Trumpism's most illuminating and characteristic occasions – not its most crucial, nor most brutal, nor most dangerous, nor most foolish, but possibly its most revealing – occurred earlier this fall. During the period of several weeks, the nation's leader started showing all observers his plans for a gilded ballroom two times larger compared to the White House and subsequently started solo dismantling the East Wing to build it.
He has done things ten thousand times worse – the existing assessment of casualties resulting from his reductions to USAID is 600,000 and growing, and presently a study predicted his energy policies would cause deaths an additional 1.3 million. But nothing as definitional. No other president would have risked – really, no previous leader would have imagined – independently wrecking significant portions of the White House to build a palace-inspired entertainment space, with the active collaboration of multiple the richest Americans, almost all of whom have business with federal agencies.
We transitioned from 'the meek shall inherit the planet' toward 'the humble will perish to cholera'
As disorienting as it is to observe the president attempt to overturn the old idea regarding democracy and exchange it with its polar opposite, 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 raised as conventional Protestant believers.
We have witnessed across decades as rightwing evangelical churches transformed the Christ we grew up with into the complete reverse of who we understood him to be. Essentially, they converted a persona of compassion into a symbol of hate who blesses precisely the cruelties that he condemned in biblical teachings; this change developed more slowly, through multiple decades rather than months, but it is nonetheless unsettling through similar means, a bewildering emotional blow for many of us.
A Harmful Christianity Gains Ground
Hence I shall explain the Savior from my childhood, since in theory Jesus is the center of Christian religion, and because the quickly increasing segment among Americans may possess limited understanding about him as they consider themselves skeptics or uncertain individuals or religiously unaffiliated. I raise no objection with these different approaches, nor with alternative spiritual paths; yet I maintain that exist valuable insights of great price in biblical accounts.
It is decidedly definitely not the narrative of a powerful ruler appearing; instead, an infant arrives to homeless parents in a storage space, who are forced to hastily depart to a different country to evade covert authorities. The infant develops in simple surroundings, a working carpenter; his message concerns compassion for others, particularly for the disadvantaged – not simply tender feelings, but a concrete one, shown by providing food and housing. Jesus' answer to hostility is to turn the opposite cheek – not as an act of passive acceptance, but as a means to teach the assailant; his method regarding offenses states that when someone steals your outer garment you should give the person your additional clothing as well.
The evident and direct truth that the Jesus from scripture calls for a type of profound affection centered on the poor has consistently rendered the Christian faith something of a controversial faith: attractive to the masses, but because of its intrinsic extremism demanding to be contained. In the 1950s it was controlled through watering down – Protestantism was so prevalent that it essentially blessed current circumstances.
A Struggle for the Finest of Us
Hence I have become heartened to witness the steadfast resistance against Trump arise over the last twelve months. It has been substantial consolation to help build the movement that has taken to the streets via continuous gatherings, and appears to have motivated citizens to show up in large quantities during minor elections. We will need to continue it, and with identical determination, with American flags at every demonstration and appeals to the finest aspects of American history.
We shall be interrogated ... about how you treated the foreigner? Did you welcome them and receive them or not?
America is best defended, to put it differently, through connection to the highest in US heritage, exactly as the Christian faith is most protected by reference to that which renders it special and magnificent, specifically the model of Jesus. In both situations does it mean feigning the most negative of both America and Christian faith was nonexistent; it represents both meekness and belief, a mixture that serious American Christians should embrace.
