The Trump movement's most revealing and defining instances – not its most significant, nor most brutal, nor most hazardous, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – emerged earlier this harvest season. Over the span of multiple weeks, the US president commenced revealing all observers his designs for a lavish reception room double the dimensions than the White House and then commenced unilaterally ripping down the East Wing to erect it.
He has committed acts 10,000 times as bad – the present calculation of fatalities due to his slashing to international aid amounts to 600,000 and growing, and recently an analysis forecast his energy policies would cause deaths an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No former leader would have attempted – truly, no previous leader would have contemplated – unilaterally destroying significant portions of the presidential residence to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of some of the nation's most affluent, the majority of whom maintain dealings with federal agencies.
We went from 'the humble will receive the world' toward 'the humble will perish of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to observe the leader attempt to overturn the established notion about democracy and replace it with its polar opposite, there exists a significant segment within America who might not perceive it entirely new. This includes individuals like us – within elder demographics close to half – who were raised as conventional Protestant believers.
We have observed over the years while conservative evangelical congregations turned the Jesus we grew up with into the complete reverse of our perception of his character. Essentially, they turned a figure of affection into an icon of hostility who endorses precisely the cruelties that he condemned in the Gospel; this has happened more slowly, through multiple decades instead of months, yet it remains unsettling in the same ways, a disorienting gut punch for numerous individuals.
A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground
Hence I shall explain the Jesus from my childhood, as conceptually Jesus is the center of any Christian faith, and since the rapidly expanding group among Americans could have minimal awareness of him as they consider themselves non-believers or agnostics or nones. I raise no objection with these various perspectives, nor with different religions; however I believe that there are pearls of substantial value in the Christian story.
It is emphatically definitely not the story of a mighty king emerging; rather, a child comes into the world to displaced parents in a garage, who are forced to hastily depart to another nation to escape covert authorities. The baby grows up in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his message is about love for others, particularly for the poor – not simply tender feelings, but practical compassion, demonstrated through nourishing and protecting. Christ's response to violence is to offer the opposite cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a means to teach the assailant; his crime policy indicates that whenever an individual takes your outer garment you ought to provide them your pullover also.
The obvious and direct fact that Christ of the gospels calls for a kind of radical love concentrated on the impoverished has perpetually caused the Christian faith rather a controversial faith: engaging for the general public, but because of its intrinsic extremism needing to be restrained. In the 1950s it was controlled by dilution – Protestantism was so widespread that it basically baptized the status quo.
A Struggle for the Finest Within Us
So I have been inspired to witness the steadfast resistance against Trump arise in this past year. It has served as significant comfort to participate in developing the movement that has demonstrated publicly in rally after rally, and seems to have inspired voters to participate in numbers in interim political contests. We shall require to maintain it, and in the same spirit, with American flags throughout each rally and requests to the finest aspects within national heritage.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the stranger? Did you receive him and welcome him or reject?
The country is optimally secured, essentially, by reference to the finest about American history, exactly as the Christian faith is most protected by relationship to that which renders it distinctive and wonderful, specifically the model of the Savior. In neither case does it suggest pretending the worst regarding America and Christianity never occurred; it represents both modesty and belief, a blend that committed US believers ought to accept.
