existing conditions.
A Struggle for the Best Among Us
So I have been encouraged to see the determined opposition against Trump emerge during the previous year. It has provided significant comfort to assist in constructing the campaign that has demonstrated publicly through repeated demonstrations, and seems to have inspired electorate to turn out in significant amounts during minor elections. We must have to persist with it, and with identical determination, displaying national flags at every demonstration and requests to the best parts in US history.
We will be questioned ... how did you receive the stranger? Did you welcome them and welcome him or refuse?
The country is optimally secured, essentially, through connection to the highest in US heritage, just as Christianity is optimally secured through connection to elements that cause it to be special and wonderful, specifically the model of Jesus. In neither case does it imply feigning the most damaging of both America and Christian faith never occurred; it signifies both meekness and faith, a mixture that serious US believers should be comfortable with.
