They're Applying to America What They Performed with Christianity

The Trump phenomenon's most illuminating and defining moments – not its most crucial, nor cruelest, nor most dangerous, nor most senseless, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of a few weeks, the US president commenced revealing the public his plans for an ornate dance hall two times larger than the White House and subsequently started solo dismantling the East Wing portion to construct it.

He has committed acts countless times more severe – the present calculation of fatalities due to his slashing to USAID is 600,000 and growing, and this week a study predicted his fossil fuel policies would result in fatalities an additional 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No previous president would have attempted – really, no other president would have conceived – solo demolishing major areas of the executive mansion in order to erect a Versailles-style party room, with the active collaboration of multiple America's wealthiest, nearly all of which have business with federal agencies.

We moved from 'the meek shall inherit the world' toward 'the meek shall die of cholera'

As bewildering as it is to watch the president attempt to overturn the traditional concept regarding democracy and substitute it with its polar opposite, there exists a significant segment within America who might not perceive it totally unfamiliar. That is those of us – within elder demographics close to half – who were raised within mainstream Protestant traditions.

We have watched throughout the years as politically conservative religious groups transformed the Christ we were raised with into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. Fundamentally, they converted a persona of affection into a figure of hostility who approves precisely the cruelties that he condemned in scripture; this transformation occurred at a slower pace, across decades as opposed to months, yet it remains unsettling in the same ways, a disorienting gut punch for many of us.

A Damaging Christianity Gains Ground

Hence I shall explain the Savior from my childhood, since in theory the Savior is the core of any Christian faith, and since the rapidly expanding group of Americans could have minimal awareness of him as they consider themselves atheists or doubters or religiously unaffiliated. I have no problem with these different approaches, nor with any other faith; however I believe that contain precious wisdom of significant worth in the Christian story.

It is decidedly absolutely not the story of a mighty king emerging; conversely, a child comes into the world to displaced parents in a garage, who are forced to hastily depart to a different country to escape covert authorities. The child matures in humble circumstances, an employed craftsman; his doctrine focuses on affection for fellow humans, particularly for the impoverished – not simply tender feelings, but practical compassion, expressed by feeding and sheltering. Jesus' answer to violence is to present the other cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a method to educate the attacker; his method regarding offenses is that if a person pilfers your outer garment you must offer them your pullover as well.

The apparent and direct reality that Christ of the gospels advocates for a kind of extreme compassion centered on the poor is what has always made Christianity rather a scandalous religion: attractive to the masses, but because of its inherent radicalness needing to be contained. During the 1950s it was contained via weakening – Protestantism was so dominant that it essentially sanctified existing conditions.

A Struggle for the Highest Within Us

Hence I have become encouraged to witness the steadfast resistance to Trump develop in this past year. It has been substantial consolation to participate in developing the movement that has protested openly in rally after rally, and seems to have inspired citizens to participate in numbers during minor elections. We will need to continue it, and through comparable resolve, displaying national flags throughout each rally and requests to the finest aspects in US history.

We will be questioned ... regarding how you welcomed the foreigner? Did you accept these individuals and embrace them or refuse?

The nation is most protected, in other words, by relationship to the best in US heritage, exactly as the Christian faith is most protected through connection to elements that cause it to be unique and beautiful, specifically the model of Christ. In all circumstances does it suggest acting as if the most negative of both America and Christian faith never occurred; it signifies both meekness and faith, a combination that committed US believers should embrace.